On Being Human

At Rosh Hashanah evening services my congregants and I discussed these texts searching for responses to why people do unspeakable evil to one another and how to encourage them to do more good.

Genesis Rabbah 8:5 (Compiled early 5th century)
Rabbi Simon said: When the Holy Blessed One came to create Adam, the ministering angels divided into various factions and various groups.  Some of them said, “Let him not be created,” and some of them said, “Let him be created.  That is what is written: “Kindness and truth met; righteousness and peace touched.” (Psalms 85:11)

Kindness said, “Let him be created, as he performs acts of kindness.”  Truth said, “Let him not be created, as he is full of lies.”  Righteousness said, “Let him be created, as he performs acts of righteousness.”  Peace said, “Let him not be created, as he is full of discord.”

What did the Holy Blessed One do?  God took Truth and cast it down to earth.  That is what is written: “You cast truth earthward.” (Daniel 8:12) The ministering angels said before the Holy Blessed One, “Master of the universe, why are You demeaning your very seal?  Let Truth ascend from the earth.”  That is what is written: “Truth will spring from the earth.” (Psalms 85:12)


Nachmanides, Commentary on Deuteronomy 22:6 (Written 1270)
In my opinion, however, they intended something else: namely, that the benefit of the commandment regarding the bird’s nest does not accrue to the Holy Blessed One but rather to human beings themselves—to protect them from harm, false beliefs, from corrupt character traits, or to remind them of the Creator’s miracles and wonders and thereby to know the Name. 

This is the meaning of the expression “to refine them through the commandments” (le-tsaref bahen): that they should become like refined silver.  For the silversmith does not refine silver without purpose, but in order to remove all its dross.  Likewise, the commandments remove every false belief from our hearts, make the truth known to us, and keep us continually mindful of the Blessed One. 

Rather, the reason for this prohibition is to teach us the virtue of compassion and to prevent us from becoming cruel, for cruelty spreads and takes root within the human soul.


Lea Goldberg, “What Does a Human Being Need?”
What, after all, does a human being need?
At least one other human being
to mirror back their eyes,
to echo back their voice,
to break through existential loneliness,
the transparent walls
between the inner and the other and the inner;
One who would hold, in trembling hands
the naked, fragile soul
and treat it with gentleness.
A human being, in the end,
needs only another human being.