Before Shabbat

The first book I ever bought with my own money was Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man. It was a Bantam Pathfinder paperback with a black framed cover. In the middle was a painting of a man entirely covered with tattoos. I think it cost 50¢, which was 2 weeks of allowance.
I always loved speculating about the stars and the planets and aliens. So when one day, a family friend started talking about science fiction, I was on the lookout. In the little bookstore in Middletown on the corner of Court and Broad Street, I found the tiny Sci-Fi section and struck gold.
Two things really surprised me when I began reading Bradbury’s short story collection. One was how instantly accessible and enjoyable his writing was. The second was that, well, he was breaking the rule my English teachers always gave before any writing assignment: “Write what you know.” I was 10 years old, but I was certainly old enough to know that from the very first story, Bradbury was creating images entirely out of his imagination. I liked that so much!
We are all creators, inventors of narratives that we hatch deep in our unconscious. That’s what it means when the Torah says that we are created in God’s image. Of course it’s not about body type or skin color or the ability to procreate. We are like God because like the Holy One, we create narrative. We are storytellers, just like God.
“From all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive.” Hemingway wrote that, and I trust Hemingway to tell the truth about fishing, women, war, and writing. The great short story author, Bret Johnston once wrote, “Stories aren’t about things. Stories are things. Stories aren’t about actions. Stories are, unto themselves, actions.”
Ray Bradbury, who died last week at age 91, taught me to appreciate my own creativity and that of others, too. His best short stories took me into other worlds: flying to Mars, trying to stay sane in the rain forests of Venus, dealing with the loneliness of space, and more. Reading his work, like listening to great music, is entering another person’s universe and luxuriating, like all the people who lined up to enter John Malkovich’s head in the movie, Being John Malkovich. It’s all about amazement and wonder.
One night, at the Regatta Bar in Cambridge, I saw the late, great Michael Brecker. He was playing a tenor sax solo that was truly extraordinary. Deep, rich, complex, captivating, searching, weeping, exalting – it was all those things – and more. In the middle of the 7 minute solo he paused for a breath. I will never forget that moment. As he took his breath he opened his eyes and looked at his horn – his own horn – looked with amazement and awe. He was creating something new and profound that was beyond him. And he was the one creating it!
None of us will ever play the horn like Michael Brecker. None of us will probably ever write with the insight of Ray Bradbury. But each of us has the sacred power of creation. Each one of us, created in God’s image, can create a universe in our art, our sport, our appreciation. We can create space: supportive and loving space for our children, our partners, our friends.
Ray Bradbury once said, “Do what you love and love what you do.”
Amen. Goodbye Ray.

I am hardly a traditionalist, yet I must admit that I have said, more than once, “Some things will never change.” I never imagined that a black man would become president of the United States. I never imagined that I would become an Apple person (“I’ll never leave my PC behind!”). Of course when I was 10 I never imagined that I would eat salad or broccoli or actually anything green. And now I am a vegetable king!
I have remained resolutely certain that some things will never change within the ranks of our ultra-Orthodox brothers and sisters. After all, their mission is to stave off as much innovation and modernity as they can (see last week’s Before Shabbat about the anti-Internet rally) From this perspective, they could do harmony with Christian fundamentalists when they sing, “Give me that old time religion/It’s good enough for me”.
The fact that change is considered anathema for most traditionally religious people guarantees that there will never be women Catholic priests. The same truth guarantees that there will never be a female Orthodox rabbi. Some things will never change.
And yet… Rabbi Avi Weiss, a popular traditional rabbi who propounds what he calls open Orthodoxy created a yeshiva that instructs men and women. One of his brilliant students, Sara Hurwitz, was so distinguished that last year he ordained her. She is called rabba, the female variation of rabbi. He originally chose the title maharat, which is some sort of Hebrew acronym for “scholar” that almost nobody knows. So he changed his mind. “These developments represent a radical and dangerous departure from Jewish tradition,” declared Agudath Israel of America, ultra-Orthodoxy’s most authoritative rabbinic body. “Any congregation with a woman in a rabbinical position of any sort cannot be considered Orthodox.” Weiss, never a favorite among the hard-liners, was accused of sabotaging his community. Steven Pruzansky, a rabbi in Teaneck, New Jersey, wrote on his popular blog, “Those who seek to infiltrate the Torah with the three pillars of modern Western life—feminism, egalitarianism, and humanism—corrupt the Torah, cheapen the word of G-d.” [New York Magazine]
All of which goes to prove that if one is willing to stand the slings and arrows of fanatics, maybe it is possible to move things. Perhaps some things can change. Even amongst Orthodox Jews, albeit open Orthodox Jews, the unthinkable is happening. There lives an Orthodox rabbi who is a female – in my lifetime. Traditional Jews who abhor open Orthodoxy are right to be afraid. When an American Orthodox rabbi like Rabbi Pruzansky writes a blog condemning feminism, egalitarianism and humanism as not only contrary to Judaism, but destructive to it, then you know that Rabbi Weiss has cut too close to the bone. You know that change is going to come, kicking and screaming all the way.
Another huge transformation for female rabbis and for Reform Jews occurred this week in Israel. Now don’t get too excited. Remember, 3 women were arrested last Tuesday at the Kotel for wearing a tallit. No, that’s not a typo. Arrested for wearing a tallit. However, as that injustice was being perpetrated, in an unprecedented move, Israel has announced that it is prepared to recognize Reform and Conservative community leaders as rabbis and fund their salaries. Rabbis belonging to either stream will be classified as “rabbis of non-Orthodox communities.” The attorney general advised the High Court that the state will begin equally financing non-Orthodox rabbis in regional councils and farming communities that are interested in doing so.
The state of Israel, recognizing non-Orthodox rabbis? Men and women?? That will never happen… Only it has happened. Now before we break out the champagne, let’s review the extent of the compromise. The non-Orthodox rabbis will be called “community leaders” and not rabbis. They will have no authority to wed or perform halachic duties. They will however sit on various committees and get paid by the state like their Orthodox counterparts. They will be paid, not by the Religious Affairs department, but rather the Culture and Sports Ministry. Is this ideal? Hardly. But it’s a beginning. The precedent has been set.
Now it’s just a matter of time. And a matter of faith. Instead of proclaiming that some things will never change, it might be wiser and much more positive to repeat Sam Cooke’s lyric: “It’s been a long time coming/But a change is going to come.” And it will come. With God’s help. And with our dedication and hard work.

The drill goes like this: I call the kids and their entourage to the bimah individually.  I ask them about the various pictures on their poster, their favorite colors, etc.  It’s always great fun and it’s a highly anticipated event.  Some of the kids are very shy; others are ready to lead the entire event.

Today there were 3 superstars.  One was very shy, one was comfortable, and one was – well, let me tell you what happened. I called Sarah [not her real name] to the bimah.  As I surveyed her superstar poster I noticed that Sarah had placed in the most prominent position, a photo of her standing with a Disney Cinderella model.  I said to Sarah, “Who’s the beautiful princess in the picture?”  Without hesitation she said, “That’s me!”

Every adult in the sanctuary laughed.  It was a priceless Art Linkletter, “Kids Say the Darndest Things” moment.  I thought to myself, “You go, Sarah!  You are the princess!  Forget the blonde model next to you.  You’re the shining superstar!”

Somehow the kind of feeling Sarah has, that she is a beautiful princess, gets lost to so many of us as we get older.  To know adolescent girls is to know a litany of adjectives, pejorative and so sad, that they use to describe themselves: fat, pimply, gross, awkward, hairy, disgusting, and so forth.  Where does the confidence of a princess go? Men also have moments when as boys we see ourselves as strong, able-bodied jocks or as princes, only to fall victim to our own failing self-confidence. 

In the Torah portion, Shelach Lecha, from Numbers, 12 spies go out to scout the land of Israel.  Ten come back and say that giants lived in the land of milk and honey.  “When we saw them we felt like grasshoppers in comparison to them.”

God gets really angry with these guys.  Why, God wonders, don’t the 10 spies feel more confident?  Why don’t they say to each other, “Hey the inhabitants of the land of Israel are bigger than we are, but God’s sending us in there.  And if God says it’s ok, then we have to have the faith that it will be ok.”

Sarah looks in the mirror and sees a princess.  The spies look in the mirror and grasshoppers looks back.  The mirror isn’t broken.  It’s all about what’s inside the person who’s looking in the mirror.  We are so blessed with so much.  We have this gift of neshama: breath and soul.  Why do we all squander it on self-doubt and self-abnegation?  To see our beauty when we look in the mirror, all of us creations of God, that is a test of faith and confidence. 

I am so grateful for Sarah’s radiance this Shabbat.  I’m going to go look in the mirror now.  I won’t be expecting George Clooney smiling back.  But I will see a man blessed with so much naches. I will see a bald, bearded, big guy who’s so happy to be alive.  Now it’s your turn.  Who do you see?

Roger Sterling, one of the central characters of Madmen, turns to Don Draper, the main character and one of his partners in the ad firm they work for and co-own. Sterling I think is around 60 and Draper just turned 40. It is 1965, and all kinds of things are going on for them professionally and personally. And of course it’s the beginning of the Vietnam War and the blossoming of the civil rights movement. Sterling is a product of the WWII era, a roué and a bon vivant. If it were up to him, nothing would change: the moneyed class would continue to rule the board rooms and the bed rooms. The Jews, the blacks, and the ‘everyone -who -isn’t –rich- white and privileged’, would continue to feed on the scraps left behind by him and his exclusive team.
Don Draper, a Korean War vet straddles Sterling’s world and the Kulturkampf of the 60s. He’s old fashioned, yet realizes the world is surely changing. A part of him loves the drinking and the high life of the ad exec, yet he also sees it for what it truly is: a decadent life of excess.
After a particularly tough experience at the hands of a younger colleague of theirs, Roger turns to Don and asks him, “When are things going to get back to normal around here?” Don rolls his eyes and the episode ends. We the viewers know the answer: things aren’t going to be returning to normal. Ever. Their world is forever in flux.
There is no “normal” anymore. The myth of normal, a time when everything was better and calmer and easier is an old dream. In fact, it’s historically a messianic ideal. Gershom Sholem, the 20th century master of Jewish mysticism studies, called this yearning for the old days ‘restorative messianism.’ This belief suggests that when the Messiah comes the world will return to the glorious past. But what is the past for a downtrodden people? What’s it worth for a woman or an African American or a poor, underprivileged person? One cannot, in the words of Firesign Theatre, go “forward into the past.”
There is no normal anymore. Things are not going to get easier. Things are not going to get less complicated. Things are not going to quiet down. We are all on an E ticket ride, moving ever faster as we live ever longer. Our restorative messianic ideal will forever be a dream. Our technology has changed so much around us. Our compassion and progressive spirit have brought millions of people out of the chains of the past to a present sense of openness and freedom. When President Obama finally spoke in support of gay marriage, I thought it one of the most presidential of announcements he’s ever made. It was not a statement from the past. It could never have been made from inside the past.
We live in a world of change. And even as we Reform Jews revere our ancestors and their lives, we do not and cannot glorify the past. We learn from the past. We admire various things of the past. But we’re right here, right now. Steve Miller once sang, “Time keeps on slipping into the future.” That’s the stream to follow.
There is no normal anymore. That’s nothing to be sad about. It’s something to acknowledge. And celebrate.
Shabbat Shalom
rebhayim

Teresa MacBain is, or at least, was, a Methodist minister in Tallahassee, Florida, at Lake Jackson United Methodist Church.  At some point she began questioning her faith in God.  She wondered how to reconcile the existence of God and evil. The stories of divine intervention and resurrection confused her. “She says she sometimes felt she was serving a taskmaster of a God, whose standards she never quite met.  For years, MacBain set her concerns aside. But when she became a Methodist minister nine years ago, she started asking sharper questions. She thought they’d make her faith stronger.” [NPR, April 30]

Her questions did not lead her to faith-restoring insight.  In fact, as her questions grew more systemic, her faith shrank.  Last month on the way to Sunday services she realized that she had crossed a line: MacBain decided that she was an atheist.  She actually didn’t let anyone else know her decision – it was her secret for a while, until she attended an Atheist convention – yes, there are atheist conventions.  At that convention she publicly declared that she was an atheist too.

The news story: minister comes out as atheist, was prominent in Tallahassee media. MacBain never imagined the response.  Lots of hate mail came her way. Her congregation literally locked her out of the church. Her husband, a police officer, had to go in and pick up her things, which were already packed into boxes.

A crisis of faith, a dark night of the soul, can be shattering.  To lose faith in God can feel profoundly alienating; it can change the warp and woof of the universe.  Sometimes it’s a permanent condition.  Other times it’s indicative of a continual dialectical tension.

For Jews, the God question is enormous.  It is part of our faith to question our faith.  In fact the more questions we ask the more we enter into a deep and thoughtful relationship to the idea of God.  Our relationship to the idea may lead us into a personal relationship with God.  Or it may lead us to reject God.  The point is not to believe for believing’s sake.  The point is to think about God, to challenge ourselves to dig deep and face what we define as the truth of our faith.

I wondered after I heard Teresa MacBain interviewed on NPR; what would happen if I went to an atheist convention somewhere in Boston and then spoke to a local reporter about how I had decided that I was an atheist?  How would my life change?  I imagined coming to the temple on Monday morning.  Would my stuff be in boxes on the curb?  Would the lock be changed on my office door?  Would I receive hate mail?

In fact, I think if I’d been on tv declaring that I was an atheist, when I came in the next morning, folks would say good morning. “Hey!” they’d continue, “I saw you on tv!”  And that would be the extent of the furor.  Sure, some folks would be upset.  A few folks would write angry emails to the Jewish Advocate, no doubt.  But truthfully, for Jews, the whole atheist-agnostic-believer continuum is a matter of private choice, even for Orthodox Jews.  If you live a life of being a mensch, of performing deeds of lovingkindness, of giving tzedakah, your theology is of secondary importance.

What we believe and how we believe is an ongoing complex of age and health and experience.  The point is to be involved in the discussion.  It is not following some script – it is following one’s heart.  How lucky to be Jewish, to be able to speak out loud of one’s doubt and not get castigated for it.  To believe or not to believe in God is not simply a statement.  It’s an ongoing struggle for truth.  It’s a living dynamic filled with tears and pain and exaltation and celebration.  No one’s getting locked out the temple for that.

In February 2010 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division were assigned to check out reports that Afghan police had recovered the mangled remains of an insurgent suicide bomber. They were ordered to get iris scans and fingerprints for identification. 

Soldiers arrived at the police station in Afghanistan’s Zabol province in February 2010. They inspected the body parts.

God knows I can’t imagine what it’s like to be on such a mission, to deal with the gruesome aftermath of a heinous act.  I know someone has to do such things, I’m just glad it’s not me. It’s one of the many modern parts of warfare, logging iris scans of the dead.

After the paratroopers did their work, something happened.  Some deep vortex opened amongst this forensic team.  They decided it would be fun – how else can I put it? – to desecrate the suicide bomber’s corpse.  They posed for photos next to Afghan police, grinning, I might add while some held – and others squatted beside – the corpse’s severed legs.  They next took the upper torso and posed with it, too.

Twelve of the pictures from that day were sent to the LA Times, where 2 of them were published.  I saw the photos, and they are horrible on several different levels.  Morally and legally and professionally they are despicable. 

These two photos are actually the most graphic anti-war statements I’ve seen in a long time.  They depict what war and hatred do to people, who are not otherwise sociopathic or psychopathic.  The photos depict what happens when the ‘Other’, the enemy, is no longer determined as human at all, but rather as an object. 

War and hatred dehumanize us, make us susceptible to our basest instincts.  It can make people mad with power, can twist and distort their ethics.  The poison that ran through the souls of those paratroopers smiling beside a pair of severed legs is a derivative of the same poison that moved a suicide bomber to kill innocent people.

The great Jewish ethics battle is essentially acknowledging the battle between the yetzer tov and the yetzer ha-ra: the impulse for good and the impulse for evil.  As opposed to many forms of Christian ethics, Jewish ethics doesn’t posit evil to be some independent force that’s outside of us, seeking to break in. The yetzer tov and the yetzer ha-ra are both occupants deep inside of us.  We don’t seek to remove the yetzer ha-ra; we can’t remove it.  We seek to master it by appealing to the yetzer tov and subduing our evil impulse.  The struggle between the yetzer tov and the yetzer ha-ra is a daily one.  We cannot be perfect; we strive only to be strong enough to let the inner mensch win out.

It all begins in acknowledging the sacredness of life itself, the notion that every man, woman, and child is endowed with the divine spark.  It is all based on the remarkably trite and true Jewish teaching that we are all God’s children, that when we look at another human being we are not looking at an ‘Other’; we are looking at an extension of our selves.  How we treat the dead, particularly if they are our enemy, is a true moral test.  It is an indication as to the integrity of our yetzer tov.

Those 2 photos are a lasting reminder of how war and prolonged hatred can strengthen the yetzer ha-ra.  They are a sad testimony as to what violence does to the yetzer tov.  Because there is no ‘Other’.  It’s all us.  

I’m not a journalist, though I may have been one in a previous life. Suffice to say that I am a news junkie. Following the news has always been a part of my consciousness. I grew up in a home where dinner time was coordinated with CBS Evening News. That is, we absolutely never ate while Walter came on – before or after Walter only. Walter Cronkite was like a member of the family, part jocular uncle, part international oracle. Whatever Walter said was the truth. He’d never try to trick us or sugarcoat anything. Walter was the shaft of light in the darkness, the guy who helped me through the assassination of JFK, the flight of Friendship Seven, the Six Day War, the debacle of Vietnam, the deaths of Bobby and Martin, and so much more. Walter will always be my journalist par excellence.
In pre-modern times people knew so little about the world in which they lived. Ignorance was the general state of humanity. The first newspaper appeared in 1665. Prior to that was lots of rumors, fears, and superstitions. Gaining insight into current events was like being given the gift of super powers! In fact, I feel that way in the 21st century. That I can talk about what’s happening in China, or Rwanda, or Israel, or Syria, and rely on the information I read or hear or see, is an enormous gift, an embarrassment of riches. This knowledge enables me to be a true citizen of the world. It reminds me of the gifts and responsibilities of my freedom. It also illuminates the truth that without a free press there is no true freedom.
To think of journalists not just as storytellers, but as agents of freedom, is not just an illusion. We know over the years the mighty few who believed themselves above the Law were taken down not by the Law at first, but rather by an inquisitive press. I know, there are lots of muckrakers who care about the byline and not the veracity of the story. The celebrity news industry, a 24/7 monster consumes more garbage than a pen of hungry goats. Then it pumps out foolish and brain numbing excrement about everyone from a prepubescent kid with an average voice who ends up a star for now, to weeping about a has-been singer known, let’s face it, more for her excesses than her talents, to the latest divorce of 2 narcissistic mega stars, and so on. All that isn’t journalism – it’s rather creepy entertainment. I’m talking about the real thing and the real practitioners. People like Anthony Shadid, who died yesterday.
Jill Abramson, the executive editor of the New York Times, wrote to the newspaper’s staff Thursday evening in an e-mail. “Anthony died as he lived – determined to bear witness to the transformation sweeping the Middle East and to testify to the suffering of people caught between government oppression and opposition forces,” she wrote. Amen, Jill. If journalists shed light in dark places, then Shadid used a spotlight. As I said last week, “A hero is a person who does something above and beyond the call of duty. A hero is a person who stands up and demands that justice be served, even in the face of daunting odds.” Shadid was truly a hero, risking his life all over the world to give us a clearer story, and a shot at the truth.
Of course, the side story for this sad loss is that my hero died on the Turkey – Syria border, not by bullets or mines or an IED. Shadid, an asthmatic, apparently died due to his asthma brought on by an allergy to horses that were being used to help him sneak in and out of Syria. Oy, it breaks my heart. The bravest men and women are as vulnerable as we are, sitting at home in our sweats and reading articles by giants like Anthony Shadid. We’re all fragile creatures, prone to various ailments and aches and pains. No one is immune from tsuris. Our condolences go to his wife and children and family.
I’m going to miss Shadid and his insights into the Middle East. I’ve lost a set of trustworthy eyes in a very complicated part of the world. Shadid was one of my most important go-to guys for the real truth of the Arab Spring. His writing was not only incisive, it was from the heart. One could always identify an Anthony Shadid piece. It always evidenced his singular combination of authority, acumen and style as well as reflecting the humanity of those whom he was covering. Always. His obituary gives a deeper sense of his talent and heart.
We need journalists – heroes – like Anthony Shadid. We need men and women who dare to follow the truth and then expose it, even when it is at great personal risk. May his soul rest in peace. May his work inspire all of us to reach out of our comfort zones to shed the light of truth and peace.
Shabbat Shalom
rebhayim

How do you define the word, hero? It’s used all the time; so much so that it feels almost commonplace. And yet, by my definition, a hero is anything BUT quotidian. A hero is a person who does something above and beyond the call of duty. A hero is a person who stands up and demands that justice be served, even in the face of daunting odds. That would include the Chinese man who stood before a column of tanks near Tiananmen Square in 1989 [who by the way, has never been identified; in the press he is forever known as Tank man.]. It would include Jeffrey Olsen, a firefighter who desperately tries to save lives on 9/11, only to perish later that day. It would include Rosa Parks, who dared to sit down at the front of the bus, and not in the back. It would include Hiram Bingham IV, the U.S. diplomat credited with saving more than 2,000 Jews and other refugees in France from the invading Nazis [the U.S. Postal Service has just honored his memory with a US postage stamp].
Of course I could go on and on. My point: these are not your average people. They are extraordinary. That is why they are heroes. I want to clarify the importance of setting true heroes apart so that we might learn from them and be inspired to perform courageous acts. Not to be heroes – anyone who wants to be a hero is immediately disqualified from wearing the title. It’s all about stepping up, or to paraphrase a famous quote from Maimonides, “In a place where there is no man, be a man.”
I just added a hero to my list. Until this week I never knew his story. Roger Boisjoly (pronounced like the wine Beaujolais) was a booster rocket engineer at NASA contractor Morton Thiokol in Utah who worked on the Challenger Space Shuttle team. Up until this week, I had always thought that Morton Thiokol engineers knew that there were problems with the O rings but remained silent for fear that the flight of the Challenger would be delayed and that they would be criticized by NASA for not working efficiently. The results, of course, were disastrous. The Challenger exploded mid-air, killing the entire crew: Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, teacher Christa McAuliffe,Gregory Jarvis, and Jewish astronaut Judith Resnik.
Boisjoly in fact noticed that the elastic seals – the O rings – at the joints of the multi-stage booster rockets tended to stiffen and unseal in cold weather. He was concerned about launching a shuttle in January: even in Florida, where it can get actually get cold – well, coldish. So he sent an internal memo, bluntly writing, “The result could be a catastrophe of the highest order, loss of human life.”
Managers at NASA and colleagues at Morton Thiokol immediately sought to shut him up. They belittled him, saying he was Chicken Little. Some at NASA management pushed him to “prove” that the Shuttle would explode if it went off on January, as planned. Boisjoly, remembering that conversation, said that he had never, as an engineer, been asked to prove that something would NOT happen, only what MIGHT happen. He couldn’t prove that it would blow up, even though there was enough evidence to show sure signs of danger.
Undeterred, Boisjoly kept hounding Morton Thiokol management and NASA, demanding accountability. On the night of Jan. 27, 1986, with a forecast of record cold for Florida the morning of the launch, Mr. Boisjoly and four other Thiokol engineers used a teleconference with NASA to press the case for delaying the next day’s launching. At one point, Mr. Boisjoly said, he slapped down photos showing the damage cold temperatures had caused to an earlier shuttle. It had lifted off on a cold day, but not this cold.
“How the hell can you ignore this?” he demanded. At first this seemed persuasive, according to commission testimony. Makers of critical components had the power to postpone flights.
Four Thiokol vice presidents, all engineers themselves, went offline to huddle. They later said that they had worried they lacked conclusive data to stop a launching that had already been postponed twice. They thought the naysayers might be operating on gut reaction, not science.
Jerry Mason, Thiokol’s general manager, told his fellow executives to take off their engineering hats and put on management hats. They told NASA it was a go.
The next morning Mr. Boisjoly watched the launching. If there was going to be a problem, he thought it would come at liftoff. As the shuttle cleared the tower, his prayers seemed answered.
“Thirteen seconds later,” Mr. Boisjoly said, “we saw it blow up.”
Roger Boisjoly did all he could to delay the flight, but he could not cut through the hubris of NASA and Thiokol management. The explosion and the responses of NASA and Morton Thiokol truly traumatized him. He eventually left after suffering debilitating headaches, panic attacks, and the snubbing by certain folks at Thiokol who resented him for “selling them out.”
Boisjoly spent the rest of his life speaking at conferences all over the world about forensic engineering and about the responsibility of scientists to the people involved in the projects and not the managers who ran them. He once said to his wife that his mission in life was teaching young people the ethical decision-making they would be called upon to use.
Roger Boisjoly risked his reputation, his job security, and contested the status quo, to save lives. He stood up and demanded accountability from the people for whom he worked. People like Boisjoly set the bar higher for us all. Maybe that’s the ultimate mark of a hero: someone who reminds us of what it means to believe in others and then to stand up for them. A hero reminds us of who we have the power to become, namely a better human being.
Shabbat Shalom
rebhayim