blogs/rabbi-huberman

Not On Bread Alone

During the 1990s, I served on a senior committee which provided advice to the journalism department at a college in Calgary, Canada. 

Twice a year, the college would fly our group in to offer insights, and these were used to improve its academic program, as well as its job placement strategies, when the college examined and amended its curricula.

Each year, among others, we were asked this set of questions:

"Which parts of the skill-set taught in our journalism school are useful, and which aren't?" 

"How are the college's journalism grads faring in the workplace?" 

"How can the college's journalism programs keep up with new technological trends?"

At one meeting, the department chair advanced a controversial suggestion. "We are proposing, during these challenging economic times," he told us, "to cut a lot of ethical and philosophical classes being offered by our department."

No more history of journalism. No more ethics of journalism. "If we can't establish a direct connection between the course's goals and our graduates finding jobs," said the dean, "that course has to go."

Furthermore, the dean announced, about a third of the classes would now be offered online, eliminating the stress of students travelling from home to the urban campus.

I listened while the panel, made up of editors, broadcasters, writers, and public relations executives, nodded and agreed that indeed, this would create more jobs, and would improve the college's bottom line.

"Good," said one editor. "Cut out the navel gazing. Teach more writing and reporting skills."

But the idea did not sit well with me. 

I waited for my chance to speak. When it came, I slowly, deliberately, recited words found in this week's Torah portion:

"Man does not live on bread alone."

"What?" asked the chair.

"Man does not live on bread alone," I repeated. And then explained my opposition to this proposal.

Indeed, I stressed, the richness that each of us contributes to the world must be based on more than a set of technical skills.  Rather, it must also be based on values and insights accrued by experience, training, and education.

Furthermore, I argued, classrooms -- physical classrooms, where students meet with their instructors and with their fellow students -- provide a healthy venue for the exchange of ideas, and have a role to play in a student's ethical evolution.

I stressed that while students are usually hired for the quality of their technical skills, lack of success in the long run often comes back to lack of maturity, values, and social skills -- and those are honed in the classroom.

I was not ultimately successful in encouraging the chair to amend this proposal, and over time I have observed this trend grow. 

Similar cuts have impoverished education almost everywhere, and as I witness the deterioration in classrooms across America of arts, culture, and even athletic programs. 

Is it any accident that to often society examines complex issues in black and white terms, rather than within the shades and complexities that they require.

At this time of year I'm reminded of that original journalism meeting as we read the Biblical verse which has been incorporated so seamlessly into modern culture: Man does not live on bread alone.

We find it within Deuteronomy 8:3: a reference to God providing manna in the desert. Each day, this physical nourishment appeared at sunrise.

But there's more to this quote  Our Sages remind us that the Israelites' expectation of manna each day required faith -- and faith, in turn, nurtured a sense of humility and spirituality. 

This phrase also reminds us that physical nourishment alone is not sufficient for a healthy life; we also need to feed our souls.

The great commentator Rabbi Joseph Hertz tells us: "Physical food is not the only thing that ensures man's existence. Apart from the normal sustenance, there are Divine forces which sustain man in his progress through life."

Rabbi Mark Saperstein teaches that humanity's thirst for physical comfort only leads to perpetual hunger.

"Don't think that your gastronomic pleasures, your fine foods and expensive wines, your conspicuous consumption of consumer goods, are what is ultimately important. There is much more to life than this," he said.

Friends, we live in a world transfixed by the ability to acquire. 

This ability has taken many forms over the millennia -- it has been power and might; it has been personal credit and reputation; and now that form is cash -- but the result of too much focus on acquisition has always been the same: an spiritual ache and lack of meaning which cannot be quelled. 

This week's Torah portion reminds us that God's creation is not sustained on mere survival or physical strength: we must balance it with spiritual depth and sustenance.

As we begin early preparations for the upcoming High Holidays, let us take advantage of the spiritual environment which God has provided.

Let us extract ourselves from the mesh of preoccupations that constantly threaten to make our worlds small and unfulfilled: repetitive television, obsessive computer journeys, and never-ending work pressures.

Let us focus on nourishing our souls.  Read a book. Take a walk. Reflect. Inhale.

Judaism teaches that our age-old tendency to obsess on physical comfort and material acquisition must be balanced by a focus on ethics, philosophy and healthy discourse. 

And through this focus, we are reminded this week: Man does not live on bread alone. As it was then, as it is today, we must remember to feed our souls.

A song written in 1911 by James Oppenheim states the case slightly differently:

"Hearts starve as well as bodies -- give us bread, but give us roses."

...

Shabbat Shalom, v'kol tuv (all good things)

Rabbi Irwin Huberman