A member of our congregation needs a liver transplant. I worry about him. His health is fragile.
But to be honest, I’ve never thought much about my liver.
So, I took some time this week to break away from High Holy Day preparations and the U.S. Open and dug into learning about my liver.
More than 500 vital functions have been identified with the liver. At any given time, the liver holds around 13 percent of the body’s blood supply. All the blood leaving the stomach and the intestines passes through the liver, which clears the blood of poisonous and toxic substances, helps us resist infection, regulates our blood clotting factors, stores vitamins and iron, balances glucose, and produces the proteins necessary for health and life.
The human body is astoundingly wondrous. In school we learn the basics of how our bodies work. If we studied a little harder, we may learn all the components of a cell. Those who study human biology or graduate from medical school may still understand more. A gastroenterologist understands it all even better, and a hepatologist, who spends all day focused on the liver, may yet know even more.
But most of us walk around completely unaware, unknowing, and ignorant of the miracle of the human liver. And regrettably, we are blissfully happy in our ignorance.
So often in life we tell ourselves, “I don’t need to know.”
So often in life we tell ourselves, “I don’t want to know.”
The old adage is: “Ignorance is bliss.”
But our tradition teaches something different: “Awareness is blessing.”
In Parashat Ki-Tetzei, this week’s Torah portion, we read a familiar and basic admonition: “You shall not see your fellow’s ox or sheep gone astray, and ignore it; you must take it back to your fellow…. You shall do the same with his donkey, with his garment, and with anything that your fellow loses and you find: you must not remain indifferent.” (Deuteronomy 22:1-3)
The Hebrew word used here is התעלם – Hitalem. It literally means “to hide yourself.” An animal is lost, and if we look the other way and ignore it, we are hiding ourselves from the truth that is staring us in the face.
So, the Torah teaches us לא תוכל להתעלם – Lo Tuchal L’Hitalem – You must not hide yourself from the situation that confronts you. That is what it means to be indifferent.
Ignorance is an inevitable part of the human condition. To be human is to live bounded by constraints. We can only learn so much. We can only know so much. We can only understand so much.
But curiosity is the pathway to transcendence. Curiosity propels us beyond the boundaries of what we are to a wider expanse of what we can be. Curiosity pushes the boundaries of what we can learn, of what we can know, of what we can understand.
Caring is what drives curiosity. When we care we want to know. And when we don’t care, we grow comfortable with our ignorance.
Elie Wiesel famously said: “Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”
Too easily and too often we descend into willful ignorance. The reality and truth that confronts us is too awful and overwhelming to accept, so we hide ourselves from that reality. We look away. We pretend we don’t see. We invent lies to comfort ourselves and profess them as truths.
But Elie Wiesel is right. The opposite of life is indifference. Every time we decide not to care, every time we see someone suffering and look away, every time we choose to hide ourselves from difficult and painful truths, a piece of us dies inside.
The soul is like our spiritual liver. It is kept alive through arteries of caring. It cleanses us of ignorance, cynicism, resentment and hatred, and instead empowers us to grow in awareness, understanding, wisdom, and gratitude.
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev notes that within every person there is a Nikud – a spiritual center, a holy organ in which God’s holy essence is found. When we are indifferent we hide ourselves from the world, we hide from our inner holiness, and we hide ourselves from God.
We must care enough not to hide from the world. We must not choose willful ignorance. We cannot remain indifferent.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Dan Levin
Temple Beth El of Boca Raton
