When did people
start talking about “Bucket
Lists”? The term was
popularized by the 2007 movie “The Bucket List” starring
Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as terminally ill patients who flee the
hospital to pursue their to-dos before they die. The origin of the term “bucket list” seems to be a book self-published by Patrick M.
Carlisle in 2004 entitled Unfair & Unbalanced: The Lunatic Magniloquence
of Henry E. Panky. Here’s
the source sentence: “So, anyway, a Great
Man, in his querulous twilight years, who doesn’t
want to go gently into that blacky black night. He wants to cut loose, dance on
the razor’s edge, pry the lid off his bucket list!” A cursory check reveals
dozens of websites offering 25, 100, 800, even 1000 things to do before you die
and numerous books and journals encouraging us to focus on the accumulation of
experiences while we have the chance. This raises an age-old question: Which is
more important, what we do in our lives (and, as a corollary, how
much we do), or how we do it? In a sense, it is a
quantity-versus-quality question. Added to that: does the answer to that
question change as we age?
Parshat Re’eh opens with the
famous challenge laid at the feet of the Israelites to “do it all”:
רְאֵה, אָנֹכִי נֹתֵן
לִפְנֵיכֶם--הַיּוֹם: בְּרָכָה, וּקְלָלָה. אֶת-הַבְּרָכָה--אֲשֶׁר תִּשְׁמְעוּ, אֶל-מִצְוֹת יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם, אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוֶּה אֶתְכֶם, הַיּוֹם. וְהַקְּלָלָה, אִם-לֹא תִשְׁמְעוּ אֶל-מִצְוֹת יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם, וְסַרְתֶּם מִן-הַדֶּרֶךְ, אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוֶּה אֶתְכֶם הַיּוֹם: לָלֶכֶת, אַחֲרֵי אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים--אֲשֶׁר לֹא-יְדַעְתֶּם.
See,
this day I set before you blessing and curse: blessing if you obey the
commandments of the Lord your God that I enjoin upon you this day; and curse if
you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn away from the
path that I enjoin upon you this day and follow other gods, whom you have not
experienced. (Deuteronomy 11:26-28)
Torah wants us to “do it all,” but the Torah’s bucket list is mitzvot. As the sedra
continues, Moses instructs the Israelites that when they enter the Land of
Israel, and are safely settled,
וְהָיָה הַמָּקוֹם, אֲשֶׁר-יִבְחַר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם בּוֹ לְשַׁכֵּן שְׁמוֹ שָׁם--שָׁמָּה תָבִיאוּ, אֵת כָּל-אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוֶּה אֶתְכֶם:
עוֹלֹתֵיכֶם וְזִבְחֵיכֶם, מַעְשְׂרֹתֵיכֶם
וּתְרֻמַת יֶדְכֶם, וְכֹל מִבְחַר
נִדְרֵיכֶם, אֲשֶׁר תִּדְּרוּ לַיהוָה
Then
you must bring everything that I command you to the site where the Lord your
God will choose to establish [God’s] name: your burnt
offerings and other sacrifices, your tithes and contributions, and all the
choice votive offerings that you vow to the Lord. (Deuteronomy 12:11)
Midrash Sifrei tells
us that מִבְחַר נִדְרֵיכֶם “choice votive
offerings” intends not only offerings that people bring of
their own accord—free
will offerings—but
that they should be the choicest, the best offerings that they can
bring. When we ponder the quality of offerings, we might want to consider the
story of the first offerings: those of the first siblings, Cain and Abel. Torah
tell us that Cain was a farmer and Abel was a shepherd. Of their own volition,
they each brought offerings to God:
וַיְהִי, מִקֵּץ יָמִים; וַיָּבֵא קַיִן מִפְּרִי הָאֲדָמָה, מִנְחָה--לַיהוָה. ד וְהֶבֶל
הֵבִיא גַם-הוּא מִבְּכֹרוֹת צֹאנוֹ, וּמֵחֶלְבֵהֶן; וַיִּשַׁע יְהוָה, אֶל-הֶבֶל וְאֶל-מִנְחָתוֹ. ה וְאֶל-קַיִן וְאֶל-מִנְחָתוֹ, לֹא שָׁעָה…
In the
course of time, Cain brought an offering to the Lord from the fruit of the
soil; and Abel, for his part, brought the choicest of the firstlings of his
flock. The Lord paid heed to Abel and his offering, but to Cain and his
offering [God] paid no heed… (Genesis 4:3-5)
Why does God graciously accept Abel’s gift, but ignore Cain’s offering? Bereishit
Rabbah 22:5 famously interprets: Abel brought the best of his flock: the
firstborn sheep. Cain brought the worst of his crop to unload on God. The
result was disastrous for all concerned: Cain killed Abel and lived forever in
exile. The Sages are telling us that quality matters. In fact, it matters very
much. Notice that Cain and Abel brought different sacrifices—one brought produce
and the other firstlings of the flock—yet the Sages sees fit to compare them. We are
not told the quantity of their gifts to God—how would we compare a certain quantity of
produce to a certain number of firstlings anyway?—yet they are compared. Here’s the key: The Sages
understand that God is not comparing the sacrifices themselves to one
another; God is comparing the efforts of Cain and Abel, each to his potential.
Cain brought something; Abel brought the best he had to offer. What God wants
from us is not quantity, but the quality of our effort because it reflects our
devotion and caring. God wants us to do our best and give our best.
Rabbi Eliyahu
Dessler (1892 – 1953) was a Talmud scholar and spiritual advisor in
the Ponevezh Yeshivah in Israel. In Mikhtav Me-Eliyahu, a collection of
his correspondence and ethical writings published posthumously by two of his
disciples, he provides another example which is perhaps far more helpful. It
concerns Enoch[1], the father of
Methuselah.
The Torah writes of
Enoch, who was the seventh generation after Adam, And Enoch walked with God
(Genesis 5:22), concerning which the Rabbis say: “Enoch was a cobbler, and with every single
stitch that he made he achieved mystical unions with his Creator.”[2] I have heard a
beautiful explanation of this in the name of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter[3] of blessed memory,
an interpretation which is indeed typical of his whole approach. He said that
this midrash cannot possibly mean that while [Enoch]
was sitting and stitching shoes for his customers his mind was engaged on
mystical pursuits. This would be forbidden by the din [Jewish law]. How
could he divert his attention to other matters while engaged in work that he
had been hired to do by others? No, says Rabbi Yisrael [Salanter]; the “mystical unions” which Enoch achieved were neither more nor less
than the concentration that he lavished on each and every stitch to ensure that
it would be good and strong and that the pair of shoes he was making would be a
good pair, giving the maximum pleasure and benefit to whomever would wear them.
In this way Enoch achieved union with the attribute of his Creator, who
lavishes his goodness and beneficence on others. This was his “mystical union”: he was united and
wholehearted in his desire, his single-minded ambition, to attach himself to
his Creator’s attributes. Of course, as a natural consequence
[Enoch] was protected from any hint of evil or wrongdoing. There could be
no question of his ever deceiving or over-reaching his customers, even
unwittingly. His “taking” would never exceed the value of the work he was
doing, the measure of his “giving.”
Rabbi Dessler,
following the tradition of the Rabbis, emphasizes the quality of human effort
and devotion over the quantity of what we produce: each stitch Enoch sewed was
the finest he could sew.
It would seem that
tradition weighs in heavily on the quality over quantity of our experiences.
Does that mean that making a bucket list is a bad idea? Certainly some lists
are merely an array of exotic and exciting travels and experiences, including
items such as: skydiving, hike to Machu Pichu, climb Everest, travel around the
world, snorkel at Ras Mohammed. But it is possible to balance “quantity” with “quality,” the
“what” with the “how.” One
of the many websites devoted to helping us formulate our own personal bucket
list tells us: “If
you don’t live your days by personal goals and plans,
chances are you spend most of your time caught up in a flurry of day-to-day
activities. Ever feel your days are passing you by without any tangible output
to speak of? What did you accomplish in the past 3 months? What are your
upcoming goals for the next 3 months? Look at the things you did and the things
you’re planning to do next – Do
they mean anything to you if you are to die today? Having a bucket list reminds
you of what’s really important so you can act on them.”[4] And therein lies
the key: what’s really important.
Celestine Chua, the
woman who shares this bucket list on her personal development blog, “Personal Excellence,” lists some of the more typical entrees you’ll find on other
lists:
•
Travel around the world
•
Learn a new language
•
Run a marathon, or participate in a triathlon
•
Do an extreme sport
•
Climb a mountain
Those goals might
sound rather exotic or perhaps self-serving to you. But keep reading. Celestine
also lists:
•
Witness a sunrise, or sunset, or solar eclipse
•
Go for a walk in the rain
•
Fly a kite
These are more
modest and, for many of us, more achievable.
But Celestine also
includes these:
•
Befriend a stranger
•
Connect with past teachers [or friends]
•
Let someone know how much s/he means to you
•
Perform a kind deed without expecting anything in return
•
Be a mentor to someone
•
Read a book on a subject you never thought to read about
What we put on our
bucket list says a lot about what kind of people we are. Prioritizing according
to our moral values is the key to developing a list that balances “quantity” with “quality” so
that our lives are not focused on how much we have but how good we are. What’s on your bucket
list?
© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman
[1] Enoch is mentioned in an extended genealogy in Genesis that
traces the generations from Adam to Noah, about whom Torah cryptically says: Enoch
walked with God; then he was no more, for God took him (Genesis 5:24). On
the basis of this verse, it was surmised that Enoch never died. Rather, God
took him to heaven at the end of his life on earth. Accordingly, there are
numerous pseudepigraphical and apocryphal books about Enoch.
[2] Rabbi Eliyahu ha-Kohen of Izmir, Midrash Talpiot.
[3] Rabbi Yisrael b. Ze'ev Wolf Lipkin (1810 – 1883) was the founder of the Musar (Jewish ethics)
movement.
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