Pirkei Avot -- Age Old Self-Help Wisdom

If you’re looking for a new line of business, try your hand at the world known as “self-help.” In 2008, the estimated U.S. sales of “self-help” literature, CD’s, DVD’s, weekend retreats and seminars is somewhere around 11 billion dollars. That’s right, there are lots of people around who claim they can tell you “how to..” -- lose weight, make friends, improve your relationship, and a host of other issues in your personal or professional life. These self-proclaimed “experts” have the quick answers to “make your life better,” and for a hefty price, they will happily share the information with you. 11 billion dollars in sales tells us that there are millions of people who are constantly looking to improve their lives, and are willing to pay top dollar to have somebody tell them how and what to improve.

Author Steve Salerno recently wrote a book titled “SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless.” The acronym in his title – SHAM (which means Self-Help & Actualization Movement) tells you what Salerno thinks about the mass marketing and sales of the “self–help” industry - that it’s all a sham, and that most self-help practitioners and gurus are what were once known as “snake oil salesmen.”

In addition to the financial sham of “SHAM,” there is one additional dishonesty that is most disturbing in this industry – the practitioners all claim that they are presenting “new paths,” “new wisdom” or “creative solutions” to improve your life. A quick glance at the “new wisdom” they are proclaiming shows that just about everything they present is nothing more than age-old proverbs and sayings, some of which are over two thousand years old.

The great Jewish rabbi and sage Hillel was no “snake-oil salesman.” He never sold one book, nor did he ever receive any honorariums for lectures, seminars or public appearances. His ageless and timeless wisdom is found everywhere in the Talmud, particularly in a special collection of ethical teachings called Pirkei Avot (Chapters of our Fathers – or, better rendered, Wisdom of our Sages). This collection of rabbinic wisdom was compiled two thousand years ago.

In the first chapter of Pirkei Avot, Hillel presents a pearl of wisdom that is the foundation for all self-help philosophy:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And being for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?

In these three questions, Hillel challenges the individual to take control of their own lives, to chart out a course of life with meaning and purpose, and to not put off for tomorrow what you can and should do today. Hillel presents this formula for success in a staged pattern:

A. Take control
B. Search for meaning
C. Take immediate action

Stroll into Border’s Books or Barnes & Noble Booksellers, take a quick look through their massive self-help and improvement section, and you will find that Hillel’s wisdom is the basis and foundation for most of the so-called “new and improved methods” found in self-help books.

Hillel’s teachings are wise, timeless, and highly recommended. His formula for success is neither a sham nor a part of the SHAM world. His wisdom is yours for the taking, free of charge.

The Trial of God

At the young age of fifteen, Elie Wiesel lived in a horrible place called Auschwitz. In his memoirs about this “hell on earth,” Wiesel tells a fascinating story about a Talmud teacher who befriended the young Elie, took him to his barracks, and told him that he would witness one of the greatest trials in all of world history: The Trial of God. Three rabbis, all prisoners in Auschwitz and witnesses to the daily death machine of the Nazis, decided that it was time to place God on trial.

They formed a rabbinic court (Bet Din), and conducted the trial completely in accordance with Halakha (Jewish Law). They gathered evidence against God, building a strong case against the “Holy One Blessed Be He.” The trial lasted several days, with the judges giving all those who wished a chance to speak their minds. Witnesses were heard, painful personal testimonies were given, and in the end, young Elie remarked in amazement how none of the witnesses even remotely defended God.

It was time to issue a ruling, and the rabbinic court pronounced a unanimous verdict: “The Lord God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth – guilty of crimes against creation, against humanity and against His own Chosen People of Israel.” Soon after this painful judgment was pronounced, followed by a reaction from the people that Wiesel describes as an “infinity of silence,” the rabbi presiding over the rabbinic court looked up to the sky, saw that the sun had set, and that the darkness of night was upon the world. This rabbi, who had just indicted God and pronounced Him guilty of crimes, looked towards the silenced crowd and said “Come, my friends, we have a minyan – it is time to pray Maariv (the evening prayer service).” The other members of the rabbinic court, together with the witnesses and the onlookers, all gathered around the rabbi to join in their evening prayers to God. The fifteen-year-old Wiesel watched this perplexing scene with utter amazement.

For those who experienced the horrors of the Holocaust, the “Trial of God” continues. They continue to recount the traumas of daily humiliation, subjugation and annihilation, wondering, with good reason “Where was God?” For them, no verdict will ever resolve this painful religious question, even as they recite Kaddish – a praise and exaltation of God – for their families and loves ones.

As we observe Yom Ha-Shoah (Holocaust Memorial Day), lighting candles with memorial prayers and Kaddish on our lips, we continue to contemplate the “silence of God” during the Holocaust, tormented at the same time by the “silence of good” during those dark years. “Where was God” is indeed a deeply religious question, but no less religious is the question “Where was humanity?”