I’m one of those people who has a pithy little quote appended to my email signature. Whether I do this to share what touches me or in the impudent hope of instructing the world, I leave it to you to decide. But for the longest time, this epigram from the filmmaker Jean Renoir appeared at the end of every message: “In this world there is one terrible thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons.”
This illuminates a perplexing philosophical problem, one that poses daily personal and political challenges. We humans constantly offer our reasons for doing things, hoping that an explanation of motives will justify acts that might otherwise offend. But with each passing day, I find myself less interested in reasons and more in acts. What difference does it make if you believe you gave me that swift kick for my own good (or vice versa)? What difference does it make to the growing ranks of the poor and desperate that the policies helping to bring about their plight are rationalized in terms of macroeconomic growth?
In his speech to the nation on Tuesday, President Bush gave reasons like the following one for the U.S. invasion of Iraq: “Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania.” What difference do such explanations make to the American people? Evidently not much. The speech garnered the president’s smallest audience ever for a major televised address, one delivered on the same day that the he achieved his lowest-ever rating in a CNN/Gallup poll, an overall disapproval rate of 55 percent (64 percent on Social Security, described as the “signature issue” of his second term).
Some Jewish congregations pursue weekly study of particular chapters of the wisdom compilation \Pirke Avot\ (Sayings of the Fathers). The assignment for this week is Chapter 3. I read it again this morning, anticipating our country’s Independence Day on Monday. As I read, I thought of the yawning gap between our leaders’ reasons — their rationales, justifications, explanations, which pour forth like a muddy torrent — and the acts they undertake in our names.
Chapter 3:22 attributes to R. Eleazar, the son of Azariah, the following teaching expressing the primary importance of deeds above words:
“He whose wisdom exceeds his works, to what is he like? To a tree whose branches are many, but whose roots are few; and the wind comes and plucks it up, and overturns it upon its face, as it is said, ‘And he shall be like a lonely juniper tree in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited.’ (Jeremiah 17:6) But he whose works exceed his wisdom, to what is he like? To a tree whose branches are few, but whose roots are many, so that though all the winds in the world come and blow upon it, they cannot stir it from its place, as it is said, ‘And he shall be as a tree planted by the waters; and that spreadeth out its roots by the river and shall not perceive when heat cometh, but his leaf shall be green; and shall not be troubled in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.’ (Jeremiah 17:8)”
Do you remember the old song “We Shall Not Be Moved”? It started life as a union song to support strikers in the mines and factories nearly a century ago, mutated into a civil right song in the sixties, and has been put to many purposes since then:
Black and white together
We shall not be moved
Our union is forever
We shall not be moved
Just like a tree that?s standing by the water
We shall not be moved
We shall not, we shall not be moved
We shall not, we shall not be moved
Just like a tree that?s standing by the water
We shall not be moved
The people who raised their spirits by singing this song embody the best in our country and culture. The generations that came before us, those whose acts of freedom exceeded even the considerable wisdom of their love for justice, display the majestic grace of a tree firmly rooted, one that shelters and feeds, perpetually refreshed and refreshing.
My hope and my blessing for the United States on the anniversary of our liberation from colonizing powers is this: that in honoring those who earned our freedom, we will cease opening our ears to rationalizations of our bad acts, converting them to good ones instead; and as we will be judged by our deeds, they will be worthy of standing for the generations to come.