The best predictor of personal change is being honest with who we are.
Parashat Ya-yechi 5770
I’m a media junky. Specifically, I’m an avid consumer of television and radio news and commentary. I like politics; I keep up current affairs; and I’m also interested in popular culture and the occasional celebrity gossip. So, for a news junky like me, this is a boring time of year in the media. Between Christmas and New Year’s there isn’t usually much going on. This is the time of year when producers are on vacation and reporters are phoning it in, and when few of us are really watching anyway. So, there’s a tradition in broadcasting in the last days of December to do retrospective shows. There are the “year in review” shows (and this year the “decade in review”). There are the “best and worst of” shows, the “top 10 lists”, the “look back at” episodes, the highlight reels. These shows can be fun to watch, but their mostly pointless. After all, you rarely learn anything new from watching them. And now, as the new year is beginning, we get another genre of programming: the prediction show. This one is equally easy to produce and contains just about as much useful information. In the early days of January we get the pundits and talking heads, with nothing much else to talk about, sitting in front of the cameras making predictions about what we should expect in the year ahead.
If there’s one thing we can be sure of in the year to come it is that most pundits will be wrong most of the time. So what makes a good prediction? What is the value of prognostication and how do you know what is an informed guess and what is wild speculation.
In this week’s Torah portion, we have an example of good prediction-making. In these last chapters of Bereshit, Jacob’s life is nearing its end. As Jacob prepares himself to leave this world he gathers his sons to his bedside to share his parting words with them. Genesis 49 opens: “And Jacob called his sons and said to them ‘Come together that I may tell you what is to befall you in days to come.’” But, what follows doesn’t look much like prognostication or prophesy. Instead of telling his sons what will happen to them in the future, Jacob addresses each of his sons in turn, pointing out their character traits, their individual gifts, and their personal flaws. And much of what he has to say isn’t that flattering: He begins by rebuking Reuven for committing adultery with one of Jacob’s own concubines (see Gn 35:22, 1 Chr 5:1). He curses Shimon and Levi for their violent tendencies and vigilantism. He has kind words for some of his sons: he praises Judah’s leadership, Issachar’s hard work. Jacob’s words are less predictive than they are descriptive. Instead of blessings, many of his statements sound like curses. What happened to the future-telling that Jacob had promised at the outset? Did he, in his old age, forget what he had intended to say? The midrash (Gen. R. 98:2) teaches that at the moment that Jacob declared that he would tell the future, God removed from him the power of prophesy. Perhaps the midrash is suggesting that knowing the future is dangerous because it can lead to despair or complacency. If we know what’s going to happen, than why bother changing? But, I’m going to set aside the midrash for now. Let’s take Jacob at his word that what he intends in this speech is a prediction of the future. In what ways, then, are the statements he makes a forecast?
Baseball hall-of-famer Casey Stengel famously said: “Never make predictions; especially about the future.” The problem with predicting the future is, of course, that it is uncertain. All we know with any degree of certainty is the present and – to some extent – the past. So, if you’re going to make predictions, your most reliable source of information is what you already know. One can read Jacob’s statements as predictions, if you believe that the best way to know how someone is going to behave in the future is to look at how they behave in the present and how they’ve behaved in the past. In other words, we have a tendency to be true to our character and we don’t often stray far from it. So, by pointing out the present, Jacob is, in a sense, predicting the future. But, if that’s true, than in what sense can we regard Jacob’s dying words to his sons as blessings? If we can know what people will do based on their personality and their past, how can we avoid being cursed to relive the same patterns in our lives? I think Jacob’s example is instructive.
Character and past behavior might be good predictors of the future, but that doesn’t mean we have to be fatalistic. It doesn’t mean we are doomed to repeat the past. It’s true that old patters of behavior are hard to change, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. So, how do can we have any hope for growth and improvement? Jacob’s seemingly harsh words are in fact a blessing. By being honest with his sons – even rebuking them – he holds out to them the opportunity for growth. One of the biggest barriers to change is our own inability to look at ourselves honestly. It may be true that it’s hard to change, but if change is possible at all then we have to start by being honest with ourselves, even when the truth hurts. By pointing out his sons’ strength and faults, Jacob opens up the rare possibility that his sons will grow beyond themselves. And that is truly a blessing.
It is, indeed, in our power to grow, to change, and to improve. It isn’t easy. As we look back at a at who we have been and what we have done, it is all to easy to cling to old patters of being and familiar ways of thinking. In this time of resolutions, we have to believe that change is possible. But we can’t simply will ourselves to change. The first step is an honest assessment of ourselves. We have to be willing to look at our strengths and our flaws; and sometimes it takes someone we love to point them out to us.
I hope that 2010 will be a year of growth for each of us. If we’re honest with ourselves and we make the effort, I predict that we will be successful.
