In the Garden and Beyond

For reasons that are too strange to get into, I had the odd pleasure this past week of eating lunch with one of the nation’s most prominent statisticians from the University of Chicago. Over the course of the meal, he shared with me the results of a study he conducted early in his career on risk management education for physicians. He researched what is the correlation, if any, between doctors taking risk management courses and malpractice claims. One would think, or at least I would, that there is a rather direct correlation. A physician who takes a risk management course would be much more cautious, perform much better, and hopefully have a far reduced incidence of malpractice claims.

The results of the study (which I have since read) argue otherwise. For most of the nearly 2000 participating doctors, not only did the number of malpractice claims not decrease after one or two risk management courses, but there was actually an increase in claim vulnerability. Short-term education, what you or I might call a “one-off,” had the opposite effect than desired. The study went on to explain that the efficacy of risk management education only kicked in cumulatively, after additional, ongoing and sustained investment and reinforcement by the physician. [West J Med, Oct 1995, 163:4]

All in all, it was a good lunch, though the conversation did take me way out of my comfort zone. It made me think about what makes us tick, how we are wired as human beings and what does and doesn’t shape or change our behavior. I vividly recall when I took driver’s education as a teenager in Southern California, and we were all forced to watch a movie called "Red Asphalt." The title says it all; it was basically a B-movie designed to scare the daylights out of soon-to-be drivers on the dangers of speeding, drinking and other reckless teen behaviors. Yet, according to what my statistician friend was saying, this sort of “one off” education may actually have little or even the opposite effect than desired. Lacking a sustained context, such tactics may throw the intended learner off balance, drawing one nearer to, not farther from the unwanted behavior.

Every parent struggles with this question on some level. What is the best way to make sure your teen doesn’t drink? To sit them down and give them a stern warning? Or is such a talk actually the quickest route towards your teenager being the first to taste the forbidden fruit? Alcohol, drugs, irresponsible sex – the question is the same. Big kids, big problems, little kids, little problems. This week, I sat down with my children to go over our household’s internet rules. How hard do I regulate? However much I trust my children, to not say something seems irresponsible. But how much do I say before my words have the opposite effect than I am aiming for?

There are no sure bets and I am figuring it out just like you are. I do take comfort in knowing that people a lot smarter than you or I have struggled with these same questions before. Not just people, but God. Long before Wendy Mogel, Jews already had a parenting book – the Torah. Think of the opening scenes of Genesis from which we read today. God is thrust into a parenting role with Adam and Eve in the Garden: “Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but as for the tree of knowledge…you must not eat of it, for as soon as you do, you shall die.” (Gen 2:16-17) And sure enough, they do exactly what they are told not to do. The only surprising thing about how the story unfolds is that anyone, God included, is at all surprised by what happens. If, as Wallace Stevens has written, "not to have is the beginning of desire,” then to tell someone they cannot have is the foundation stone for all transgressive behavior. The commandment was a “one off,” imposed from the outside. There was no follow up, not to mention the fact that it was actually untrue – they did not die when they ate the fruit. It was a clumsy concoction of counseled abstinence, prohibition, and lack of supervision or follow up that resulted in humanity asserting itself against God’s will. As is true for so many of us, God’s first steps as a parent or manager backfired.

The good news is that God does improve – slowly. Just a chapter later, our attention turns to the children of Adam and Eve, and we encounter a downcast Cain. In this case, God does something very different than before. “You can do it, Cain,” God says. “Sin may be crouching at your door and its urge may be towards you, but you can be its master.” Unfortunately, Cain is not up to the test, but God’s tactic has become less coercive and more supportive. God’s follow up question, “Where is your brother Abel?” does run contrary to all the parenting literature I have read in that it forces Cain into a posture of defensive lying, but overall there appears to be a learning curve. God seems to be self-correcting from past mistakes.

I think a wonderful way to read Genesis is as a story of God finding the right balance of laying down the law and understanding the limitations of such an approach. Humanity continues to fall short of expectations and God floods the earth; God chooses Noah to pick up the pieces. We build the tower of Babel and God knocks it down, never really explaining to humanity why building it was so wrong in the first place. It takes time, but eventually God realizes that relationships and moral character aren’t built on “one-off” commands, lists of do’s and don’ts, prohibitions and proscriptions.

Only with Abraham does God realize that the best way to get the desired results from humanity is actually by way of what the current literature on the subject will confirm: a statement of potential and promise. No threats, no huffing and puffing. “Your name shall be great, you will be a blessing.” God will protect, God will be present. Abraham will have his good days and bad days, and so will God – but finally with Abraham one gets a sense that God is hitting the divine parenting stride. Only here does it seem that God learns that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Only here do we see that growth comes not from directives thrown down, but from humanity being endowed with a frame of reference by which to grow from within. It is not absolute; the children of Israel continue to act like children and they will experience both the divine carrot and the divine stick in the chapters ahead. But think of how far God and humanity have come from that first exchange in the Garden of Eden.

Everyone has their own theories about how to get people to change. The psychology of motivation is tremendously complex. Some people do it through a domineering and dictatorial style, scaring people into line. As Machiavelli counseled, if given the choice of being feared or loved, always choose fear. There are some, who like the late great owner of the Raiders, Al Davis, motivate by a “Just Win, Baby” philosophy. Some parents make life an incentive system of quid-pro-quo, a series of ‘if-then’ bribes. If you do your homework then you will get TV time; if you do your job, then you will get a raise. Some people like to keep everyone off balance. I recently read an interview in the New York Times with a business executive who, when an employee lost months of work and tons of data by forgetting to back up the hard drive, threw an ice cream party, figuring that more people will remember the misstep with a bellyful of ice cream than with a bellyful of yelling.

Probably the most Jewish tactic can be summed up in three Yiddish words es pasht nisht. The expression can be translated as “it’s not becoming,” but when used on me, it always carried a sense of “we don’t do that.” As the psychologist Rabbi Abraham Twerski explained, better than berating, scaring, coercing or coaxing someone towards a behavior that is ultimately not absorbed into one’s sensibility, these three little Yiddish words assume a goodness within that ultimately can be referenced again and again as a rallying point for a person’s self image.

There are all sorts of tactics, and I will be the first to admit that I am figuring it out as I go. When it comes to getting a child to eat right or sleep through the night, every one of my kids responds differently and in some battles, I am still coming up empty.

But what I do know is that unlike other faith traditions, as Jews we believe that human behavior is neither predetermined nor best imposed from the outside with a one-off command. Who we are and who we seek to be ultimately comes from within. As the old psychology joke goes: How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the light bulb has to want to change. The Garden of Eden story is an example of what not to do, expecting a result merely by declaring a rule – lacking both context and follow up. The corollaries are clear for all of us. Far too often, we walk around telling our kids to be safe, eat right, speak respectfully, take their Judaism seriously, as if simply saying the words will magically make it so. There are no guarantees in this world, and an awful lot just comes down to mazel. But next time you give advice, discipline or caution, don’t kid yourself into thinking that you can just say it and it will happen. “One offs” didn’t work for God, and there is no reason to believe they will work for you or me. Role modeling, reinforcement, providing a sustained context for whatever it is you are communicating, these are the things that will make a difference. Most of all remember that the source of all motivation, responsibility and morality is not actually lodged in your words or in you for that matter, but it is embedded in the heart and mind of the child with whom you are speaking. If nothing else, let them know they are bursting with potential, and make sure they know that you are there to support, correct and steer their potential.

There are many important lessons to take from the Garden of Eden, but the most important one is this: the Garden of Eden doesn’t last more than three chapters. For the next 184 chapters of the Torah, not to mention the rest of the Bible, humanity exists outside of the Garden. And the same is true for our children. Neither you nor I know just how long we will have our children in the Garden before they leave to make decisions of their own. What I do know, what weighs on me, is that the odds are that in the days and years ahead, when our children will make the momentous decisions affecting the direction of their lives, in all likelihood they will no longer be in our gardens for us to tell them what to do. Your best case, my best case, our best case scenario is that before that day we will have given them the tools to make the right choices, the self confidence to make decisions out of conviction and principle, and an abiding sense that though we may not be physically there at their side, our love, our presence and highest ideals are guiding them every step of the way.