On this day in 1964, United States Surgeon General Luther Terry released the first government report announcing a definitive link between smoking and cancer. For several days, the report was the topic of newspaper headlines across the country and lead stories on television newscasts.
In many ways, Terry’s report was a late arrival. Studies in Britain had revealed a definitive link between smoking and lung and heart disease as early as the 1940s and a majority of Americans already believed that smoking did indeed cause lung cancer. However, tobacco companies had fended off any government efforts to curb smoking until Terry’s 1964 report. Albeit late, the report mattered. It made a difference in the states’ approach to smoking and continues to do so today.
In many ways, Jewish tradition functions similarly. From the time of the Torah onwards, the lives and customs of Jews evolved in myriad ways due to the influence of history, and Jewish norms ultimately evolved alongside them.
In the Book of Numbers, the five daughters of Zelophehad—Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah—successfully sue for a change in Jewish law to reflect the new situation of their family, whose patriarch dies without a male heir. According to the tale, God recognizes the need to update Jewish law and instructs Moses to alter Jewish customs, allowing women—under special circumstances—to inherit property.
Though there are many who argue against a willingness to alter either our religious or civic norms, rigidity is not the hallmark of a Jewish worldview. Indeed, our Torah has remained timeless only because of our tradition’s willingness to adapt to the changing circumstances of history.
As such, our tradition begs us to consider the changing circumstances that we must address now, lest we arrive, like Terry’s report, late on the scene.
—Rabbi Josh Knobel