Wickedness & righteousness

As I live, says the Lord God, I do not wish for the death of the wicked, but for the wicked to repent of his way so that he may live. Repent, repent of your evil ways, for why should you die, O house of Israel! And you, son of man, say to the members of your people: The righteousness of the righteous will not save him on the day of his transgression, and the wickedness of the wicked-he will not stumble upon it on the day of his repentance of his wickedness, and a righteous man cannot live with it on the day of his sinning. When I say of the righteous that he will surely live, and he relied on his righteousness and committed injustice, none of his righteous deeds will be remembered, and for the injustices, which he committed, he shall die. And when I say of the wicked man, "You shall surely die," and he repents of his sin and performs justice and righteousness, the wicked man will return the pledge, he will repay the theft; in the statutes of life he walked, not to commit injustice-he will surely live, he will not die. All his sins that he sinned will not be remembered for him: he performed justice and righteousness; he will surely live.

Ezekiel 33: 11-16

I’ve seen a lot of people mention Ezekiel: 33:11 in connection with Osama Bin Laden’s death, and while it makes sense to me, I think that taking it in a broader context illuminates an important idea. It reminds us that we can’t simply rest on our merits nor should we dwell on our failures and mistakes. For we will be judged not by our past actions but on our current actions, neither the wickedness nor righteousness of past actions matters only what we do in this moment. That is the central teaching found here and it is an important lesson for us all.

L’Shalom

On the way

Re-reading, ‘The Way of Man’ 

Excerpts from Chapter V. Not to Be Preoccupied with Oneself

‘He who has done ill and talks about it and thinks about it all the time does not cast the base thing he did out of his thoughts, and whatever one thinks, therein one is, ones soul is wholly and utterly in what one thinks, and so he dwells in baseness. He will certainly not be able to turn, for his spirit will grow coarse and his heart stubborn, and in addition to this he may be overcome be gloom. What would you? Rake the mud this away, rake the mud that way – it will always be muck. Have I sinned, or have I not sinned – what does Heaven get out of it? In the time I am brooding over it I could be stringing pearls for the delight of Heaven. This is why it is written: “Depart from evil, do not dwell upon it, and do good” – turn wholly away from evil, do not dwell upon it, and do good. You have done wrong?  Then counteract it by doing right.’ – Rabbi of Ger

Rabbi Mendel of Kotzk once said to his congregation, ‘what, after all, do I demand of you? Only three things: not to look furtively outside yourselves, not to look furtively upon others, and do not aim at yourselves’  That is to say: firstly, everyone should preserve and hallow his own soul in its own particularity and in its own place, and do not envy the particularity and place of others; secondly, everyone should respect the secret in the soul of his fellow-man, and not, with brazen curiosity, intrude upon it and take advantage of it; and thirdly, everyone, in his relationship to the world, should be careful not to set himself as his aim.  – Martin Buber

The Brothers Karamazov

On Sunday night I completed a marathon, no I did not run 26.2 miles, in fact I hardly moved at all.

What I did do was finish The Brothers Karamazov. Brothers K is the final novel of Fyodor Dovstoevsky and it is a masterpiece. It’s also a 700+ page behemoth of a book that took me a solid three weeks to get through. It was a commitment but only once (when I had around 60 pages left) did I ever dream of putting it down (and I’m happy I pushed through and finished it) it was simply wonderful.

Contained within the voluminous pages of this book is the story of not just the four brothers of Pavel Karamazov, not just the intrigue of the mystery of the murder of their father but also the story of an entire country. It’s about the soul of Russia and also the soul of all men. Dovstoevsky is a philosopher and a poet; he goes on in length about what makes a man a man, what makes men good and holy, and evil and base. He struggles with g-d and man’s relationship to the creator; he struggles with the desires both good and evil of all people.

I cannot hope to translate the beauty of the experience of reading this book. But only urge readers to not be intimidated by it and to pick up the wonderful translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky and be prepared to go to battle with this book. If you dare to rise to the challenge you will not be disappointed, you will finish and think and think and think about the ideas contained within it. It will transform you and you will be better for the experience.

I’ll leave you with a quote: "First of all and before all be kind, then honest, and then - let us never forget one another...dear friends, do not be afraid of life! How good life is when you do something good and rightful!" - Alyosha Karamazov