Responsibility, Dee Caplan

I must admit that when Rabbi Jay asked me to contribute to this project I was daunted and felt insecure because I am not a Jewish scholar by any stretch of the imagination. This past year I have participated in Kavana’s teachings of Mussar, the study of soul traits that make us better human beings if we live with intention, reflection and purpose to elevate these traits within ourselves

During our most recent series of classes  we explored moral issues and ethical dilemmas when  a question was raised that resonated with me and led me to reflect on Alan Morinis’s  chapter on Responsibility in Everyday Holiness. Backing up though, the question that came up is “What do we owe each other?” It feels like a really important question given the times in which we live and I felt immediately connected to Morinis’s chapter on Responsibility. 

I want to share a story about myself. Growing up in Connecticut my family was not wealthy when my sister and I were young. One day my parents said they had a treat for us, we were going to see the play Oliver on Broadway in NYC and have a meal at Lindy’s, a now defunct but in the day, an incredible deli. I was so excited. We took the train from New Haven to Grand Central, a trip I had taken several times before. But this day I noticed Harlem for the first time.  In 1959 Harlem was a very poor, run down neighborhood in NYC, not the upscale, cool neighborhood it is today. I was shocked to see the slums, asphalt playgrounds with basketball hoops missing nets, kids with far too little warm clothing for that winter day. It had a huge impact, so much so that I was not able to enjoy the play or the special dinner and my parents wondered if I was sick. I remember telling them my 10 year old self’s variation of not knowing how to enjoy that day knowing what I had seen in Harlem. 

In the chapter on Responsibility, Morinis writes that the Hebrew word for Responsibility is achrayut and one root of that word, acher, means “other.” “Bearing the burden of the Other” partially begins to answer the haunting question of what do we owe each other.

To take responsibility for our actions seems self-evident but in today’s world there are so many examples where this is not the case. I like to imagine a world where we take responsibility for our actions for our own sense of well being as well as out of concern for each other. My actions have consequences. As Hillel says, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?  But if I am only for myself, what am I?”

I believe that one thing that we owe each other is to bear witness to one another, to be present and open, to be compassionate and to do our best to relieve suffering. I believe that we need to every day ask that question of ourselves, “What do we owe each other” and to find a way, big or small of living into an answer.