Blood, Platelets & Begrudging Morality

Now I, as I’m sure a lot of people, do their best to do the right thing.  For some it comes easier than others.  Personally, I’m quite a begrudging sort of guy and it doesn’t ‘warm the cockles of my heart’ to help others.  The overriding emotion once I have ‘discharged my duty’ is probably relief.  Dissonance between what I should do and my natural resistance is a nuisance I am happy to be (temporarily) rid of.

One can understand how, for someone like me, it was the best of both worlds to get a letter from The National Blood Service saying that I couldn’t donate platelets.  Now I do give blood now and again and whilst it causes no great anguish, I am a bit squeamish.  It is not that it hurts but I don’t like the thought of a needle in me, am a bit scared in case I move, and finds the continual hand-pumping action a little uncomfortable.  However, it only takes 10 minutes and the second it is over, I feel no ill effect.  After my compulsory hot chocolate, I am on my way.

Last time I was in to give blood, the nurse asked whether I had considered giving platelets.  Is something I might like to do? Would I like to be tested for?  Of course, this isn’t something that I generally think about at great length.  Equally, it isn’t at the top of my ‘like’ list.  The key point here is that you cannot be a blood donor and a platelet donor at the same time.  As such, I would be (as I found out) swapping a 10 minute donation for 1 and a half hour donation, going in 8 - 10 times a year rather than 4, and have a machine strapped to me and not just a bag!

Not wanting to base my moral decision on what I feel like, I asked for information and also which would be the most useful thing to do.  After a few niceties about how both were incredibly valuable (which they are), I found out that it would probably be better to give platelets if I could.  Fewer people are able to donate them, not many people can commit that amount of time; and unlike blood, they cannot be stored as they only last a short time.  As such, I agreed to take test and if possible, become a platelet donor.

Recently, I got a letter from the National Blood Service with the results.  I was told that: “you have more than enough [platelets] for yourself, however not a sufficient amount extra to provide an adequate donation”.  I’d done the right thing- so to speak- and yet got out of having to take any further action.  Phew!  But is this the right way to feel?  This all depends on whether you subscribe to Aristotle’s view of ethics or Kant’s.

For Aristotle, ‘doing the right thing’ does not make you a moral person or the action a specifically moral one.  It is the role of the politicians to introduce legislation that encourage rational actions promoting the welfare of people and state, and early education to indoctrinate you into performing them.  However, the main role of education is to develop your character such that- like the rest of nature- you always follow the middle path.  You will, for example, develop compassion so that you will want to help people.  An action may be rational but it is only moral if it is a natural expression of a person’s virtuous character.

Kant, on the other hand, disagrees and thinks emotions (or ‘how you feel’ about an action) are not a good guide to morality.  They are transient and will mean different choices on different occasions.  Also, dependant as they are on external circumstances, they are heteronomous and so, not a good guide to character.  Instead, actions must be based on categorical reason, which is the only thing that is truly autonomous.  As such, if someone who doesn’t want to something with every fibre of his being, yet does it because it is rational, it is a truly moral action. This is because it is based on the moral will alone.

It would therefore be very convenient if I Kant was absolutely right, as it would vindicate me.  However, he is not!  I agree that our actions can only be rationally justified.  Equally, I’m very distrustful of those who do what they happen (due to historical accident) to consider the most ‘loving’ thing to do.  Nonetheless, we can only be a truly moral person if we develop our character so that we will naturally follow the dictates of reason.  A begrudging person cannot be truly virtuous!  Oh well.

My Magic-Box, or Phylacteries

After accusing my brother of being responsible for much ‘internecine’ conflict, we got on to discussing whether a word can be part of language if no-one (or nearly no-one) knows what it means.  Clearly, yes.

Whenever someone asks what ‘tefillin’ are, someone always helpfully responds that they are ‘phylacteries’.  Given that neither the person giving the explanation, nor the person receiving it, know what phylacteries mean, it is a bit of a conversation stopper.  The person who originally asked is too embarrassed to question any further.  There is the implicit assumption that as it is a translation, or explanation, they should now have a good idea what it is. 

It is quite clear that ‘phylacteries’ is part of the language- even if (now) only as a synonym for tefillin.  Presumably phylacteries did have some wider meaning in English such that, rather than being a translation, it compared it to a class of things that an English speaker would already be familiar with.  I assumed it would be something like “ritual clothing” or “strapped boxes” or some other category of which tefillin was one member.

Out of curiosity, I looked it up.  The first definition was just a description of tefillin.  The second however, was “amulet” which means: “an ornament often inscribed with a magic incantation or symbol to aid the wearer or protect against evil”.  This is a bastardization of the practice and is, unfortunately, indicative of the superstitions that have entered Jewish consciousness.  No doubt this is what Rav Hirsch complains about when he says:

institutions which were designed and ordained for the internal and external purification and betterment of man as mechanical, dynamical, or magical formulas for the up-building of higher worlds, and . . . thus the observances meant for the education of the spirit to a nobler life were but too frequently degraded into mere amuletic or talismanic performances

Even today Chassidic groups will be put tefillin on people even when there is no kavannah (intention) or meaningful experience of any kind.  It is not done as a mitzvah, or done for the symbolism (e.g. to dedicate emotions and intellect to Hashem), or done as a prayer aid, or pride that you are now Barmitzvah, or as an expression of solidarity with your people.  For me, this is worthless.  Others will thing that sticking cow to your head will influence ‘upper worlds’.

Judaism doesn’t need magic, but then again, there is no need for internecine conflict.

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Afterthought:

If you want spiritual improvement, do the mitzvot.  If you want to be “protected from evil”, stay away from the miracle workers.  You are need of much more sensible advice than wearing tefillin, such as that proffered by the ‘Brisker Rov’, Reb Hayym Soloveitchik (HT: here):

Two women, who came for advice, gave me their story the impression what this interesting man [Brisker Rov] stood for.  One of them had an epileptic child.  She had had a dream in which a miraculous cure was indicated and wished to know the rabbi’s advice.  He remained calm.  “You take him to Warsaw,” he said, “and consult a specialist, as I told you before.” 

The second woman had a more complicated case.  Her husband claimed a commission on a real estate transaction with a Polish noble.  The latter refused to pay, and as R. Hayyim afterwards explained to me, properly.  The claimant was one of the numerous “Luftmenschen” of the Pale, men without any definite occupation, who had heard of an estate that was for sale, talked about it to the count or to one of his employees and after the deal had been closed demanded a compensation.  The count in good old eighteenth century fashion told him, if he should bother him again, he would give him a sound drubbing.  R. Hayyim asked: “what do you want me to do?”  “The Rabbi shall give my husband a blessing so that he shall find grace in the eyes of the Poriz.”  “I can’t give you a blessing,” was the reply.  “The Aibishter alone cane give you a blessing, but I advise you to select a representative person who shall talk to the Poriz, perhaps he may obtain a concession”. 

Or as (possibly apocryphally) told of his grandson Rav J.B. Soloveitchik:

Talmid: Rebbe, can you bless me?

Soloveitchik:  What are you? An apple?