Open your spiritual tool box

Being a fine human being is the greatest aspiration

Editor’s note: Look for a sermon or lesson from Houston’s diverse faiths every week in Belief. Every homeowner has a tool box. In those tool boxes are basic tools to fix a variety of things. But, even a well-equipped tool box is useless in the hands of someone without the skills to use them.

Admittedly, I’m one of those persons. The answer to the question, “How many rabbis does it take to change a light bulb?” is “None. Rabbis don’t know how to change light bulbs.”

But, I have another tool box. It’s my spiritual tool box. Inside are many items I can easily pick up and use to address all kinds of problems, without ever climbing a ladder. Over 25 years, the box has grown fuller and more useful.

I suspect that you have a spiritual tool box, too; but, maybe you don’t know where it is, or if you do, it could probably use some freshening up. If we looked inside your spiritual tool box, together, here’s what we’d likely find.

• Shabbat candle sticks caked with wax leftover from years ago.

• A Kiddush cup from someone’s bar mitzvah or wedding. • Some recipes from your grandmother or great-grandmother that include excesses of chicken schmaltz and something written in Yiddish. • Intangible memories of times gone by that are difficult to duplicate but are ingrained deeply on your heart. Other intangible but powerful memories might explain why your spiritual tool box has been left alone for too long. Maybe it’s because someone in your past told you what they thought you needed to fix and you didn’t know where to begin. Maybe they told you: Be humble! Be grateful! Be compassionate! And, while you’re at it, be more like your brother! If you tried, you failed. Since then, many unfinished repairs have lingered and accumulated.

So, let’s retool. Get rid of self-help books and books-on-tape about positive thinking. Let go of panaceas that sound too good to be true. Then let’s fill up the empty spaces we created with something more useful. The goal is to fill the tool box with items that have no physical weight and tangible quality; just limitless room to put what you really need to become the persons you hope to be.

The steps are simple. First ask yourself, “What am I truly committed to repairing about myself in the New

Year?” Then, let’s look for the right tools to do it.

In Torah, in the Holiness Code (Lev 19), we read, “You shall be holy for I, the Lord, Your God am holy.” To be holy is a lot to achieve.

Maybe your mother gave you a choice; be holy or be a doctor. Either way it was a lot to accomplish. But, other people in your life told you, “Be a mensch!” Be a fine human being. So, which is it? Be holy or be a mensch?

It turns out that our greatest human aspiration is to be a mensch, a fine person. We know this also from Torah. In Exodus 22, we find, “You shall be holy people to Me.” In Hebrew, nouns come before their adjectives, so Torah uses the word “people” before it uses the word “holy.” The Kotzker rebbe, a Chasidic teacher, reasoned, “Fine, be holy [if you want to be], but remember that first you have to be a mensch.”

He said nothing about doctors.

The way to be a mensch requires the right tools in your spiritual tool box.

In a branch of Jewish ethics called Mussar, dating back to the second half of the 19th century, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter defined Mussar as “instruction” or “correction”, but it’s a simple Hebrew word that means “ethics.”

Though Salanter writes in the 19th century, Eugene Borowitz, writing in the 20th century, affirms our purpose and ability to attain the goal to be a mensch. He explains, “When we seek God as partner in every significant act, we invest our doing and deciding with direction, hope, [and] worth; and, where we fail, we have the possibility for repair.”

In the possibility for repair we open our spiritual tool box and begin our work.

Mussar’s aim is for us to build what it calls “soul-traits.” We all have them. Soul-traits are human qualities we cherish, like humility, gratitude, compassion, honor and truth. But, unlike the tools we used to acquire human virtues in the past, like self-help books, Mussar shows us that we’ve been in possession of the right tools the whole time. And, unlike self-help books, soul-traits are not objects, in and of themselves.

Our purpose isn’t to get up and announce, “Today I’m going to be compassionate.” It’s unrealistic. It’s also unsustainable. A better way is to prepare ourselves to encounter other people or events according to the needs in that time and place.

What, then, do we do with holiness? Holiness is enveloped by Mussar. The Holiness Code in Torah begins, “You shall be holy for I, the Lord, Your God, am holy.” Here, the Hebrew is written in the future tense. Our aim is to become something more every day of our life.

• No part of life is without meaning.

• No part of our days is without gifts.

• No part of our world can thrive without our role in it.

This Yom Kippur, our spiritual tool boxes are open. Let’s fill them with our faith’s highest ideals for us. Amen.