Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, was interviewed on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning. He spoke of the heroism of the Indian pilot, Captain Smit Machchhar – may he heal speedily – and passengers on that fateful flight who took such heroic measures to save lives; the woman who raised the alarm, the plumber who dragged the co-pilot away and pulled up on the yoke because he had watched a TV show about distressed planes, the man who …
The interview concluded and segued into news of the passing of Dame Ester Rantzen – founder of Childline and Silverline and consumer rights hero and campaigner on so many issues (including assisted death, about which I take a very different view).
The producers played a clip of her greatest TV moment (the greatest TV moment I’ve ever seen, I’ve watched it scores of times and always cry). Rantzen, invites anyone in the audience at a recording of That’s Life!, to rise if they owe their lives to the retired stockbroker - Nicholas, subsequently Sir Nicholas, Winton. The entire gallery rise in honour of the diminutive and utterly heroic man who saved Jewish children from the Nazis.
There are heroes in our midst – human beings, ‘just normal’ human beings, who are revealed, in moments of awful and awesome importance, to be willing to do things that are, and deserve to be remembered decades after their death.
And yet, it feels society isn’t really up for heroics at the moment, thank you very much. In part, surely, that’s because there have been too many clay-footed pseudo-heroes, subsequently revealed to be frauds or worse and we are all, rightly I think, sceptical. We Don’t Need Another Hero, is, certainly from the mouth of Tina Turner, a reasonable reaction to the false Messiahs and self-serving charlatans and crooks of our time.
Moreover, and I think this is the major part, we seem to be in a time where there is something approximating to a crisis in humanity. The challenges of the world feel so real and so significant, that there is a kind of Yeiush gnawing at our human souls. Who of us can cool the overheating planet, bring peace to the Middle East, tame the dangers of AI? And so, perhaps, we just fold inwards a little, giving up on tasks that seem so beyond our ability.
A current dataset: I’ve been reading my way through the Booker Long (and now Short) List of, supposedly, the very best contemporary fiction. I’ve been struck by the number of anti-heroic protagonists – people who take steps away from leaving their mark on the world. I’ve seen critics write about a crisis of masculinity in the nominated books, but it’s not just the men. Helen of Nowhere, Dilara in The Renovation and Laura in The Palm House join the King in May We Feed the King and the man in The Black Bag in the books shortlisted as protagonists of books, but barely even protagonists of their own lives. These characters evoke empathy as they look at the possibilities of being heroic and … decline. But it’s not enough.
BMakom SheAin Anashim, Histadel Lehiyot Ish – taught Hillel (Avot 2:5), in a place without humanity, strive to be a human.
It’s the best advice. Not only does it create a possibility of saving plummeting planes, abused children and those who would have otherwise perished in Nazi-fuelled abominations, but it’s pointing at the very essence of who we are and who we are called to be – humans! These heroes, the real heroes, aren’t doing it to fatten their bank balances or for the fame, but because it feels compulsory. Their heroism wasn’t pre-meditated or driven by ulterior motives. They felt obligated to use the gift of their existence to be worthy of the gift of their existence. Thank God!
There is a wonderful idea in Mishnah Sanhedrin (5:4) about the nature of human beings, each created in the image of God, but each unique – so unlike a coin minted by a King of flesh and blood, where each coin comes out the same. That’s the source of the ineffable, desperate significance of each human life. It’s also teleological – it speaks to our purpose. When Mordechai attempts to persuade Queen Ester to go to the King and tell him that the Jews are to be slaughtered, he says, “Who knows, maybe it is for this precise moment that you became royal.” Rav Kook avails himself of this remarkable verse in a comment on a line in the Yom Kippur liturgy. “Before I was created, there was nothing in the boundless history of the Universe, that required my existence. Since I was not created until now, it is a sign, that I was not, until now, worthy of existence. I am only needed “for this very moment.” For now, the very moment has arrived for me to fix some element of complete reality has arrived. If only I could dedicate my actions towards this purpose of my creation, I could say “here I am – Hineini.”
We are called to respond to the moment with the answer, “here I am.” And the problem with training ourselves away from an interest in heroes is not merely that good people will die and bad people will triumph, but we will fail to be the human we are created to be.
May we all be saved from having to make the brutal decisions faced by those on that plane, and in so many other arenas where heroism has been needed and shown. But may we not back down if we are called.
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