COMMON RESPONSIBILITY
Rosh Ha-Shanah, 5703—September, 1942
THREE years of a terrible war have passed over us; for three dark years we have witnessed the collapse of human civilisation. The whole framework of a world which we have already come to call the old has gone to pieces before our eyes.
It is natural that in the midst of such confusion and chaos, under the stress and strain of terrifying events, we should pray on the Holy Days for nothing else but a speedy deliverance from the nightmare of this senseless destruction of values, of life and human happiness.
But this is not enough. The nervous cry for help of a tortured heart is not yet a prayer. The soul of prayer is a new preparedness of the heart. And because of this, before we pray, we must think; we must try to understand.
This Rosh Ha-Shanah, which opens a year in which will most probably fall the decisive phase of the war, let us try to find our own place as Jews in this tremendous upheaval; let us try to define the Jewish attitude to the many problems of our times—and afterwards let us pray intelligently.
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For this purpose let us translate the basic conception of Rosh Ha-Shanah into the terms of our days. Rosh Ha-Shanah is the Day of Judgment, not only for us Jews, but for every living creature, for the whole of the Universe.
The detailed description which our Rabbis have given of the procedure before the Heavenly Court contains some strange and seemingly most illogical ideas. We are told, for instance, that first all the individuals are judged, next all the nations, and lastly the whole world. This sounds curious. Once every individual being has been judged, what is the point of judging all the nations and all the world too?
The account of the procedure given by Jewish tradition makes the reason clear.
First human beings are judged as individuals. Their good deeds are counted, their bad deeds are counted, and judgment is passed. Then follows the turn of the nations as nations. The deeds of all the members of the nation are weighed, and if their good deeds weigh down the scale of their sins, the whole nation shall prosper; in the reverse case, however, the whole nation shall suffer. Next comes the turn of all mankind in the same way. All the deeds of all the individual beings of all nations are added together, and judgment is passed on all of them as one unit; for better or worse all share in the same sentence.
And because of this the advice is given to all men: **Cf. Maimonides, Yad he-Cha-zakah, Hilchot Teshuvah, iii, 4; Talmud, Kiddushin, 40 B.“Every human being should always look upon himself as if his personal merit and guilt would just balance each other. And so should he look upon the world, as if it were half guilty and half free. Consequently, by committing only one sin, he may turn the scale against himself as well as the world, bringing destruction upon himself and the rest of the world: but if he performs but one good deed, he might save himself and the world, as has been said, “The whole world rests on the righteous.”
But again you may ask: if the world is judged as a whole, what sense can there be in judging nations separately? Or if you judge nations, determining for each of them a collective destiny, what meaning can there be in judging individuals as such? And then, is such procedure just at all? Why should the group, the nation, the whole of mankind suffer because of the sins of individuals? Why should the righteous be punished as members of the nation together with the guilty? Or, on the other hand, why should the guilty benefit from the merits of the just and the righteous?
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The reply to these questions usually is, not to take the detailed description of the procedure on the Day of Judgment too seriously; to regard it as for the most part a fanciful production of Jewish folklore. This is a mistake. For the first thing which we notice on looking round in the world with open eyes is that the conception fits the facts. Whether it is just or not, we are witnessing day by day how the sins of individuals do affect whole groups, how the crimes of small groups are visited on nations, or even on the whole world. The innocent, the righteous, are punished together with the guilty. And the guilty, though on much rarer occasions, often benefit from the good deeds of the righteous. The reason is that every human being has a threefold destiny—as an individual, as a member of the smaller organic or functional group to which he belongs—the family, the nation etc.—and as a member of humanity.
A man may be a perfect “Tsadik” with nothing but good deeds to his credit, yet he cannot but share in the fate of the nation to which he belongs. And if the nation as such lives foolishly and is unable to manage its affairs competently and well, all will suffer within the nation, even the innocent; as all will benefit—even those of whom you may think that they do not deserve it—from a just and honourable administration of the group or the State.
In the same way, people may be relatively guiltless as a nation, as the Czechs were in the critical days of 1938 and 1939, as the peoples of Norway and Denmark were in 1940, as we Jews have been guiltless as a nation for the last 2,000 years, and yet they cannot but be involved in the guilt of the world around them.
We all live our own life in this threefold capacity—as individuals, as members of nations, and as members of mankind.
Individuals may be innocent, but theirs is also the destiny of their nation. Nations may be innocent, but theirs is also the destiny of humanity.
Our old traditions are right. We are judged as individuals, we are judged as nations, we are judged as mankind; and happiness or suffering, good or bad fortune, are the balance in hand that remains after the various destinies which are ours have found their equilibrium.
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Judaism sees mankind as one organic unit, constituted by the smaller units of the individual personality, the nation, etc., whose own life purposes must be in harmony with the purpose of the whole. And if this is so, the basic principle of all human relationships, of social, national, international, universal relationships, must be common responsibility. Being a constituent part of the whole makes me responsible for the whole; it makes whatever I do affect my fellow-men, the nation, the whole of mankind. The good that I do is to the benefit of all, the evil that I perpetrate is to the disadvantage of all.
And because of this, owing to the common responsibility in which we are bound to each other, ultimately we are all responsible for all the guilt, for all the sin in the world; just as we have a right to claim a share in all the merits of the world. In other words: National-Socialism and Fascism became possible owing to the common guilt of mankind, owing to the evil that is in man—in all of us. But, on the other hand, Roosevelt, Lease and Lend, the awe-inspiring heroism of the common people all over the world, are due to the goodness that is in man, in us, in every one of us.
Whether I shall have a good year or not does not depend on me alone, whatever my merits may be; it depends on you too. Whether we all together in this Synagogue shall have a happy New Year does not depend on us alone, whatever our merits may be; it depends on the next congregation, the next and the next. And whether we in all our congregations shall have peace and happiness in the coming year does not depend on our congregations alone, but also on what is being preached at this very moment in that church there across the road, and the next one, and the next. And so on, until the circle has been closed and all share in the destiny of all. In a deep and secret sense, all our neighbours, all our fellow-men, all mankind, are in us, and we are in them. As every cell of the human body in a mysterious way carries the mark of the whole personality and is in its own turn represented in the personality of the whole, so is the whole of mankind mirrored in every one of us and every one of us is depicted in the canvas of the whole.
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What are the practical consequences of the principle of common responsibility?
In the life of the individual or the community or the nation it means that every one of us is the keeper of his brother. The sorrow of the brother, his pain, his hunger, his agony, his lack of happiness, his lack of freedom, his lack of friendship, his loneliness, accuse us and make us guilty.
In the life of the nations, in international relationships common responsibility means that neutrality is immoral, that non-interference is guilt and isolation a crime; for they all represent various forms of the refusal to shoulder common responsibility, they all are artificial attempts at splitting the organic unity of mankind.
The terrible tragedy of this war has come upon us because people and nations refused to acknowledge in their actions the principle of common responsibility; because artificial barriers were erected between man and man, between one nation and the other; because individuals, groups and nations thought of themselves as independent, sovereign, self-contained units. There is no happiness, no peace, no comfort in this world because everyone thought only of himself, of his own happiness, of his own peaceful and comfortable life; because people and nations lived in the Cain-attitude of “Am I my brother’s keeper.”
“Yes, you are the keeper of your brother!” This is the message of Rosh Ha-shanah to-day to this tortured world, the message of the Day of Judgment on which we stand before our Heavenly Father as individuals, as nations, and as one humanity.
“You are the keeper of your brother” is the great message of God that reaches us through the catastrophes of our days. In all the awe-inspiring events around us one truth is illustrated again and again: the interdependence of all life on earth. This war is one terrible object-lesson in the theory and practice of common responsibility. And it can have but one end: a deepened sense of unity, of brotherhood, and at least the beginnings of a New World based on the realisation of common responsibility.
The ephemeral new lords of unhappy Europe who deny all this will be overthrown. And terrible will be the plight of those who stand in the way of the intentions and purposes of God.
Fear not. Have faith. Have courage. God cannot be defeated. **Cf. Maimonides, Yad he-Cha-zakah, Hilchot Teshuvah, iii, 4; Talmud, Kiddushin, 40 B.“For evil-doers shall be cut off; but those that wait for God, they shall inherit the land. And yet a little while, and the wicked is no more; yea, thou shall look well at his place, and he is not. But the humble shall inherit the land, and delight themselves in the abundance of peace” (Psalms xxxvii, 9-11).