A Still, Small Voice

A thought about politics came to me during Rosh HaShanah services this weekend:

On the face of it, Rosh HaShanah should be a joyous time for Jews. It represents the beginning of a new year, one full of possibilities that will hopefully enrich and fulfill each of us and the human community of which we are a part. But there is a disconcerting aspect of this high holiday for the modern mind.

We are told in the most solemn moment of the service, the "Unetaneh Tokef," that Rosh HaShanah begins a period of divine judgment in which each man, woman and child passes in spirit before the heavenly throne to receive his or her fate. Rosh HaShanah is, then, an awesome moment of the year in the truest sense of the term--one that ought to summon feelings of humility before one's maker.

For many of us, such an understanding of the holiday is entirely incompatible with the way we view the broader scheme of life. To many, the idea of a divine presence, if it exists at all, is remote, inexact and more or less metaphorical. But in a world in which G-d does not seem to still be in the business of parting seas and laying mountains low, the function of religion should be precisely to address this inaccessibility by salvaging some relevance for the divine in the day-to-day goings-on of earth. For Jews around the world, and for the rest of humanity at other moments of the year, the goal of a self-consciously reflective holiday is to try to identify G-d in a world in which He no longer seems to show Himself.

This year, a passage in the prayer book struck me because it spoke to this issue. We are told that the Day of Judgment is heralded, first, by the blowing of a ram's horn and, second, by "a still, small voice." This same image is used in First Kings when G-d speaks to Elijah. It reads: "And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still, small voice."

These passages insist that G-d does not require the bravado and grandeur of a supernatural wonder to inform the human condition, but rather speaks to mankind quietly, gently, in the private space of our minds. Perhaps it is there, and not in the miracles of the past, that the divine participates in our modern lives; perhaps it is there that we should be looking for it.

I promised that there was a thought about politics in here somewhere, and so there is. Any political community should have as one of its prime objectives the cultivation of virtue in its citizenry. Virtue, properly conceived, results from that very same still, small voice within each of us that scolds when we do wrong and quietly praises when we do right. Individuals must learn to listen to this voice and, as a result, must have a chance to consult it. When government interferes in this process, it services no good purpose. When government does too much, it robs citizens of the opportunity to discover virtue; if no responsibility is given, none is taken. If government makes decisions of conscience for us, we are denied the opportunity to use our own. It is only when citizens discover virtue for and in themselves that nations become whole.

This reasoning can lead conservatives like me to seemingly odd places. It is, for example, one of the primary sources of my pro-choice beliefs. If the government decides when and if a woman may have an abortion, it deprives that woman of the opportunity to arrive at a moral decision for herself, one based on her own independent evaluation of what constitutes right conduct. If the government makes her decision for her, then her resulting action is, for her, neither moral or immoral--it is coerced. I'm with Aristotle in believing that virtue is to some extent a matter of habit; it arises out of repeated consultation with that still, small voice within. Let us free ourselves to start getting the hang of it.

Eric Nelson's column appears on alternate Mondays.