From the Cyber Torah Archives

I hope that everyone had a good Thanksgiving. I so much enjoy how everyone celebrates Thanksgiving. It has a warmth and sense of family unmatched by any other American holiday. And the football this year was good too. Carol and Joshua and I had my parents in from out of town and we all had a good time together.

Thanksgiving, particularly in the US today, celebrates a phenomenal prosperity unmatched in other countries and in other historical eras. Our meal included a turkey, mashed potatoes, squash, salad, peas, and pecan pie. To be able to put such a large and varied meal in front of my family was a symbol of the kind of prosperity we experience on a daily basis. Food is only the tip of the iceberg. Everyone getting this letter by definition has a computer. Over 30% of Americans have enough disposable income to afford a computer. Presumably they have a home, food, cars, furniture etc, and then buy a computer. In other words, even those called "lower middle class" or even "poor" are rich by historic standards or by the standards of other countries.

Any social state carries with it spiritual costs. Poverty can incline people to lose ownership in the general society and become more willing to take from other people. It can lead to a loss of faith because God fails to lift the person out of the difficult situation. Wealth also has a spiritual risk which this week's Haftorah describes, "When they were fed, the became full, They were filled and their heart was exalted, therefore have the forgotten Me (Hosea, 13:6)" Wealth leads us to think we are the creators of our own fortune and that we control our own destines. The fact of being full - of experiencing genuine material prosperity - causes us to forget God.

Precisely at such historic moments of wealth, when people are most prone to forgetting God, people lose a sense of meaning in their lives. We are living during a religious revival because people are realizing money and success are important but insufficient to have a good life. They are the ingredients of material prosperity but fail to address issues of spiritual sustenance. We live in an era when we have "made molten images of silver according to our own understanding (Hosea 13:2)" We have tried to make God out of a variety of human endeavors.

Work or wealth is one area of our lives that we have established as a false God; many of the popular "isms" are another. Environmentalism, feminism, as "isms" take on a life of their own. While these two examples contain worthy aspects - protecting the environment is vital and a major Jewish value, as is raising the status of women, as "isms" they become almost religious for their adherents. People try to find the kind of meaning that early generations sought in religion and through God in these beliefs.

To restore that sense of meaning in our own lives, we must listen to the words of the Prophet, "Return O Israel unto the Lord thy God (Hosea, 14:2)." God has given us a system of holiness that leads to greater sense of family and of meaning. Choosing a life filled with observance means restoring that sense of emptiness which is endemic to wealthy times with a sense of meaning.

Yet the process is so overwhelming. It is hard to look at myself today and imagine myself changed. The important thing is simply to start. Take it one step at a time. I am not asking you to become totally observant overnight - such changes tend not to last over time anyway. Pick one ritual that you currently are not observing, and begin to observe it. If you have not been lighting Shabbat candles every Friday night, start with that. If you haven't been saying sh'ma over your children as part of their bedtime ritual, start with that. Give that ritual time to become meaningful to you and your family. Whether you pick something small like blessing your children on Friday, or something harder like keeping kosher, pick just one thing that resonates with you now.

Once we begin the process, once we start the search for holiness in our lives, God will reach out to us. "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely (Hosea 14:5)."