Testing

November 6, 2009
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

     Two weeks ago, the Torah provided us with a list of ten generations of people whose lives were exceedingly long. Adam lived 930 years; his son Seth lived 912 years; his son Enosh lived 905 years; and so on -- the ultimate record being held by Methuselah who lived 969 years. Yet, these generations led up to the Flood, so we know they were not the finest friends a person could make.

     Why should sinful generations live so long? The rabbis give several answers. The first is astronomical. These folk had the time necessary to study the complex movements of heavenly bodies. What they learned from studying the night skies became our heritage. Knowing the stars is a gift from God, the Rabbis said, but only possible since God granted early humans long lives.

     Other Rabbis theorized that God gave these ten generations such long lives to test them. Their life-spans gave them ample opportunity to show kindness to one another. Yet, as we can tell by the story of the Flood, the generations from Adam to Noah achieved many accomplishments but they never passed God's test: They never learned kindness to one another.

     In another place (Pirkei Avot 5:3), the Rabbis inform us that God tested Abraham with ten trials. The severest trial is the one we know best, found in this week's portion, VaYeira: Abraham is commanded to sacrifice his most precious son. The sources give us divergent lists of the ten trials of Abraham, but all the sources agree that the call to sacrifice Isaac is the ultimate test of Abraham's faithfulness.

     For what heavenly purpose can these tests that God puts to human beings be of any use to God? After all, God knows the true outcome of every test even before the human being is challenged. God knows in advance who will pass the test and who will not. How can the tests be of any use?

     The ancient Rabbis explained that God is like a potter. The potter never tests a vessel that is obviously flawed. If it has a crack or a defect, testing it will surely break it. But the potter takes pride in testing a well-made goblet to hear the bright "ring" which signals the goblet is finely-fashioned, sturdy, and reliable (Genesis Rabbah 32:3). God only tests the righteous, knowing full-well that the righteous will "ring" true.

     This explanation would be sufficient to explain why God tests Abraham, but it does not account for the testing of the ten generations leading up to Noah. God knew that nine of these generations would fail the test, would not learn to live In kindness to one another. And yet, God tested them, even though they were cracked and flawed, knowing they would break under the strain of the test.

     It was not until the thirteenth century that a rabbi arose to put forward a better explanation. This was Rabbi Moses ben Nachman of Catalan, Spain, who is better known to us by his Greek name, Nachmanides. He was not only an outstanding scholar, he was a mystic who believed that the Jews were ready to receive the gifts of mysticism. To that end, he wrote a commentary on the Torah that gave strong hints to all the magical secrets that he wanted to reveal.

     One of those secrets was the answer to why God tests all human beings -- not only the ones who are righteous and who will pass the test -- but all of us. You see, each of us is a pot, a goblet, crafted by the One God. Every one of us deserves the opportunity to be tested, the opportunity to ring true. God already knows which of us will pass the test and which of us will fail to live up to our full potential. But we do not know in advance. We must choose, we must commit to God with our souls and our hearts. We must put our trust in God and do what is required of us. The test is not for God's benefit, it is for ours.

     Right this moment, we are passing through a time of testing in our lives. For many of us, the comfort and serenity, the security we seek, is shaken by a monetary downturn over which we had no control, but which threatens every one of us on every side. For others, the trial is one of health and personal faith, as the struggle for existence against cancer and virus and infirmity forces us to take life and death decisions. These are not easy tests that God has set for us.

     We can pass the tests in our life by knowing what God expects of us. We will not pass the test by finding a new job for one that was lost. This is an answer to an immediate need, but it may or may not be enough to save us from the abyss. We will not pass the test by completing a round of chemotherapy. This may be an answer to an immediate need, but it does not release us from the knowledge that we must still face death with eyes wide open.

     The test is one of kindness to one another. This is the test that Abraham passed in not sacrificing his precious son. This is the test that the nine generations leading up to Noah failed to comprehend. In the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, people responded in different ways to the test God placed before them. In his enormously important sociological study called Survival, Terence des Pres demonstrated that those who survived the camps were those who determined to live to bear witness for those who died. The survivors were the ones who never lost their moral sensibilities, those who learned to cooperate with one another and to share one another's trials and successes. Survivors were those who often sacrificed a morsel of bread to help save the life of another person. Survivors were those who often listened to one another's stories and commiserated. Survivors were those who thought about and cared about others as much, or more, than they thought about, or cared about, themselves. Des Pres discovered that human beings are social by nature of their biology, and this need to live and depend on one another as a community is our best hope in this century.

     Thank God that no test we now face is as severe as the test that the victims of the Holocaust faced. But we do face tests and trials that are important to us. We are the goblets and the pots that God has crafted and God reaches out to tap each of us with trials and tribulations and the way we can survive is to learn to respond by not losing our kindness to one another and our concern for one another. To pass the tests of life, it is not enough to plod forward and live long and useless. To pass the tests of life, it is essential that we learn to be kind. And let us say: Amen.