Chapter 26: Motivations and Rewards; Or, A Little Bit of Everything!
On the season 2 finale of “The Good Place”, the Judge and Michael agree on a new way to assess the four humans’ improvement. They send Eleanor back to the day she died but this time she doesn’t, and she sets out to change. On the podcast, Rebecca and Jon circle back to discuss different types of motivations and rewards that encourage or result from ethical behavior. And, the idea of teshuvah as literally going back in order to change, and relationships and time frames and apologies… if “The Good Place” can weave together so many threads in a single episode so can the podcast!
Texts
(Go to Jewish Lexicon on this site for more on Jewish terminology, names of texts and other background. The links here in the citations take you to the specific quotes in their full contexts.)
The first section of the first, and a different version of the second, are included in the daily morning prayers.
Mishnah Peah 1:1
These are things that have no specific quantity: the corners of the field [to leave for people in need to pick for food], and the first fruits [to be brought as an offering to the Temple], and the appearing [on the pilgrimage festivals], and acts of devotion/lovingkindness, and study of Torah.
These are things that a person eats their fruit in this world and the principal endures for them to the World to Come: honoring/supporting one’s father and mother, acts of devotion/lovingkindness, and bringing peace between a person and their friend, and the study of Torah is equal to all of them.
Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 127a
Rav Yehuda bar Shayla said that Rabbi Asi said that Rabbi Yochanan said: Six things a person eats their fruit in this world and the principal endures for them to the World to Come, and these are: welcoming in guests, and visiting the sick, and looking carefully at the prayers, and getting up early to go to the House of Study, and raising one’s children to the study of Torah, judging one’s friend with a favorable bias.
Siddur (prayerbook) version
These are things that have no specific quantity: the corners of the field [to leave for people in need to pick for food], and the first fruits [to be brought as an offering to the Temple], and the appearing [on the pilgrimage festivals], and acts of devotion/lovingkindness, and study of Torah.
These are things that a person eats their fruit in this world and the principal endures for them to the World to Come: honoring/supporting one’s father and mother, acts of devotion/lovingkindness, getting to the House of Study early morning and evening, and welcoming in guests, and visiting the sick, and organizing a wedding celebration, and accompanying the dead [organizing/participating in a funeral procession], and looking carefully at the prayers, and bring peace between a person and their friend [some versions add: or between a person and their spouse] — and the study of Torah is equal to all of them.
Deuteronomy 30:1-10 (based on translation by Professor Everett Fox)
Now it shall be:
when there come upon you all these things,
the blessing and the curse that I have set before you,
and you take them to your heart
among all the nations where YHWH your God has led you away,
and you return to YHWH your God and hearken to God’s voice,
exactly as I command you today,
you and your children,
with all your heart and with all your being,
that YHWH your God will restore/turn your fortunes/return with your return-from-captivity
and have compassion on you:
God will return to collect you from all the peoples
wherein YHWH your God has scattered you.
If you be led away to the ends of the heavens,
from there YHWH your God will collect you, from there God will take you,
and YHWH your God will bring you
to the land that your ancestors possessed, and you shall possess it,
God will do-well by you and make you many-more than your ancestors.
YHWH your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your seed,
to love YHWH your God with all your heart and with all your being,
in order that you may live.
YHWH your God will place all those threats upon your enemies and on those hating you, those pursuing you;
while you will return and hearken to the voice of YHWH
and observe all his commandments that I command you today:
YHWH your God will make you excel in all the doings of your hands,
in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your animals, and in the fruit of your land, to good-measure,
indeed, YHWH will return to delighting in you, to [your] good,
as God delighted in your fathers—
if you hearken to the voice of YHWH your God,
by keeping God’s commandments and God’s laws—what is written in this Record of Instruction/Torah—
if you return to YHWH your God with all your heart and with all your being.
Deeper Dives
Learn more about Rebecca and Jon on our Hosts page!
