Just Because You Can, Doesn’t Mean You Should

You may have heard of the passing last week of one of the titans of New York real estate and philanthropic life, Robert Tishman. As president and chief executive of one of the county’s largest builders of office buildings, Mr. Tishman fashioned not only the New York skyline, but also the skylines of Chicago, Los Angeles and Detroit. He was a man who achieved great success, as much as anyone could hope for. Which is why, when reading his obituary this week, I was so struck by what his son-in-law said was Mr. Tishman’s personal motto when it came to negotiation: “Always leave something on the table for the other guy.” Here was a man who could have everything, who could negotiate or demand every term of his life, squeeze every deal, every relationship, every everything for everything he wanted, and yet he lived by the maxim “always leave something on the table.” If there ever was a person who could have it all, presumably Mr. Tishman was that person, but having “it all” was not his desired outcome. There are limits, not every desire must be actualized, not every right exercised – in other words, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

This week we are introduced to the first family of the Jewish people, and we begin to construct a psychological portrait not just of Abraham and Sarah but of the Jewish people itself. If I had to sum up Abraham’s character and perhaps the Jewish soul on a bumper sticker, it would say exactly this: “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” Time and again, Abraham is promised the world – literally – and yet he exercises restraint. He knows he can have it all, but chooses not to take what is arguably his to claim.

Think about it. Think about God’s promise of the land: “Raise your eyes to the north, south, east and west.” Everything Abraham could see – God offers it all. What does Abraham do? We know the story – a quarrel breaks out between Abraham’s herdsmen and those of his nephew Lot. Abraham says to Lot: If you go north, I’ll go south, if you go south, I’ll go north. In retrospect it would have been nice if Abraham had gone where the oil turned out to be, but that miscalculation shouldn’t detract from the point of the story. Abraham didn’t need to make any concession. He could have walked away with everything, but he didn’t.

Same thing in the following chapter. In a narrative we normally gloss over, Abraham wins a great battle against the local warlords. He runs the table. He is victorious; by rights, all the spoils of war belong to him. The defeated leaders acknowledge as much. How does Abraham respond? “I will not take so much as a thread or a sandal strap of what is yours…” (Gen 14:23)

Abraham was, if you will, the Tishman of his day and then some. Promised everything – land, riches and the protection of God – he lacks for nothing. But he understood, perhaps to a fault, that potential only matters if one is ready to exercise restraint when it comes to that potentiality. After all, isn’t that the point of the story we will encounter next week, the binding of Isaac? Your descendants, God tells Abraham, will be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sands of the earth – now go sacrifice your only son. It is a traumatic if not perverse test of Abraham’s character. Infinite progeny – the greatest blessing in the biblical imagination – and Abraham demonstrates willingness to hold back even on this front. The sacrifice is never carried out, but Abraham does pass the test –

The difference between Abraham’s character and every character who preceded him is that he is the only one who intuitively “gets” what God has been saying all along, beginning in the Garden of Eden. The whole Garden is yours, in fact, all of creation is, just learn to exercise some self-discipline. Recall God’s speech to Cain, that if Cain sets his mind to it, he can have mastery over his desire to sin. Recall the laws that come after Noah and the Flood: you can eat anything, but with a few very important restrictions. Think of the generation of the Tower of Babel: yes, use your skill and wisdom to build a tower, but the tower need not reach the heavens. The difference between Abraham and everyone else isn’t that he receives a different message than anyone else; the message from God has actually been remarkably consistent since the first verse of the Bible. The difference between Abraham and everyone else is that he seems to understand what God wants from humanity without needing to be told. “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

My teacher, Dr. Byron Sherwin, once taught that there are two critical components to a spiritual life: the actualization of potential and the recognition of limitations. Normative Judaism does not and never has counseled asceticism. Sure we have had our saints and holy men, but by and large, from Abraham onward we are a faith that has encouraged achievement, sought to appreciate the beauty of creation and insisted that as human beings created in the image of God, we seek to actualize the Divine potential embedded within us. But that potential can only come by way of control, in other words, self-discipline. To use Sherwin’s language: “While creativity presumes limitless possibilities, the creation of a particular work of art presumes limits....”

Last week I finally made my way down to MOMA and was reminded of a comment made by the master of abstract expressionism – Joan Mitchell. In explaining her craft, she wrote: "the freedom in my work is quite controlled. I don't close my eyes and hope for the best." This same rule of controlled freedom applies to every aspect of our lives. Be it painting, composing music, building buildings, developing the relationships we care for, or developing our very selves. Purposeful and artful living comes by way of balancing unrestrained dreams and an awareness of human limitation. As the poet Richard Wilbur wrote, “Limitation makes for power. The strength of the genie comes from his being confined in the bottle.” (Cited in Sherwin Crafting the Soul, p. 144)

My concern and fear, globally, nationally and locally, is that we have only half the equation down. We are all game when it comes to limitless potential, but we haven’t yet quite figured out a way to husband our will. If you are of a certain generation, you may recall the camp song “If I had a million dollars.” Well, the other day I heard a pop song on the radio called “I wanna be a billionaire,” largely the same song accounting for inflation. The anthems of American culture exalt conspicuous consumption, boundless desire and endless ambition. In a world of limited resources, money, time, ecology and otherwise, we have lost the ability to say dayenu, enough. To make a somewhat sweeping generalization, whether it is steroids in sports, military arms races, environmental pollution, the height of women’s high heels or the excessive use of private tutors for our children, we are driven by an insistence to do what we want, how we want and to the degree we want, forgetting that these boundless ambitions are not only destructive, not only irresponsible, but in their insatiability, also, by definition, forever left unfulfilled.

Which is why we need discipline, self control and limits. From Abraham onward, Judaism is a faith which, if I had to invent a term, I would call “self-regulated - libertarianism.” You may be familiar with libertarianism – the idea, roughly stated, that every person has the right to live his life so long as he respects the equal rights of others. To a degree, this notion is compatible with Judaism. From the moment that fruit first appeared in Eden to its being sold in the free markets of Milton Friedman, Jews and Judaism have, time and again, affirmed free will, choice, and our God-given freedom to actualize our potential. But that freedom comes with an important caveat, an understanding that our freedom is expressed within limits. The great sage Ben Zoma said that a happy person is not the one who amassed the most wealth, but rather the one who is happy with his portion. Pirkei Avot teaches that the person who seeks to take too much, takes nothing. In Jewish thought, those who seek only gain do not come closer to heaven, they are not changed into angels. Just the opposite: they are lowered into beasts, for they have no self control; their dignity is diminished, not raised. Jewish law is a reminder to each of us that we can eat anything, but we don’t. We can sleep with anyone, but we choose not to.

Living in our time, in our circumstances, we have the opportunity to do more, to consume more than any other generation at any other time of history. Again, Judaism does not preach asceticism. There is nothing wrong with ambition, as long as you know where the Abrahamic line is between ambition and avarice. As long as you know that as Jews, we strive for goodness over greatness, constancy over cupidity, humility not hubris.

Take a second, and think carefully about what I am about to ask you. When is the last time that you have said to yourself: “Just because I can, doesn’t mean I should”? Just because I can buy a $5.00 cup of coffee, doesn’t mean I should. Maybe that chunk of change should go elsewhere? When was the last time you made any financial decision thinking, maybe I will skip the indulgence because I can go without, but there is a worthy cause where my tzedakah will help. When was the last time you told your child, told yourself, that not every afternoon needs an after-school activity, even if you can afford it. It is hard, living in this world of conspicuous consumption and suggestive selling and endless peer pressure to say no – to others, to our children, maybe most of all to ourselves. But sometimes we need to be able to say to that waiter: “Tap water is fine.” I know you can, you know you can – but that doesn’t mean that you should.

Abraham Joshua Heschel once wrote, “In the eyes of the world, I am average. But in my own heart, I am of great moment. The challenge I face is how to actualize, how to concretize, the quiet eminence of my being.” (Who is Man, 35) To be human is to live with boundless potential and aspirations. A life well-lived, however, has nothing to do with arriving at some mythic end point with a bucket list of our dreams checked off. A life well-lived, from Abraham onwards, is found in our ability to concretize the quiet eminence of our being. To leave a little on the table. To live greatly – yet humbly – seeking perfection, ever aware of our imperfections, and believing that beauty is readily accessible to the person able to utter the word dayenu, enough. Recognizing limits and realizing potential – a religious life needs both. May we – the descendants of Abraham and Sarah – live up to this sacred calling.