Religious Jews, whether orthodox, reform, or anything in between, don’t need the social sciences to support the teachings found in the Tanach. But sometimes it does happen.
A recent analysis by experimental psychologists of hundreds of studies considered how fear of death affects people. They demonstrate that this fear influences people in surprising and unexpected ways. For example, the mere mention of death or mortality to judges prior to bond hearings resulted in their imposition of bonds nine times higher than those who did not hear the mention. Other studies showed that, when reminded of the fact of mortality, people demonstrated more hatred toward people different than they, and sought to become closer to those similar to them. Other experiments showed that mentions of death or mortality increased the appeal of charismatic leaders.
This phenomenon occurs within the subconscious, and it is extremely difficult to override these impulses. Yet, from millennia before the formation of psychological study, the Torah seeks to have us do exactly that. The Torah does not avoid the mention of death. It can’t, because death is a part of life and history. But it saves some of its strongest words for the pivotal moment when Moses addresses the people for the final time. He urges them, and us, to “Choose life, that you shall live.” In effect, this may be viewed as Moses urging the people to turn away from the negative or irrational choices spurred by the fear of death. Indeed, if the purpose of the Torah is peace, as Jewish tradition teaches, and the reminder of death affects us so greatly at a subconscious level, this injunction is essential to creating a more caring, more peaceful world.
Perhaps this is why we read this injunction to “choose life” every year at Yom Kippur, the most holy, solemn and influential day of the year. And perhaps this is an injunction that we should keep foremost in our minds every day, and especially now, when we are making important decisions for our country and world in the face of terrorism, fear and hatred. The Torah and social science agree: we will be better off if we approach the world choosing life, not death.
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