October 29, 2012 | 4:16 am

Space Travel: Is it worth it?

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

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NASA just embarked upon its most ambitious Mars mission to date, spending a whopping $2.5 billion on this 1-ton rover, hoping to find some evidence as to whether or not Mars once supported life.

At the same time, a United Nations report noted that there were 870 million undernourished people in the world (defined as “a state of energy deprivation” for more than a year). Even if all food production and distribution goals are met, 12.5 percent of the world will be undernourished in 2015. On a planet that also has more than a billion people living in destitute poverty, can we justify spending so much on another one?

Abraham Joshua Heschel (The Moral Dilemma of the Space Age) said it well:

I challenge the high value placed on the search for extraterrestrial life only because it is being made at the expense of life and humanity here on earth. …Is the discovery of some form of life on Mars or Venus or man’s conquest of the moon really as important to humanity as the conquest of poverty, disease, prejudice, and superstition?  Of what value will it be to land a few men on the wilderness of the moon if we neglect the needs of millions of men on earth?  The conflict we face is between the exploration of space and the more basic needs of the human race.  In their contributions to its resolution, religious leaders and teachers have an obligation to challenge the dominance of science over human affairs.  They must defy the establishment of science as G-d.  It is an instrument of G-d which we must not permit to be misused.

Proponents of the space program and NASA’s current $17.7 billion budget (and $300 billion collectively spent by all countries) point to technological advances that have come about or accelerated as a result of the space program:

• Satellite television and the mobile telephone
• Global positioning system (GPS) technology
• Virtual reality devices
• Extremely accurate maps
• Advances in digital imaging that have improved screening methods of existing technology (e.g., improved MRI, CT scans, and breast cancer screening)

There are also elements that cannot be quantified, such as the use of the photograph of Earth taken from space that was used to promote environmentalism, or the effect of the space program in promoting science in schools. As astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson stated: “You don't have to set up a program to convince people that being an engineer is cool. They'll know it just by the cultural presence of those activities. You do that, and it'll jump-start our dreams." There are a lot of benefits to space travel and galaxy exploration.

Currently, NASA has about 100 space programs ranging from examining the Earth’s atmosphere, measuring the planet’s water cycle, and tracking hurricanes and storms, to exploring asteroids and planets. Many scientists consider these ongoing programs to be vital to the advance of science and understanding our planet and the universe.

On the other hand, the American space program grew out of the Cold War anxiety over the Soviet Union’s success in launching the Sputnik satellite, and much of this program has had military intentions. Nor should it be forgotten that the United States used former Nazi scientists who had developed the dreaded V2 rocket (some of whom worked in facilities that starved their slave laborers). While the program had a spectacular success in landing a man on the moon in 1969, it also led to the creation of weapons like the inter-continental ballistic missile and multiple independent reentry vehicle. These “advances” enabled a single missile to carry up to 10 nuclear warheads thousands of miles, creating the potential for annihilating all human life on Earth. Thus, the space program has had mixed results.

Many believe that we are searching for extra-terrestrial life. This reality is not impossible according to Jewish thought. There is a Jewish theological basis to accept that there are other worlds in existence. “‘There was evening and there was morning, the first day’ (Bereshit 1:5): From here (we learn that) the Holy One, Blessed is He, created worlds and destroyed them, until G-d created these. G-d said: These give me pleasure, but those did not give me pleasure” (Bereshit Rabbah 3:7).

Rav Saadia Gaon taught that we live in a centripetal Platonic notion of the universe, where everything moves toward the center (toward the human). This is an anthropocentric approach (i.e., that humans occupy the central position of existence, and that everything should be interpreted for its effect on humans). The Rambam, however, taught that we live in a centrifugal universe of Aristotelian values. The Rambam rejects anthropocentricism with the teleological position that G-d creates everything for its own purpose (Mishlei 16:4, “l’maanehu”—for the sake of G-d as opposed to for the sake of man), and thus the universe is centrifugal (everything moving away from the center), and the value of all increases as it goes outwards from man, Earth, into the “active intellect,” and beyond.

The science of both thinkers is known to be incorrect today, but there is still philosophical value to their approaches. In our own time an important Jewish philosopher, Rabbi Norman Lamm, followed in the school of the Rambam and wrote: “There is no need to exaggerate man’s importance, and to exercise a kind of racial or global arrogance, in order to discover the sources of man’s significance and uniqueness.”

Although “there is no need to exaggerate man’s importance” and there is a lot of value in expanding our knowledge of the universe around us both for knowledge’s sake and for the forward march of technology that advances the cause of human sustainability, on balance it is clear that the noble goal of reaching out into the cosmos must play second fiddle to the nobler goal of continued life on the only planet we call home. We must be invested in science and discovery and long-term growth but we must also remember that our main priorities are addressing the human needs of today in this world.

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Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder and President of Uri L'Tzedek, the Senior Rabbi at Kehilath Israel, and is the author of "Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century." Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America!"

October 4, 2012 | 2:38 am

The Clouds of Glory and Human Responsibility!

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

After the spiritual intimacy of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we subversively break from the walls of institutions and the comforts of home into our modest sukkot (outdoor huts). It is in these huts that we rediscover the religious foundation of our human responsibility.

The Torah teaches that the purpose of sitting in the sukkah is so that later generations should know that the Jewish People were placed in Sukkot when they left Egypt (Leviticus 23:42-43). The rabbis argue about the meaning of this ritual (Sukkah 11b). Rabbi Eliezer suggests that we dwell in the sukkot to commemorate the miracle of the ananei hakavod (clouds of glory) that sheltered the Israelites from the hot sun in the desert. Rabbi Akiva, on the other hand, argues that we sit in sukkot to commemorate the actual sukkot the Israelites were miraculously provided (in the city of Sukkot) while in the desert.

The great 19th-century rabbi, the Sfat Emet (Rabbi Yehuda Leib Alter), suggested both rabbis of the Talmud were correct. He suggested that the clouds of glory (Rabbi Eliezer) represent the miracles at the time when Divine Providence was clearly observed by all. The actual sukkot (Rabbi Akiva) represent the miracles of Divine Providence that are no longer openly seen. Thus, in our sukkot today we are reminded that we must have more faith and we must devote more human toil to enable that hidden Divine Providence.

Rabbi Yitzchak Aizik Sher also suggested a synergy between the two positions. The clouds of glory represent a miracle that covered the entire Jewish people. The sukkot represent the individual providence that G-d did and does for each individual. We can be appreciative of global, national, and covenantal miracles, and we can also appreciate the blessing of a more intimate and personal providence.

The great 16th-century rabbi called the Mabit (Rabbi Moshe ben Yosef Trani) asks why a holiday was not created around the other miracles of the desert, such as the providing of manna to eat or the wells to drink from. He answers that it was an extra miracle that G-d provided the luxury of shelter and not just survival (Beit Elokim Shaar ha’yesodot 37). We can never express enough gratitude to be alive and to have food and drink. But we are also grateful for the other “luxuries” that we consider needs, and we emulate G-d in securing these needs for others as well. One can survive without certain human needs and wants, but one cannot flourish without them. The Sukkot represent the blessings of human potential and flourishing.

On Sukkot, we commemorate historical miracles and eternal values, national redemption and personal salvation, Divine providence and human toil, the spiritual and the physical, the metaphysical and concrete pragmatism. In the sukkah, we are reminded of the peace that exists in the world that we can be thankful of and the need to further perpetuate that peace.

We are not only to welcome the stranger into our huts, we are commanded to once again experience our own alienation. The Torah makes the case on numerous occasions (Leviticus 23:42, 25:23, Chronicles I: 29:15, Psalms 39:13, etc.) that all humans and all Jews are gerim (strangers and immigrants). Not only are we strangers alienated before our Creator, we are also strangers on this earth during our temporary visit to the world. Rashi explains (Leviticus 23:42) that our sukkot must not only include citizens but also immigrants and strangers to ensure we remember our true nature and our temporary corporeal existence.

By reconnecting with our modest hut and connecting with other strangers in the community, we can rediscover our own frailty, our own alienation and our own human responsibility.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder and President of Uri L'Tzedek, the Senior Rabbi at Kehilath Israel, and is the author of "Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century." Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America!"
 

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September 25, 2012 | 1:46 pm

Yom Kippur: An Encounter with Death & Life!

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

“Mitah v’Yom HaKippurim Michaprin.” The two ways to truly atone are Death and Yom Kippur. But are the two really so different? On Yom Kippur, we reject food and drink, similar to one close to death. We say vidui (our confessions) just like someone preparing to die. Many wear white on Yom Kippur—the kittel, the same plain shroud that one will be buried in. We remove ourselves from leather shoes, bathing, anointing, and marital relations on Yom Kippur again as though we are mourners.  Our lives are lived in our bodies. On Yom Kippur we step out of our bodies as if we were gone. We visit the cemetery at this time to honor those who have passed away and to soften our hearts to our mortality. We ask ourselves on Yom Kippur in Unetaneh Tokef: “who shall live and who shall die.”

One of the main goals on Yom Kippur is to encounter death. We spend one day reflecting on our mortality. When we fully embrace Yom Kippur, we have an encounter with death (a preparation for death). We are to be transformed by it; in preparing for death, we come to more deeply celebrate life. Even more, our transformation teaches us to reprioritize what really matters. As Sogyal Rinpoche once wrote: "Death is a mirror in which the entire meaning of life is reflected."

One day of the year we accept the reality of death, but we are not like Buddhists who willingly embrace death. On all other days of the year, we mourn those who have passed, we protest the taking of lives, we prevent death by seeking cures and healing. But protesting death must not overtake us. Rather, taking ownership of life must. As the great French existentialist Simone de Beauvoir, wrote: “We are having a hard time living because we are so bent on outwitting death” (The Ethics of Ambiguity, 120).

So only on this day we let our guard go and embrace the inevitable to remind us that although our death must come someday, today we must live. We can best perform the mitzvah of u'varchata b'chayim, to choose life, once we are aware of the alternative and that there is a choice to be made.

There is an intimacy we achieve with our Creator when we approach death just as those on their death beds who lose their theological skepticism. In fact, we learn from the Talmud (Shabbat 88b) that those who experienced the revelation at Sinai directly from the mouth of G-d died in that moment and were brought back to life. It is only in a life/death transcendental moment that we can truly grasp certain truths.

Longtime hospice worker Kathleen Dowling Singh lays out the stages of dying in her book, The Grace in Dying. They are, according to her: Chaos, Surrender and Transcendence. Yom Kippur can be modeled off these three. We are in chaos during the night, and the early morning of Yom Kippur hits us like a ton of bricks. Then we begin to surrender once we realize that we are able to transcend our hunger and personal desires. Finally, we may reach transcendence in the late afternoon when we tap into our deeper potential to understand ourselves and the world.

If we “die” on Yom Kippur, then we go to olam haba (the next world). That next world paradoxically is actually olam ha’zeh (this world). We learn to live in this world as if it were the next world (in our near-death experience). We encounter death in order to live.

The Talmud in Moed Katan teaches the following story: “When Rav Nahman was dying, he begged Rava to implore the angel of death not to torment him. Rava replied, ‘But, Master, are you not esteemed enough to ask him yourself?’ Rav Nahman considered this for a moment, and then pondered aloud, 'Who is esteemed, who is regarded, who is distinguished' in the face of Death Himself? Then, after he died, Rav Nahman appeared to Rava in a dream. ‘Master, did you suffer any pain?’ Rava asked. Rav Nahman replied, ‘As little as taking a hair from milk. Still, if the Holy One were to say to me, ‘Go back to that world,’ I would not consent, the fear of death being so great.’”

On Yom Kippur we learn that we need not fear death. Rather, we must embrace death in order that we can affirm life in the deepest sense. May 5773 be a year of life! May we rededicate ourselves to enhancing the lives of all those around us!
 

 

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder and President of Uri L'Tzedek, the Senior Rabbi at Kehilath Israel, and is the author of "Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century." Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America!"
 

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