“It’s all good” is a phrase we often use to express the belief that everything that happens to us is for an inherently good purpose, even if we don’t experience it as such at the time.
But is everything really good? Judaism calls attention to myriad distinctions: between holy and unholy, between Shabbat and the six days of the week, between mitzvah and transgression.
We distinguish the age of bar/bat mitzvah as the dividing line between adult and child, and in the marriage ceremony — called “Kiddushin” or “separation” — we make a clear distinction between the married and the unmarried state.
Several of our prayers thank G-d for granting us wisdom to discern darkness from light. But why are we called upon to draw these distinctions; why not simply embrace that which clearly represents light, goodness and wisdom?
In his song “Imagine,” John Lennon called upon his generation to picture a world of “living for today,” — a world without the distinctions taught by religion and without any consequences (no “heaven or hell”) to disturb our conscience or interfere with our satisfaction.
Jewish thinking seeks satisfaction in a different direction.
In a dramatic showdown atop Mount Carmel, as recorded in I Kings 18, the prophet Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to a contest. Each camp would offer a sacrificial bull upon an altar; the one that would be consumed by divine fire would be proved to have been offered to the true deity.
Elijah called upon the people of Israel to choose between G-d-centered morality, and the corruption and licentiousness characteristic of Baal worship.
“How long will you go on wavering between both sides?” he said. “If G-d is the Lord, follow him, and if Baal is, follow him” (I Kings 18:21).
A passage from Midrash literature describes a conversation between Elijah and the spirit, or representing angel, of the animal representing the Baal.
“My fellow bullock and I,” complained the spirit, “both grew up in the same pasture: he goes up to the portion of G-d, and sanctify the Name of the Holy One Blessed be He, and I go up to the portion of Baal to anger my Creator?!”
Elijah replies, “In the same way that the Name of the Holy One Blessed Be He will be sanctified by the bull that is with me, so too will it be sanctified through you.”
In a marriage, a man may say, “I’ll do anything for my wife,” and he gives her gifts, helps around the house and does many admirable things. But what about the thing she asks him not to do? Will he give that up for the sake of the oneness of their relationship?
Will a wife stop doing the things that make her husband unhappy? Or will they stay on the surface and only deal with the apparently positive aspects of their behavior, ignoring the negative?
Elijah teaches us that refraining from the negative must also enter the relationship.
The ancient idols have been replaced by the false gods of modern life — money, pleasure, fame, status or power. Refusing to bow down to those idols helps to reveal G-dliness in the world.
If G-d is the center of our morality, then going to synagogue on Shabbat and making Kiddish with your family, while good and holy, are not enough.
Refraining from prohibited activities such as working on Shabbat take us further and allow us to negate the money-centered idol worship of today.
In other words, the divine mission in our imperfect world can be revealed as much through identifying and resisting the negative as through embracing and experiencing the positive. From the divine perspective, it is all part of revealing G-d’s Oneness in everything.
Rabbi Levi Emmer is pastoral director of the Jewish Home and Care Center.
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