Author: Sherwin Wine

Celebration (1988) 

Life is unfair. The fates do not give us what we really deserve. The good die young. The wicked prosper. Aging and death confront us at the very time that we are best able to enjoy the fruits of our labor. 

Life is unfair. Destiny is less generous than it ought to be. The summer is too short. The winter is too long. Floods, drought, and disease arrive as uninvited guests. When we think that we are finally in control of our lives, some unwelcome surprise reminds us that we are not. 

Life is unfair. The righteous often look so plain, and the wicked seem so attractive. Healthy discipline is hard, and harmful pleasure is seductive. Appearances are deceiving. 

So the message is clear. Since life is unfair, since the fates are unjust, we have to make up for it. We have to bring some order into this moral chaos. In defiance of an uncaring destiny, we shall strive to be fair. In the face of an indifferent universe, we shall work to be just.

Celebration (1988) 

What is the purpose of life? What is the goal of moral behavior? 

Some people believe that the purpose of life is obedience to God. Since obedience can never be an end in itself, the pleasures of the afterlife are offered as ultimate rewards. But what if the routine of paradise seems less than pleasurable? What if the fear of punishment seems an undignified motivation? What if a divine dictatorship seems an affront to human dignity? 

Other people believe that the purpose of life is human survival. The preservation of our individual existence takes on a sacred character. But is mere survival a worthy goal? Is the quantity of life more important than its quality? Are there no circumstances when it is appropriate to risk death? 

Still others maintain that the purpose of life is human happiness. Striving for pleasure and contentment becomes a compelling virtue. Yet is the life of pleasure satisfying enough? Are all pleasures of equal value? Is there no time when pain and suffering are appropriate options? 

We humanists believe that the purpose of life is human dignity. Enabling people to become the masters of their own lives and to respect this potential in others is the moral enterprise. Where human dignity is at stake, it is appropriate to defy tradition, it is ethical to risk death, it is moral to choose painful challenge.

Celebration (1988) 

When we are too eager for approval, we lose our courage. We say what other people want us to say. We do what other people want us to do. We become what other people want us to become. 

Many men and women choose to wear the masks that public opinion fashions for them. They never tell others what they really believe; they never act out their private convictions; they never feel comfortable with controversy. They prefer to be safe, even if safety makes them the prisoners of convention. 

Integrity is the courage to be one person instead of two-the bravery to let our private self mold our public image, the determination to be the master and not the victim of life-even though disapproval and anger may be the rewards of our honesty. 

Courage is the search for respect, not agreement. 

Celebration (1988) 

Honesty begins with behavior. What we really think and feel is reflected in what we do. Too often we imagine that we know what we want and believe. We check our conscious mind and encounter numberless ideas and convictions which claim to be the essence of our being. But they are frauds. Our tongue speaks love, but our hands speak hate. Our mouth exudes serenity, but our eyes exude fear. Our lips utter friendship, but our whole body screams anger. We feel sincere and imagine that we are sincere. We feel honest and imagine that we are honest. 

If we listen to our hearts alone, we shall never discover the truth. It is only when we coldly watch our own behavior that we confront our reality. Our deepest convictions about ourselves and others can never really be hidden. They boldly proclaim themselves through our actions. While our mouths spin tales of fantasy, our bodies speak with honesty. When we plead that we cannot act on our own beliefs, we are self-deceived. We always act on what we believe. When we run away from what we say we love, then our love is an illusion. And when we embrace what we say we hate, then our hatred is unreal. We are what we do. 

Celebration (1988) 

Self-respect is never a gift. It is always an achievement. Neither the flattery of friends nor the reassurance of family will give us the feeling of self worth. Neither the counseling of therapists nor the comforting of religion will elevate our dignity. Self-esteem is the child of competence. It is the offspring of personal skill. People who think that they are unable to help themselves or to help others cannot respect themselves. 

People who like themselves believe that they have power. They believe that they have the power to determine the course of their own lives. They believe that they have the competence to be useful to others. They believe that they have the strength to make decisions even when the consequences of their decisions cannot easily be predicted. They even know that when they give to others they do not threaten their own welfare. For their security lies in no possession. It resides in their own creative skill.

Celebration (1988) 

The experience of our people through the centuries of constant assault tells us something about ourselves and others. 

In modern times a view of human nature arose which challenged the pessimism of the past and kindled the revolutionary passion of young imperialists. Many philosophers announced it. Many reformers proclaimed it. They declared that human beings were basically good, that love and cooperation were the essence of human emotional temperament, that cruelty and barbarism were simply due to ignorance and faulty training. With enough education, with enough material plenty for everyone, social evil would vanish. Utopia would follow. 

The horrors of this century have rescued us from this naïveté. Human cruelty is not a passing effect of a passing condition. Genocide is not an expression of ignorance and imperfect social conditions. There are deeper roots, and they live in the very depths of the human soul. 

We are divided beings, ambivalent creatures. Part of us wants to love and nurture; part of us wants to hurt and destroy. Ending war and bigotry is not easy, because the fury is not only outside of us, but chiefly within us. 

We must be realistic about our enemies. We must also be realistic about ourselves.

Celebration (1988) 

Groups provide security. They also provide boundaries that keep other people out. When we are fearful of the world beyond, we often become pretentious. We imagine that our culture is the best of all possible cultures and that our wisdom is wiser than all the rest. We make ourselves believe that our tradition contains all useful knowledge and that everything we need for life is there. 

But truly wise people know that cultural arrogance is dangerous. It keeps us from seeing the beauty of other traditions. It keeps us from tasting the good fruit of other ethnic trees. 

Our loyalty to our own group is not diminished by our openness to others. Open minds and open hearts allow the fresh winds of other cultures to blow away self-righteousness and to invite new ideas and new perspectives to enrich what we already have. 

Celebration (1988) 

To be a Jew is to feel many feelings. We feel the security of roots, the pleasure of belonging, the pride of achievement, the warmth of solidarity, the joy of survival. But we also feel the fear of rejection, the anger of victims, the sadness of separation, the loneliness of difference, and the bitterness of remembered wrongs. 

Our experience has been no ordinary experience. Our history has been no commonplace adventure. We have been visited by the best and assaulted by the worst that the world can offer. We have achieved the peaks and sunk to the depths of human possibility. Our presence does not arouse indifference. If we have enemies, their hatred is no ordinary hatred. If we have friends, their attachment is no ordinary connection. We have lived too hard and too long to settle for the tamer emotions. 

When we sing, our songs have pain and pleasure. When we laugh, our laughter has surrender and defiance. When we hope, our hope has fear and determination.

Celebration (1988) 

We are Jews. We are Americans. But, above all, we are human beings. 

Sometimes we forget this truth. Sometimes we only think about our own family. Sometimes we only think about our own friends. We look at other people and see them as strangers. The color of their skin is often different. The language they speak is not our own. We turn them into enemies before we give them a chance to become our friends. 

Our common humanity makes us see the truth. Underneath the different color, underneath the different speech, underneath the different costume, every person is a human being. Every person needs the dignity we need. Every person wants the happiness we want. Every person feels what we feel.

Celebration (1988) 

Loyalty is life. We live through the loyalty of others—not only the devotion of living family and friends, but also the loyalty of the past to the future. Countless numbers of our ancestors worked, saved, and forewent their pleasure to provide for generations yet unborn. They pursued distant goals they knew they would never reach, in order that their children and grandchildren could enjoy the fruit of their efforts. The mountain of human culture is built out of many layers of human achievement, each generation resting on the work of the one before. 

We are here today because of the people of the past did not forget us. Our ancestors have planted and we have reaped. Let us also live for more than the present. Let us also work for those who will follow. 

Celebration (1988) 

Family and friendship are like the air we breathe. We cannot really live without them. We are not suited for loneliness. We crave the warmth of human concern. We need to give our love. We need to receive the love of others. Family and friends pay us the tribute of caring. Our pain becomes their pain. Our pleasure becomes their pleasure. Through their love, we come to love ourselves and to find our self-respect. 

 There are many families to which we belong, and which deserve our love and devotion. There is the family of our mother and father, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins. Without them we would have no life. There is also the family of the Jewish people in which our ancestors grew up for over four thousand years with the help of many brave and wise teachers. Without them we would have no past. There is even the family of humankind into which every child is born, which reaches out to cover all the world, and which makes each of us the brother and sister of the other. Without them we would have no future.