Finding the balance between good and evil is difficult in today’s world, but never more important

In English, Yom Kippur is called the Day of Atonement. In a common play on words, it’s often referred to as a “Day of At-One-Ment,” a day for seeking to become more at one with ourselves, our community, world and God.

As of this Yom Kippur, I feel profoundly not at one with my nation and world.

Our nation is involved in a war that is questionable at best, in which humans are dying every day. No one seems to know how to get out of it, with the possible exception of the current administration. They have a plan – stay the course, then let the next administration clean up the mess. It’s hardly a mature approach.

We live in a world in which too many people refuse to recognize the spark of the divine in too many other people. If you aren’t on my side, you are less than human, and I can do whatever I want to you, including kill you, torture you, or lock you up and throw away the key.

Legal norms are ignored in the name of security. We are told we must give up freedoms to save our freedom. It sounds like an oxymoron.

It brings to mind Lt. William Calley, who during Vietnam was tried for ordering his soldiers to kill civilians so they wouldn’t fall into Viet Cong hands, in a village called My Lai. “In order to save them, we had to kill them,” Calley was quoted as saying, echoing a great American slogan of the 1950s: “Better dead than Red.”

Are there really only two choices, extreme black and extreme white? A more mature understanding of the world will probably reveal many shades of gray.

The 1950s also seem to be making a comeback in Louisiana, as well. In Jena, La., six black high school students were charged with the attempted murder of a white classmate, after some white students had attacked black students and were not charged with anything. All this happened because some black students had the hutzpah to sit in the shade of a tree that had been the territory of white students.

Excuse me – has anyone seen the last 50 years I seem to be missing?

Meanwhile, our airwaves and print journals are filled with updates about real giants of world importance: Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, O.J. Simpson, etc. It was refreshing in June to hear about anchorwoman Mika Brzezinski, who, when handed one Paris Hilton story too many, tore up the script – on the air.

It’s nice to know somebody still has a sense of proportion!

We are told more than a billion people hate us, because we are Americans and they are Muslim. Again, maybe this view is too black and white. Yes, of course, there are Muslims that hate America. There are also Muslims who love America; some of them are citizens of this country. One of them is a member of Congress.

Some Muslims see the basic values of this country as parallel to the basic values of Islam, and they would like to see some of those American values exported to Muslim-majority countries. If we don’t hear about them, maybe its because our media prefers showing the screaming terrorist types, not moderate voices of reason.

It makes for better ratings, which are, after all, what it’s about.

We watch the news on television and think we know what’s happening in the world. Some of us remember when Walter Cronkite would conclude the CBS evening news with his pompous declaration: “And that’s the way it is.”

No, Walter. That’s the way it was portrayed within the limited time given to hard news, the limited frame picked up by the camera, and through editors guided by “If it bleeds, it leads.”

If it was true then, it’s more true now.

Cronkite and his television contemporaries, at least, were real journalists who tried to give a balanced picture, although they were limited by the medium. They have since been replaced by big mouths and pretty faces. We, in this privileged country, no longer know “the way it is” in the world.

I’m not suggesting we do without the privileges – the standard of living, the freedoms that we enjoy, and so on. I suggest we find ways to learn how it is in the rest of the world, in which our privileges are as unreal to many as the Emerald City.

Americans are shocked and hurt when told people around the world don’t like us. After all, our democratic system and standard of living are, as we see it, the goals toward which the rest of the world should strive. Perhaps so.

But many people in traditional societies, who would love our democratic system and standard of living, don’t like the greed, materialism, and almost unlimited sexual license they see in our culture. From their viewpoint, it’s all one package. Of course, this country has many things to offer the world. But not everything we have is worthy of export. Such as our obsession with celebrity, and how sex is used to sell everything from car tires to mouthwash.

Maybe, if we became more aware of the arrogance with which we relate to the rest of the world – politically and culturally – we would understand why so many people don’t like us. The poet Robert Burns wrote: “Would some power the gift to give us to see ourselves as others see us.” May it come to pass.

Until it does, what can we do about all the things that keep us from feeling “At-One” with the world?

In the Jewish tradition, Rabbis teach humans are neither intrinsically good nor evil. We are inclined to selfishness and selflessness. Our task as humans, created in Divine image with free will, is balancing these inclinations.

A story is told about a Native American shaman, who describes a constant battle within him between good and evil, like two dogs fighting. One of his listeners asks, “Which dog usually wins?” His answer was, “Whichever one I feed the most.” This is our task: to feed the dogs within us in a way they are kept in balance.

This balance between the good and evil inclinations within us that can lead to the “At-One-Ment” we seek within ourselves. This balance can help us find balance between the openness of our democratic system and the greed and perversion such a system, when unbalanced like now, can allow.

It is balance between inclinations that can help us understand not everyone in the world sees everything the same way we do – and this doesn’t make them wrong, or evil. It just makes them different.

Of course, there are things other people do in light of their beliefs that are wrong or evil. Morality isn’t relative. But our task on this day of seeking “At-One-Ment” is to look within ourselves. We can’t change others, we can only change ourselves. Our task is to engage in our annual accounting of the soul, and see if our good and evil inclinations are balanced, on all our levels of our human lives.

The more those inclinations are in balance, the greater the chance that we will experience the At-One-Ment we seek, with ourselves, our families, community, nation and world.

Rabbi Hillel Katzir is spiritual leader of Temple Shalom Synagogue in Auburn. This article was adapted from a sermon he delivered earlier this year to his congregation for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.