blogs/cantor-phil-baron

I've always prided myself on finding the best, fastest and most creative ways to avoid traffic.  It's as if Los Angeles traffic and I were made for each other.  We're natural adversaries. 405 stop and go this morning?  No problem.  I have work-around sneaky back-road solutions so hidden and unexpected that only the Fire Department and I know about them.  Ventura blvd. a parking lot this afternoon?  Why would you even take Ventura Blvd??

I am Captain Shorcut, Master of Maps.

So naturally, I scoffed when GPS came into being.  What could some computer in the sky know about LA traffic shortcuts that I don't know?  I mean, I own a Thomas Guide. That is, I owned a Thomas Guide until about a month ago.  Actually, I still own it, but I now use it as a doorstop --  ever since I started using WAZE, the latest GPS app.  It knows more clever shortcuts and back allies than I'll ever know.  It pains me to admit this, but when it comes to getting around town, it's even cooler than I am.

It's so accurate and creative and up-to-the-minute, that I don't even mind it telling me what to do.  It says, “Turn left in 1000 feet,” and by golly I turn left.  If it says to get on a crowded freeway I do it, because, sure enough, a minute later the freeway clears and I sail right on.  I do whatever it says because I know I'm in the hands of a shortcut genius.

Michelle is amused by my uncharacteristic obsequiousness and is threatening to create a GPS system for our house.  This innovative system will command me to “turn left at the refrigerator, open the door and cook dinner.”  It will say, “In five feet, you will arrive at the kitchen sink.  Now wash the dishes.” And so on.  She thinks this is really funny. 

But it does raise an important question.  How much free will are we willing to abdicate when the results are positive?  Many jokes have been made about the effect GPS might have had on the Hebrews' 40-year trip through the wilderness, but clearly Moses did have his own personal navigation system in the form of God.  And he followed it precisely.

“They set out from Succoth and encamped at Etham…They set out from Ethan and turned toward Pi-hahiroth…They set out from Pi hahiroth and passed through the sea into the wilderness…” and so on. 29 campsites later they finally reach the edge of the land of Edom where Aaron dies, and they are off again.  By this point in the story, Am Yisrael has stopped complaining to Moses.  He has earned their trust (with a lot of help from God).  And it's a good thing, because what Moses tells them to do next requires a leap of faith far bigger than getting on a crowded freeway. As the book of Bamidbar comes to a close, their complete obedience is required, for they are about to “dispossess all the inhabitants of the land” they are about to enter.  They are instructed, to put it bluntly, to destroy the Canaanite people currently in the land along with all of their religious objects and shrines.

Our modern sensibilities are repulsed by this notion, but it is exactly what was required to create a Promised Land.  And of course, weren't most nations formed in just this way?

But what happens when blind obedience completely supplants the free will of individuals? In the 20^th century we witnessed at least two genocidal mass movements whose goal was nothing less than the complete subjugation of the individual to a warped utopian “ideal.” In the case of Nazi Germany, the first step was to vastly improve the lives of average citizens �" and then to own their souls.

Modern technology promises to make many things easier and productivity greater.  But will our reliance on technology separate us, not just from people, but from an essential part of ourselves? Our people's experience in the wilderness is the journey through  childhood and adolescence.  As a nation, we needed Moses' spiritual GPS to keep us on track.  But a mature people makes its own decisions.  And wise decision-making relies on strong individuals who can think creatively and decisively.

Still, I love my GPS.  Is this the first step toward abdicating my free will?  Well, yes, but…it works so well!

Shabbat shalom.