The One Thing I Ask: A Humble Search for Meaning

By Mark Hoenig

Written over the course of a year punctuated by escalating terrorism and global turmoil, this compilation of fifty-one Divrei Torah asks the reader to confront challenging questions.

What do I truly believe?
How should I best fashion my conduct?
Why does our world seem so random and unfair?
What does Torah Judaism ask of me?
How can I find meaning in my life?

The one thing I ask, King David says in the book of Tehillim, is to be close to God. This single thought, central to the very existence of a Torah Jew, permeates every chapter of Tehillim. With these Divrei Torah, one for each week of the Jewish calendar, the author unpacks the wisdom of Tehillim, seamlessly integrating this wisdom with the weekly Torah portion.

This is the authors second book of Divrei Torah. In his first bookBack to the Beginninghe probed the lessons that can be derived from the Holy Torah. In this second book, the author digs even deeper, tackling head-on the most frustrating and troubling elements of the world as we experience it, frankly articulating the questions we ask ourselves as we navigate a world that often seems random and distressingly unfair, using the light of our Holy Torah to guide us and illuminate the dark places in which we sometimes find ourselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524528317

Mark Hoenig

A resident of Teaneck, New Jersey, for over three decades, Mark Hoenig is a longtime member of Teaneck’s Congregation Bnai Yeshurun. After graduating from Yeshiva College, he attended NYU Law School, where he received his JD degree and later his LLM (master’s degree in law) in taxation. Since graduating from law school in 1981, he has worked as an attorney almost exclusively at the law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges, where he is a partner in the Tax Department, specializing in corporate mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Hoenig has been an active contributor to the Jewish community, serving over many years on the boards of his synagogue and local Jewish educational institutions. He also has been active in the broader Jewish community, most recently as a member of the Jewish Education Project. These community activities are complemented by the significant work he has done and overseen on behalf of charities worldwide, notably as a by-product of his longtime membership in the pro bono committee at his law firm and as cochair of its not-for-profit practice group. Of greatest significance and meaning to Mr. Hoenig, though, is his family. The identities, personalities, and uniquely special characters of the members of his family—the important people in his life—can be seen and felt throughout the pages of this book.

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Bereishis

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A few years ago, Yonah was not feeling well. I don’t recall the circumstances, but we were all quite worried that this might be something very serious, something quite threatening. Tests needed to be taken, time would pass before we would be able to relax. I started then to learn a chapter of Tehillim each morning. With G-d’s help, Yonah was fine, and I have continued now for years with my daily ritual, a chapter of Tehillim each morning. Did G-d answer my prayers, or did I respond to G-d’s call? Maybe both, maybe neither.

Tehillim, compiled by King David, permeates our formal prayers. Every day, all day, on Shabbas and on holidays, Tehillim is always there. In addition to our regular recitation of Tehillim as part of our formal, clearly defined, and fixed liturgy, we also recite Tehillim at certain times, when faced with a crisis, when confronted with grave illness, when preparing for any important life event. Tehillim may be the single book that is at once on our tongues all the time while not really well understood by the rank and file Jew. Sure, many of us are very familiar with certain chapters or certain sentences, but I wonder whether the greater Jewish community lacks a comprehensive understanding of the totality of the work: What are the main takeaways from Tehillim?

King David, who is referred to as melech hamoshiach, G-d’s anointed one whose descendant will lead us to our final redemption, is said to live and endure forever—chai v’kayom. Through the Tehillim, King David has spoken to Jews throughout the generations and will continue to do so for all time…King David, in that way alone, endures forever. The Tehillim, a collection of 150 chapters—or mizmorim—authored by King David and others over the course of history, speaks to man’s mission and his challenges while on this planet. The messages range from observing the beauty and wonder of G-d and G-d’s creation to seeking strength and support from G-d in the direst possible circumstances, and everything in between. But what is Tehillim’s single theme or its overall message? To me, Tehillim serves as an ever-present reminder that the center of our existence is G-d, that we fool ourselves and hurt ourselves when we lose sight of this truth, and that the solution to any problem, the pathway from the darkest places, is always a reconnection with G-d. Always.

It is so fitting that we start our undertaking to look more closely at Tehillim at this time of year, having just completed the awesome and introspective days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and now celebrating the joyful days of Succot. At this time of year, we focus on the kingship of G-d and the fact that G-d is the beginning and end of everything, and we remind ourselves that our utmost joy can only be found when we realize this truth and succumb to its ramifications. And, of course, parshas Bereishis also, not coincidentally, teaches that there is a single all-powerful and unlimited G-d, who is the Creator and Master of everything and who is the source of and the solution to every challenge that confronts us. These are the very messages of Tehillim, messages that should reinforce our Succot mind-set, that should permeate and even overwhelm us as we begin the new cycle of Torah reading, and that should remain constantly at the forefront of our thoughts every day and all days, forever.

Noach

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N oach, we are told, was perfect in his generation. But just how good of a person was he? Was he incredibly righteous in spite of the influences around him, or was he just the best person around at the time, maybe not such a high achievement at a time when everyone else had become unacceptably immoral? We don’t know the answer to these questions, but it is clear that for each of us, our virtue, our level of spiritual elevation, is judged against and affected by those around us.

In the first mizmor of Tehillim, we get instructions as to how to lead our lives. Don’t walk with evil people, don’t stand with sinners, and don’t sit with cynics/scorners; instead, pursue G-d’s Torah. The instructions are very clear and straightforward, although not at all easy to follow.

Obviously, there are many different types of people we need to stay away from. Evil people, sinners, and cynics. This seems clearly to reflect a descending level of badness. The concept of an evil person seems easy enough to grasp, even if we may or may not be qualified to judge just who is in fact evil. However, the fact that sinners are listed separately from evil people reminds us that these two categories are not necessarily the same thing: people can be sinners, which here is taken to mean those who commit inadvertent or perhaps neglectful but not willful transgressions of Torah rules, and still not fall to the level of evil. And cynics, or people whose only crime is mocking and belittling G-d’s rules and the good elements of G-d’s world, are yet another category, a category that may not even fall to the level of sinners, but that includes people from whom we are directed to stay away.

These three distinct categories should remind of the very subtle and far-reaching aspects of our daily challenge to avoid being lured and trapped by the influences that surround us. While we don’t always succeed, it isn’t that difficult to recognize when we are joining and being influenced by evil people. Even if we rationalize our conduct, at some level we just know that these people are not good influences and that our conduct, even if it feels good on some level, is not in our best interests. And yes, we continue to associate with and be influenced by evil people, we tend to rationalize or somehow close our eyes to the realities, and we allow ourselves to slip up and act in ways we shouldn’t. We are challenged to overcome this cycle as a means to elevating ourselves.

The challenge to recognize and correct for this type of attraction to the wrong people becomes much more difficult where the others are not evil, but they are simply breaking the rules in ways that perhaps can be attributed to carelessness or neglect. And of course most difficult is to catch ourselves when we join a group of scorners; to me, this last category is the most common and the most challenging, in that cynicism is such a deeply ingrained element of our culture—it represents the very core of how we make ourselves sound and feel smart—that it is incredibly difficult to break away from this drug.

So these are the three steps, in order of ascending difficulty, that we are instructed to take in order to allow for spiritual elevation, to allow for the happiness and success predicted in the first mizmor. But merely avoiding and overcoming bad influences is not enough. We are instructed not only to avoid these bad influences but also to pursue G-d’s Torah, reminding us that the battle is not won by just suppressing our bad instincts; we must also nurture and support our noble instincts in order to have a pathway to winning this lifelong battle to achieve spiritual elevation and the success promised in this first mizmor of Tehillim.

Lech Lecha

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A ll the world’s nations will talk in vain, will conspire against G-d and G-d’s chosen people, and will plot the extermination of the Jews; and G-d will laugh at these fools, and will ultimately unleash his fury and destroy the evildoers . King David offers this message in the second mizmor of Tehillim.

We are taught that David, right then and there, foresaw and described the Messianic era, the end of days. As we look around today—at a world where there seems to be unexplainable and unbounded hatred directed against Israel and Jews coming from just about every corner of the planet, a world in which nation after nation seems to be forgetting the lessons of World War II and, one after the other, joining the expanding cohort of evildoers openly hostile to Israel and transparently hoping and planning for the elimination of all Jews—you can’t help but draw comfort from these words of King David, words written thousands of years ago.

To be sure, as suggested by some, in this second mizmor David may have been talking about the events of his own time, when he himself endured and overcame extraordinary adversity and the evil plotting of many, ultimately to see redemption when he ascended to the kingship. The reality is that David himself witnessed this type of redemption scenario, where he endured the most frustrating and disheartening set of challenges but maintained absolute faith in G-d and merited to see, in his own lifetime, a complete reversal, a triumph of good over evil, a clear indication that G-d laughs at the evil plotters and ultimately assures redemption and success for his loyal chosen people.

Was it really so clear, though, to recognize the hand of G-d in these everyday events that confronted David? Would we see G-d’s hand in these events as David did? You might say that seeing the hand of G-d was easy for David because he lived to reap the rewards of his loyalty to G-d. Let’s not overlook, though, that David saw G-d’s hand and remained absolutely faithful even before he reaped any of those rewards.

We will read Lech Lecha this coming Shabbas which begins the story of Avraham. Avraham, who without hesitation was prepared to sacrifice his beloved Yitzchak simply because G-d instructed him to do so, obviously had absolute belief in G-d and harbored no doubt about G-d’s sovereignty and involvement in the affairs of man’s world. Avraham, unlike David, never actually experienced the fulfillment of G-d’s promise to him that he would grow into a great nation, and even so, Avraham believed absolutely in G-d and G-d’s promises, never doubting that G-d steers the course of events and assures perfect and total fulfillment of all promises and our ultimate redemption.

Our tradition teaches that G-d directs the course of all human events (even while we believe fully in man’s free will) and that, when all is said and done, G-d assures absolute fairness, righting all wrongs and establishing perfect justice for all of mankind. One of the pillars of our faith is the belief in G-d’s involvement and control over everything that happens. Both Avraham and King David saw the hand of G-d in events as they unfolded right before their eyes, even when circumstances were dire and nothing seemed to add up, even when good people seemed to suffer the most. Do we recognize G-d’s hand?

We look around today and witness events that absolutely defy logic: why is the whole world against Israel and the Jews? There really is no rational explanation that makes sense of this kind of baseless hatred, a hatred that cannot be explained and yet seems to know no bounds. Does the fact that there is no rational explanation, that these events appear to unfold outside the normal course of possibilities, prove that there is in fact a G-d and that G-d directs the course of events? After all, that seems to be the only explanation that actually makes sense? Perhaps we should take comfort in the fact that this type of hatred, conspiracy, and plotting was prophesied by King David millennia ago and that we know how the story ends? And yet, haven’t we Jews been saying this in just about every generation, confronting irrational evil and hatred time and time again with a belief that we are witnessing G-d’s hand and that the final redemption must be near?

The final redemption certainly will come. Hopefully today and, if not, tomorrow. But our belief cannot be premised on or overly focused on the timing of G-d’s plan. We need only know for sure that G-d is running the show and, at the perfect time, will fulfill promises and assure perfect justice and harmony. That is the faith that Avraham and King David taught us, and that is the faith that provides for our lives the deepest meaning.

Vayeira

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I think we live in a world where it is just about impossible to understand the kind of relationship that we are intended and designed to have with G-d. The kind of relationship with G-d that would allow us to enjoy a life of the deepest and truest meaning and joy.

One relationship we do understand, very well, is the one between parent and child. The love a parent has for his/her child actually is not able to be put into words. It is so deep and so powerful that words would fail to capture it. We want and we ache so much for our children, we are captured to our very core by our children, and our children are the source of our greatest joy and our deepest angst. For this very reason, the lessons taught by David’s third mizmor of Tehillim, as well as by the story of Akeidas Yitzchak (the binding of Isaac), are so hard to fathom and, at the same time, so uniquely powerful.

King David, 65 years old, was fleeing from his son Avshalom. Avshalom was beloved by David, a son who was one of David’s favorites. But Avshalom chose, through deceit and treachery, to attempt to murder his father and assume the throne. One can only begin to imagine the deep pain and anguish that David must have endured once he learned of his son’s plan. So what did David do? He sang a song, the third mizmor of Tehillim; he sang as he fled, says the mizmor. This song did not wait until David successfully defeated the challenge but was sung while on the run. And his song was not a lament or cry of anguish; his song was one of joyful praise, a recognition of G-d’s sovereignty and the fact that, so long as he remained faithful to G-d, he could sleep soundly and fear no man. It is amazing and quite difficult to understand David’s ability and inclination to achieve joy and sing out to G-d even while confronting the deep anguish at the treachery of his beloved Avshalom.

Along these same lines, we often struggle to understand Avraham’s conduct when instructed by G-d to sacrifice his most beloved son Yitzchak. Yitzchak, who only recently was miraculously conceived in Sarah’s (and Avraham’s) old age and who represented, at long last, the way that G-d’s many promises to Avraham would actually be fulfilled. Even so, upon being instructed by G-d to slaughter his son, Avraham wasted no time and proceeded to follow G-d’s will until he was, at the very last second, abruptly stopped by G-d. I often hear, even from people who believe in G-d and in Torah Judaism, that Avraham’s conduct troubles them, that they simply cannot imagine adopting the same course, and even wondering what kind of G-d is that? And that misses the whole point.

David understood that Avshalom’s conduct was all part of G-d’s will and that he (David) needed only to continue to follow the path set out by G-d, a path that led to serenity and joyful song. Avraham, like David, understood the centrality of G-d within his existence, that everything starts and ends with G-d, that G-d’s word is emes regardless of whether it makes sense to us. (We often translate emes as truth, but that really is a poor translation; we have ourselves created the word truth and we have ourselves defined it, and the word simply fails to capture the essence of emes. Emes is whatever G-d says it is, regardless of how we mortals might perceive or define a given situation.) Both Avraham and David forged a relationship with G-d that superseded anything else—any other relationship, any other urge or emotion, any personal sense of right and wrong. These two great men understood that G-d is the beginning and end of everything and that our entire job is to try to understand G-d’s will and to serve G-d. Nothing else. And nothing else, not even our natural inclinations and emotional attachment to our children, can affect this total subservience to G-d’s will, a subservience that is the only pathway to a life of real meaning and true joy.

These are not popular thoughts in today’s world. We are burdened by the pull of the strongest of emotions accompanied by a sense that our own intellect is sufficient to sort out right and wrong, truth and falsity. David and Avraham serve as models to teach us otherwise.

Chayei Sarah

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W e look around and see mayhem and chaos in every corner of the planet. The bad guys all seem to be approaching the peak of their power and effectiveness, and the good guys (at best) show a vacuum of wisdom and seem to be ill-prepared and less than focused on a battle that appears to foreshadow a catastrophic end. Some of us worry that the fabric of civilization as we know it—the world as we have come to trust it—is unraveling and that the future for our children and grandchildren is uncertain and far grimmer than we had hoped and expected only a few years ago; there is a cloud that seems to hover and that just doesn’t seem to be going away.

Others are unconcerned. This is all part of G-d’s plan, a plan that was foreseen and predicted millennia ago, and a plan that will end with a final and glorious redemption for the Jewish people and a world where truth and justice prevail. When we look around these days, when we watch the nations of the world, their leaders and a vast portion of the world’s population acting in ways that defy logic and seem well beyond what could possibly be characterized as a natural course of events, some of us see G-d’s hand everywhere, allowing renewed certainty that G-d is running the show and pulling every string, and fostering a sense of calm and excitement that we are, at long last, witnessing the end of days.

So which is it? Is everything being guided by G-d and (as they say in Israel) yihiyeh b’seder, all will work out fine? Or should we worry deeply as we look around and watch the world spin out of control, with grave threats to our continued existence?

In the fourth mizmor of Tehillim, King David for the first time (of many) begins with the word la’menatzaich, to the conductor. Who is the conductor? A number of answers are provided, but the one that appeals and makes most sense to me is that the conductor is G-d. That characterization of G-d is so perfectly apt and so incredibly powerful. G-d is the conductor, directing every single element of our existence, assuring that once all the pieces are put together, harmony and beauty will emerge. In this mizmor, David asks the sons of great men how long they will love vanity and seek deception. David is not here speaking to purely evil men; rather, he is speaking to people who have lost their way but who can return once they start thinking straight. David is talking to people not so different from many of us, people who tend to forget that G-d is in charge, who get confused when they witness a chaotic and unfair world, who therefore begin to believe that whatever works in order to get by and to thrive in our random world is what is called for. David begs such people to change, to see clearly, to interpret the world and to conduct themselves with an understanding that G-d directs everything.

In this week’s parsha, when Eliezer described the events that brought him to Rivkah’s family and asked whether he could take Rivkah back home with him to marry Yitzchak, Lavan and his father responded oddly: This matter comes from G-d, we can’t say that it is bad or good. I was struck by the second half of their statement. Recognizing that the events were all at G-d’s direction, they realize that they simply could not pass judgment one way or another. As though these two men—both truly evil—realized how silly it would be for any of us to look at the world around us, consider the limited facts that we know, and decide that we somehow can evaluate the work of G-d. Once we acknowledge that the course of events is as directed by G-d, it really misses the point if we try to sit there and interpret or judge whether the plan is a good one or a bad one; our minds and our access to the relevant information are both far too limited for such an evaluation, and the notion that we could possibly sit in judgment of G-d’s plan is preposterous.

So back to the question. As we look around at the world today,