How can human beings reconcile the desire to be remembered — to make a mark on the world — with the desire to do what is right?
Conservative rabbi turned best-selling author Harold Kushner poses this question in his most recent book, “Living a Life That Matters: Resolving the Conflict between Conscience and Success.”
Speaking Oct. 22 at San Francisco’s Congregation B’nai Emunah, Kushner used examples and anecdotes from popular movies to TV shows to the biblical stories of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph to make a difficult topic accessible.
But when he urged the 150 people present to make their mark simply, through kind words and deeds, it was the author himself who shined most brightly as a Jew who will be remembered for all the right reasons.
Kushner, who formerly led a Conservative synagogue in Massachusetts, first gained literary success with “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” The book, which examines how readers can remain faithful at those times when God seems to have abandoned them, has sold several million copies since its release in 1981 and has been embraced by Jews and non-Jews alike.
In a literary play on the title of his first bestseller, Kushner asked the audience, “Why do good people do bad things?” The answers he cited were rage, fear and the yetzer hara, a Hebrew phrase that is traditionally translated as “evil impulse” but which Kushner translated as “ego.”
Kushner noted that when people feel they have been wronged, they sometimes act out in rage through an act of revenge. Breaking out some of the common wisdom he is known for, he warned the audience about the pitfalls of this course, saying, “Never mud wrestle with a pig because you’ll both get filthy and the pig will enjoy it.”
In a more serious explanation of fear-induced wrongs, Kushner recounted that as a rabbi he often comforted Holocaust survivors who confessed to hurting others in order to survive the perils of concentration camps.
Kushner then said that when politicians make faulty campaign promises, when salespeople extol the virtues of inferior products or when lawyers use emotional tricks to win over a jury, it is because their ego has run amok. The ego-driven desire for success outweighs the desire to do what is right.
But humans cannot simply turn off the ego, he stressed. Kushner recounted a Jewish folktale about a village whose inhabitants banish the yetzer hara. On the day when they finally chase this force out of the village, no evil occurs, but no one goes to work, no one finds a wife and no children are conceived. Without an ego to fulfill, there is no creativity. The yetzer hara, he explained, is also behind the impulse to fulfill basic human needs for food, shelter and sexual desires.
Kushner concluded by urging those present to “be the best actor in a supporting role.” He added that though it might not gain a person fame, showing love and sympathy to family and neighbors makes the entire world better.
This message, Kushner noted, is a timely one. The hardcover edition of “Living a Life that Matters” went on sale a week before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That event, combined with the recent economic downturn, said Kushner, has left many American Jews asking what their purpose is and wondering why people pursue ephemeral versions of success.
Sept. 11, he said, left many people asking what would they be remembered for had they died inside the World Trade Center. Similarly, the recent corporate greed scandals have left many asking why affluent people do such stupid things.
Though the spike in synagogue and church attendance that followed the Sept. 11 attacks has subsided, the author said he is still “hearing more stories of people who are less concerned with the big score and more concerned about cocooning at home.”
The event was part of the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco’s Jewish Book Month as well as its “Talking Tuesdays” series of lectures meant to bring together Jewish singles at intellectually stimulating events.