The Company We Keep

Ever since the Garden of Eden, human behavior has only been as good as the company we keep. “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?’” asked the serpent of Eve, a not-so-innocent question that prompted Eve to eat of the fruit and encourage Adam to do the same. Be it the wicked generation of the Flood, the collective chutzpah of those who built the tower of Babel, the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, or the roguish disposition of Joseph’s brothers – more than the hard wiring of any individual, it has been the social context or situation in which a person has found him- or herself that has proved to determine their character and action. Unlike other faith traditions, as Jews we don’t believe that we are created inherently good or evil. Our moral condition is neutral pending the choices we make, choices that, more often than not, are determined by the company we keep. As the social psychologist Kurt Lewin explained, our immediate social context or situation is the most potent force in shaping the decisions we make – good, bad, and otherwise.

This insight into human behavior, first articulated in our sacred texts and affirmed by social psychologists thousands of years later, much to my surprise, provides the backdrop for the most unanticipated and compelling argument for synagogue life that I have ever heard – and I have heard (and given) many. About two weeks ago, in partnership with UJA-Federation, our synagogue hosted the renowned author Malcolm Gladwell for a public lecture. After he concluded his formal remarks, someone asked Gladwell during the Q&A his thoughts on synagogue life – a curious question to pose to someone who is neither Jewish, nor, to the best of my knowledge, synagogue-going. Drawing on the research of social psychologists Lee Ross and Richard Nisbett, Gladwell explained that each and every one of us has multiple “selves.” There is the person we are at work, the person we are at home, the person we are at a ball game and the person we are at a bar at midnight. Each person is, of course, one and the same person, but each “self” reflects a particular situation or social context. Gladwell cited a study in which students were evaluated in their strengths and weaknesses by their teachers in school and by their parents. The study revealed what any parent knows: our children behave differently in school than they do at home, which is altogether logical given that school is not home nor home school. We have as many “selves” as the number of potential circumstances in which we may find ourselves, each one a prism into who we are, each one reflecting the fact that human behavior is socially or situationally conditioned.

It was by way of this observation that Gladwell pivoted toward explaining the critical role of synagogue life. If – as evidenced by voting patterns, Twitter feeds, consumer choices, and mob mentality – behavior is shaped by the company we keep, then it becomes really, really important that we keep good company! Given our morally neutral but easily influenced state of being, we need to immerse ourselves in a place where we can be our “best” selves. To be in a place where the social pressures and expectations are such that we become conditioned to be more compassionate, more patient, more inclusive, more generous, more like the people we aspire to be but are often not. The difference between good and bad is not always clear in the wildernesses of our lives, and even if we are lucky enough and strong enough to arrive at a perch of moral integrity, it is not a given that we will stay there. We need a touchpoint, a sanctuary, a collective community to provide a moral compass. We need a place to bring our best self, to find that self if we have lost our way, and to surround ourselves with others engaged in the selfsame exercise.

Undoubtedly, God understood that Israel was not going to stay at the base of Mount Sinai forever. Once they had received the Ten Commandments and subsequent legislation, it was time for them to move on toward the Promised Land. “Tell Israel to bring forth offerings, from every person whose heart so moves him.” Gold and silver and copper, God specifies, crimson yarns and tanned ram skins, lapis lazuli and other precious stones. Asu li mikdash v’shakhanti b’tokham, “Make for me a sanctuary that I may dwell amongst them.” The placement of this verse makes perfect sense from the vantage point of a social psychologist. The children of Israel were a ragtag group of recently emancipated slaves. The plagues, the parting of the sea, the revelation at Mount Sinai – no matter the awe-inducing theatrics of God’s miracles, the Israelites were a stiff-necked, backsliding people. If anything, the upcoming sin of the Golden Calf only proves that while you can take the slave out of Egypt, you can’t take the Egypt out of the slave. Of course, the tabernacle/mishkan was built to house God’s presence. But that reason alone is not sufficient. After all, as King Solomon would famously proclaim: God’s presence fills the entire earth. God is not really in need of a physical sanctuary. Of course, the mishkan provided a communal building project for a people in search of identity, but neither does that reason suffice to explain such an involved and elaborate construction project.

God commanded the mishkan to be built at this moment, because God understood that Israel needed a sacred center, a place that would remind them of the commanding voice of Mount Sinai, remind them of the spark of the divine within each of them, remind them of the people that they sought to be, but because of their slave experience, because of the rigors of the desert, they couldn’t be. “Bring forth the best of yourselves,” God commands them, a collective effort that provided a dwelling place for God’s presence, but more importantly, provided a place where the Israelites could be good . . . together. It was not foolproof. There would be plenty of setbacks and ultimately, we know, the first desert generation would be deemed unfit to enter the Promised Land. Nevertheless, the commandment to build the mishkan did signal a Copernican revolution in the religious life of ancient Israel. Not in any one sacred mountain, nor in the performance of any particular commandment was religiosity to be found – rather, in the creation of sacred community, first in the desert, then in the Temple in Jerusalem, and now in any house of worship. Wherever people gather their best to be the best that they are capable of being – that is where God’s presence is to be found.

Every year around this time, for obvious reasons, I give a sermon on the importance of the synagogue in our lives. As a place to experience God’s presence, as a generator of Jewish identity, connecting the Jewish people world-wide and one generation to the next, or perhaps as a place to make sacred the joys, sorrows, and passages of our lives over the course of a lifetime. While all these arguments stand, of late I have found myself drawn to the notion of the synagogue as the behavioral tuning fork in the lives of its membership. Our world is getting more complex, not less. The quality of public discourse is getting worse, not better. We need a place that can remind us not how the world is, but how the world, to use Dewey’s language, “ought” to be. This past Thursday night at our annual Gala, a member greeted me with a big hug and explained that he loved coming to this place, because whatever the challenges he felt at work or at home, he felt elevated being here among community. And just yesterday I was speaking to a congregant who had suffered a painful loss in the previous week; he concluded the conversation with the words “Rabbi, I will be coming to synagogue this week,” the implication being that when the world comes unhinged, it is to the synagogue that he turns to get his bearings. Neither this synagogue, nor any synagogue for that matter, can right the wrongs of the world or make the pain go away. But what a synagogue can do, a good one at least, is direct a community’s attention to the world as it ought to be. To hear the beauty of the cantor’s voice, to be challenged or inspired by the message from the pulpit, to surround oneself with people committed to the proposition that each one of us is created in the divine image and therefore of equal and infinite worth and concern is to remind oneself of the best that is possible. And yes, when we leave this building, we are inevitably and immediately reminded of the gap between the world is as it ought to be and the world as it is, which is exactly the point. Because in identifying that gap, we are prompted to close it and to work both as individuals and as a community toward creating a more just, more compassionate, and more caring world. The cycle is a virtuous one. Come to synagogue to surround yourself with people who remind you who you ought to be and how the world ought to be. Leave the synagogue so filled by that spirit that you cannot help but take action to heal this broken world, and then return to the synagogue to be reminded and recharged yet again. You are changed, the community is changed, and the world around is changed. Wash, rinse, and repeat over and over again throughout a lifetime.

About fifty years ago, in an essay called “The Vocation of the Cantor,” Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel asked the question “What does a person expect to attain when entering a synagogue? In the pursuit of learning one goes to a library; for aesthetic enrichment one goes to the art museum; for pure music to the concert hall. What then is the purpose of going to the synagogue?” Heschel’s answer, and I encourage you to read the entire essay, is that in a synagogue we develop a sense of reverence. It is here that we foster compassion; it is here that we cultivate a social conscience. It is here, I would add, that the young learn to respect the old, and the old learn to invest in the future of the young. It is here that we build up generations of menschen because it is here and only here that we declare to the world – to each other and to our children – that there is no greater title a person can hold than “mensch.” It is not something we can do on our own. In Heschel’s words: “To attain a degree of spiritual security one cannot rely upon one’s own resources. One needs an atmosphere, where the concern for the spirit is shared by a community.” Friends, that community of concern, that community of spirit is right here: your synagogue. We need it, and it needs you. Bring the best of your self here, and together we will make this synagogue a place in which God’s presence shall dwell.