Viktor Frankl, writing in Man’s Search For Meaning, commented that the “moral moment” is that brief moment between stimulus and response. “In that space is our power to choose our response,” he continued, “In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Animals naturally have an automatic and predictable response to particular stimuli, but human beings have been blessed with the capacity to pause and make moral choices. Through education, experience, and knowledge, people are given the tools to make moral decisions. When it comes to the human temptation to do wrong, the desire to lengthen that exact moment between stimulus and response ensures that our reflection and decision-making have the ability to steer us closer to a more morally correct direction. On the other hand, when we are not dealing with temptation to do wrong but an opportunity to do the good, we want to shorten that pause so we can simply run towards the good.
Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, founder of the Mussar movement, taught that there are two steps to controlling negative desire: kibbush ha’yetzer – conquering and controlling one’s desire – and tikkun ha’yetzer repairing/fixing one’s desire. These desires are hard work to cultivate and maintain; we need to rely on both of them when we’re tested in difficult moral moments. Looked at another way, the Chassidim suggested a different route, that we should channel our negative desire toward the good without losing any of its energy or force.
An unlikely civil rights hero illustrates this struggle at a moral moment. Raphael Benjamin West (known as Ben) was mayor of Nashville from 1951-1963. While he knew some moderate black officials in his city like lawyer Z. Alexander Looby, the affable Mayor West was content to promote business in the “Athens of the South,” which prided itself on institutions of higher learning and classical architecture. This façade, however, masked the underlying ugliness of Nashville’s racial segregation. In February 1960, twelve days after the beginning of lunch counter sit-ins throughout the South, Fisk University students began their own nonviolent lunch counter protests in Nashville, with black students calmly waiting, in vain, to be served and white students asking that their black companions be served first. Mayor West at first exhibited a stolid approach. On February 27, when white gangs attacked the students, the police arrested the students instead, who chose jail rather than fines. Mayor West then offered another tepid “compromise”: separate black and white lunch counter areas, which was also rejected by the students. Then on April 19, Looby’s house was firebombed, and the students led 2,500 protesters in silence to the steps of City Hall, confronting Mayor West. In front of reporters, student leader Diane Nash asked the mayor: “Do you feel it is wrong to discriminate against a person solely on the basis of their race or color?”
Mayor West was taken aback by the directness of the question. He later recalled:
…I found that I had to answer it frankly and honestly–that I did not agree that it was morally right for someone to sell them merchandise and refuse them service…. if I had to answer it again I would answer it in the same way again because it was a moral question and it was one a man has to answer and not a politician.”
From this brief exchange, Mayor West surprised everyone by replying: “I appeal to all citizens to end discrimination, to have no bigotry, no bias, no discrimination.” A newspaper headline the next day proclaimed: “Mayor Says Integrate Counters.” On May 10, six lunch counters began serving black customers, and Nashville became the first Southern city to integrate its lunch counters. In addition, the victory boosted the careers of many of the protesters. Student leader Diane Nash later served on a Presidential commission to promote passage of the Civil Rights Act and has continued to work for social justice causes.
Moral leadership requires quick decisions in very uncertain, and often hostile, environments. Once there is moral clarity, we must move quickly. To pursue the good, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto taught that we must run to seize the opportunity:
Alacrity consists of two elements: one that relates to the period prior to the commencement of a deed, and the other that relates to the period that follows the commencement of a deed. The former means that prior to the commencement of a mitzvah a person must not delay (its performance). Rather, when its time arrives, or when the opportunity (for its fulfillment) presents itself, or when it enters his mind, he must react speedily, without delay, to seize the mitzvah and to do it. He must not procrastinate at this time, for no danger is graver than this. Every new moment can bring with it some new hindrance to the fulfillment of the good deed (Mesillat Yesharim, chapter 7, page 42).
One must first know the good but then one must ensure one is ready to run with full force toward completion of the good. Many obstacles, even from well-intentioned people, are sure to arise.
A recent moral choice in the midst of tragedy illustrates this point. Lassana Bathily a Mali native who immigrated to France as a teenager, was a worker for Hyper Cacher, a Paris kosher supermarket. When an Islamic terrorist broke in this January and murdered four people in cold blood, Bathily, who as a Muslim might have been safe from attack, reacted by guiding a group of Jewish customers to a freezer, where they found refuge, thereby surviving the assault. Afterward, 420,000 people signed a petition for the French government to grant Bathily citizenship, which it granted. Bathily said: “Yes, I helped Jews get out. We’re brothers. It’s not that we’re Jewish or Christian or Muslims, we’re all in the same boat. You help so you can get through this attack.”
To fulfill the character trait of zerizut (alacrity), we must learn to run fast and to do right when the opportunities present themselves. There are those who live their lives this way; we should all find remarkable human beings and cling to them. Receive their light and channel it to others. When they get viciously attacked, stand at their side even if you do not agree 100 percent. More effective than isolated learning is watching moral models who operate with a higher consciousness and consistent commitment to serving others.
Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Executive Director of the Valley Beit Midrash, the Founder & President of Uri L’Tzedek, the Founder and CEO of The Shamayim V’Aretz Institute and the author of seven books on Jewish ethics. Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America.”
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