The day is short, and the work is much . . .

Yuval Noah Harari says there is no objective evidence to support any moral system much less one system over another. He also says the unique feature of human beings, Sapiens, is our ability to create fictions and persuade others to believe them. And it’s all fiction. I agree with these thoughts, and it keeps me humble.

But I also believe there is purpose in our lives on this planet, as contradictory as that may seem, and it is and has always been to expand the circle of our compassion even as we tend to our own survival needs. That also keeps me humble. It’s hard and constant work. 

My belief in this purpose is what keeps me connected to my religion of choice. The primary purpose of every religion is to provide a framework to guide us toward that objective, expanding our circle of compassion, restraining our less generous instincts and standing against the less generous trends of the society in which we live.

In some ways those less generous instincts are grounded in a perception of the world outside ourselves as “the other” whom we need to defeat or around whom we at least need to be cautious and suspicious. That’s probably a necessary evolutionary characteristic — but we are at our best as humans when we find a balance between self-survival and other- awareness and empathy. Every religion “knows” this.

So I decided to do my work of expanding my circle of compassion, which requires removing some boundaries of perception, by  rethinking my relationship with other animals on the planet. I grew up in a time and culture when meat-eating was taken for granted, and a mental boundary was put in place early on between what was on my plate and where it came from. I find that as I remove those boundaries and blinders, it makes me more aware of other ways I need to widen the circle of compassion and try to see things through the eyes of others. 

Peeking under the curtain to see “the other,” reducing the mental boundaries between myself and “them,” is a task I will never complete and one at which I frequently fail. And often it’s just too painful to lift the curtain. But it’s also a task and purpose I want to remind myself to work on every day.

I think the major obstacle to experiencing and living our lives to the full is our perception of the world outside ourselves as “the other.” Each time we remove a boundary and experience a moment of connection, we realize our potential, meaning and purpose. The interesting thing is, we give that moment to the “other” at the same time.

“The day is short, the work is much, and the laborers are slothful. It is not incumbent upon you to finish the job, however, neither are you free from doing all you can to complete it.” – Rabbi Tarfon, Pirkei Avot (Ethics of Our Fathers 1:2)

לֹא עָלֶיךָ הַמְּלָאכָה לִגְמֹר, וְלֹא אַתָּה בֶן חוֹרִין לִבָּטֵל מִמֶּנָּה.