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The Whole of the Law

Once there was a gentile who came before Shammai, and said to him: "Convert me on the condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot. Shammai pushed him aside with the measuring stick he was holding. The same fellow came before Hillel, and Hillel converted him, saying: That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow, this is the whole Torah, and the rest is commentary, go and learn it." — Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a
I'm not a religious man. However, I deeply respect and learn from the great wisdom traditions which are humanity's patrimony.

I was on a call with my team last night, and we were debriefing each other. And one of them remarked that she felt empowered doing the disaster service work to which we've been assigned. And this evergreen quote came to me.

It really isn't hard. All wisdom traditions have some form of the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And yet it's so hard for mere humans to live up to even that basic commandment.

Why are we humans so hard-headed? So fearful? Human history has been one example after another that if you cooperate, you can achieve amazing, superhuman feats. But if something upsets your routine, you fall back into patterns of fear and anxiety.

One of my tweeps responded to my above tweet with this:
As you may or may not have noticed, this plague has changed my writing. I'm not so concerned with the daily thrust of politics. The moment in which we live requires more, much more. It requires that we return to first things. Why are we as we are? Why can't we recognize that we're all one human family, interconnected and dependent on each other?

I will work to elect Joe Biden. Not just because I respect him, and because we need to excise the cancer in the White House. But because what I've talked about in this piece requires his election. But his election is not sufficient. If we return to tired patterns, we'll be back where we started: stuck in neutral, spinning our wheels.

I don't have an answer to this question, but I will ask it anyway: How do we progress from a culture of "me" to a culture of "we"? Because that progression is what will determine our fate as a species. Unless we can get past the selfishness which the powers and principalities say is our "natural right", we will have more catastrophes like the one through which we are now living. And, eventually, we'll turn up craps. Eventually, our luck will run out, and the great human experiment will be extinguished.

How, as my friend implied, can we reconcile the openness of children with the wisdom of adulthood? How can we approach the grave problems facing us with the openness and kindness of children? Squaring that circle—an open hand married with wisdom—is what will determine our future. I don't have an answer. And maybe there is no answer. Maybe being present and asking the question is what we need to do, so that we are aware of our shortcomings, and rectify them.

We have to be less quick to judge, and more open to our own inadequacies. We have to acknowledge that no one person has all the answers, but that collectively we can reach conclusions which benefit all of us. We have to put aside reptilian fear and hatred, because viruses care not for our self-imposed borders. We have to be merely human, in the best, broadest sense of that term.

We all have to look in ourselves and ask questions. Why do we hang on to fear? To hatred? To animus? Why do we not let go and embrace each other?

These are questions easier asked than answered. And by asking these questions, I'm in no way saying that we should forgo justice, and holding malefactors to account. But those are separate issues. The evil should have their day in court. That doesn't mean we should emulate them.

As we go into a weekend in which two former presidents will speak to a nation hungering for hope in a way the soi disant current president is unable to, this seems like a good time to look inward. What can we do to bring forth the world we want? How can we do this without sacrificing our principles and honor? Our futures hang on the answers.
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