BOB ABERNETHY: Now, Perspectives, today with Rabbi Harold Kushner, best known nationally for his book, WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE. His latest book, HOW GOOD WE HAVE TO BE, is about guilt and forgiveness and the bad things good people do to themselves. Rabbi, welcome.

Rabbi HAROLD KUSHNER (Author): Thank you.

ABERNETHY: What's your answer to your question? How good do we have to be?

Rabbi KUSHNER: As good as you can be. But you don't have to be perfect, because I think it's impossible to be perfect. The moral choices that human beings have to make every day, the challenges we face every day of our lives are so complicated nobody's ever going to get it right every single time, any more than the best baseball player in the world will bat a 1,000 and get a hit every time up.

ABERNETHY: You write about the guilt that many of us carry around with us, perhaps all our lives, a need to forgive ourselves, but isn't there a risk in that message of more of the permissiveness and self-indulgence that has been so much criticized in our society? Don't you kind of have to get it balanced?

Rabbi KUSHNER: Yes, you do. I would point out first of all that people have been doing a very good job about making mistakes without my permission, so I don't think I'm messing things up. But what I believe is that everyone is entitled to hear two voices from his or her religious faith simultaneously. One is the prophetic, commanding voice, that says, "Come on, make something of yourself, you can do better, challenge yourself, reach further." And the other is the forgiving, cleansing, compassionate voice that says, when you have accepted these high standards, and you feel like a failure because you couldn't live up to them, "Please know that there is divine forgiveness and acceptance in the world. That God doesn't demand the impossible and then condemn you for not doing the impossible."

ABERNETHY: The 10 commandments don't exactly say, "Try to do better." They say, "Thou Shalt Not."

Rabbi KUSHNER: Sure, but the 10 commandments are a minimum, not a maximum. I characterize that the 10 Commandments for staying out of jail, right. Don't steal, don't kill, don't commit adultery. What about the hundreds of things beyond that? What about gossiping, what about deceiving somebody, what about selfishness, what about laziness, what about turning the other way when you see a beggar on the street, what about hiding the truth because the truth is embarrassing? These are the dozens and dozens of moral choices we have to make, and even the best of people is going to blow them. Look at the Bible: Abraham mistreats his wives, endangers his sons: Isaac and Jacob play favorites among their children. King David has an affair with a married woman. And these are the good guys. What I learned is you can be a spiritual hero without being perfect.

ABERNETHY: There's a broad new interest in the country, as you know, in finding harmony between body, mind, and spirit without much connection to any traditional church or synagogue. New Age is the broad characterization of it. What do you make of that?