Making Tough Decisions

A long, long time ago, back in the day, before GPS, before Google maps and Waves, when people would get in a car and drive from one place to the other, they would listen to traffic reports and decide what roads to take based on hearsay and reasonably blind faith.

De and I would set out in our car from Long Island and head to NJ to visit my parents with our children joyfully coexisting in the back seat.  And as we were driving north on the Cross Island, the inevitable question would be raised. 

Do we take the Throgs Neck to the Cross Bronx or the Triborough to the Harlem River Drive?

I would pose the question to De and, over time, she learned not to answer.  Because if she answered and then we got stuck in traffic, while I didn’t mean to blame her, my affect and tone of voice would suggest otherwise.

I want to spend some time reflecting on how we make decisions.  Indeed it is easier now than it was 15 years ago to figure out what roads to take from point A to point B in the literal realm, but metaphorically it’s another story. 

Many of the decisions we are called upon to make, large and small, economic and emotional, remain quite challenging.

Do we pursue this career or that career?  Do we take the job offer at the startup company or the established company?

Do we join this synagogue or that synagogue or no synagogue at all?

Do we commit to the person we’re dating or not?

Do we seek this treatment or that treatment for a particular illness?

Of course, we can look to precedent, we can mine our faith traditions for guidance, we can consult a family member or a friend.

But ultimately, in most cases, we realize that these decisions are up to us, whether they affect us alone or impact others, as well. 

Last week, the Times featured an article by an economics professor at University College London called, “Why We Make Bad Decisions.”

She wrote about how stress and anxiety impact our decision-making, using her own situation to illustrate her points.

It seems that she came down with a condition that initially defied diagnosis, a condition that caused her to lose 30 pounds in a short period of time and, periodically, to experience intense pain.

Faced with a range of expert advice regarding course of action that included lumbar injections and antidepressants, she found herself having to evaluate her options in a state of anxiety and stress.

Here are a few things she learned.  Stress makes people lose patience and often leads to rash decisions.  Anxiety makes people deferential, afraid to challenge experts who, the author discovered, are not always right.

Moreover, many people are innately optimistic about their own lives and that can sometimes cloud judgment as well.  For example, research has demonstrated that many people continue to smoke because they believe on some level that statistics about potential negative outcomes of smoking will not apply to them.

She urges that we be aware of what we are feeling so that we can do our best to identify if our judgment is being clouded.

She concludes by writing, “With brain switched on and eyes wide open, we can’t always guarantee a positive outcome when it comes to a medical decision, but we can at least stack the odds in our favor.” (“Why We Make Bad Decisions, NY Times, October 19, 2013, Noreena Hertz).

In the end, by the way, she got an accurate diagnosis and decided to be operated on by a surgeon who did not seem too confident, since she researched that such a person would likely produce the best outcome.

I’m sure that all of us here who have navigated medical decisions for ourselves and for loved ones can recognize many of the issues that the author raises. 

Of course each topic is different and may call for a slightly different approach.  But I want to suggest, based on this article, and based on what our Biblical tradition teaches us, that tough decisions call for two things – focus and faith.

Focus – thinking carefully about something, weighing our thoughts and our feelings, determining what our priorities are.

And faith.  Understanding that the ultimate outcome, in most situations, is beyond our complete control.  Giving space for life to take its course with all of our forethought and planning.

Generations ago, father Abraham was worried about finding the right life-partner for his son, Isaac.  

He said to his servant, promise me that you will go to my homeland to find a wife for Isaac.  And the servant said, but what if she doesn’t want to come back with me?

And Abraham said, if that happens, then you will be free from your promise.

This is actually one of the longest stories in the Torah – filled with repetition and embellishment.  Abraham is asked to sacrifice Isaac – the whole story – 19 verses.  Finding Isaac a wife – 62 verses.  3 times the length!

It’s a great story.  The servant journeys with 10 camels and all of his master’s bounty to the family’s hometown.  He says, I’m paraphrasing: Dear God.  Deal well with me and deal well with my master Abraham.  I’m standing at the local watering hole.  Give me a sign.  When I ask a woman who comes to the spring to feed her flock if she can give me some water to drink – the woman who says, "Here’s water for you.  And I’ll also bring water for your camels!”  THAT woman is the right one for Isaac. 

Was this just an arbitrary test?  Not according to the commentator, Rashi, who wrote that this demonstrated that Rebecca practiced acts of kindness and was worthy of entering into Abraham’s house. 

The servant had forethought.  He considered carefully what he was looking for, just as Abraham had done by insisting that the servant go to the family’s hometown. 

Just after the servant makes his statement, Rebecca comes forward.  She’s related and she fulfills the requirements by offering water for the servant and the camels.

And ultimately, she agrees to go, partly a function of her own interest and her brother’s greed, but never mind.  And ultimately, she meets Isaac, and we are told he married her and loved her.

Of course, as the old expression has it, “when things work out, you’re a genius.”  But it’s clear to me that Abraham and his servant had focus and faith.

As the author of the NY Times article might put it, they stacked the odds in their favor.

I actually think that the balance between focus and faith is harder to achieve than we might imagine.

We could probably identify situations where we left too much to chance and situations where we probably should have relaxed a bit more than we did.

We can only study so much for a test, or spend so much time on a paper or a project, and then we have to take the test or hand in the paper or present the project.

We can only spend so much time calculating and advocating for a college acceptance or a career move and then we need to make room for factors beyond our control. 

We can only spend so much energy identifying the ideal qualities of prince or princess charming before we let fate and pheromones do their part.

But the absence of study, calculation and energy – faith without focus - would be foolish.

And once the dust settles from our focus and our faith, from the decisions we make and the realities that crystallize around those decisions, we likely have to consider the next issue, as did Isaac when he turned to Rebecca and said – sweetheart, what’s it going to be, Cross Bronx or Harlem River Drive?  

Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck, October 26, 2013