SERMON PARASHAT BREISHIT Kabbalat Shabbat Oct 25, 2019 Rabbi David Edleson, Temple Sinai, S. Burlington Vermont

“WE ARE FORBIDDEN TO BE OLD” - HAPPY 90TH TO BEV BETTEMANN

Psalm 90 tells us:

Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures;

So Bev, and all you others that are near or over 90, what is your secret? I think you are the superheroes that Marvel hasn’t made a movie about… yet.

But don’t get too full of your age-power. Remember that Sarah was 90 when she found out she was pregnant with Isaac. Moses was 120 when he got the Israelites to the Jordan, and this week’s Torah portion includes this line:

“When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he begot Lamech. After the birth of Lamech, Methuselah lived 782 years and begot sons and daughters.” - Genesis 5:25-6

You’ve still got a lot of work to do, Bev! We know that Torah teaches us that we must respect our elders. Leviticus 19:32 says: Thou shalt rise up before the elder, and honor the face of the“ – וְהָדַרְ תָּ פְּ נֵי זָקֵן old person...” Now, the Hebrew word for the elder here is zaken, which the Talmud tells us is an acronym for zeh shekaneh chachma – a person who has acquired wisdom. If we should honor that our elders are wise because they have learned so much from life experience, then how much the more so – kal v’chomer – we should honor and show respect to those who are also Torah scholars, and Bev has been the Dean of our Torah Study for a long time. .איזהו הידור? לא ישב במקומו, ולא מדבר במקומו ולא סותר את דבריו :RASHI asks “What sort of honor? Do not sit in their seat” Well, I pity someone who tries to sit in Bev’s seat! She’ll come at you. Bev is fierce. Pirkei Avot is a collection of wise aphorisms found in the Talmud, and in Pirkei Avot 4:20, it says: “And one who learns from elders is compared to what? To one who eats ripe grapes and drinks aged wine. Rebbi says: Do not look at the jug but rather at what is in it.” Well, Bev, I think that your jugs are just fine, but I take his point.

Bev is also a numbers person, having been an accountant and a manager, so I thought I would offer a bit of gematria, Jewish numerology for her 90th birthday:

The number 90 in Hebrew is also the letter Tzadee. Tzadee is the 18th letter in the alephbeit, and so it shows that life begins at 90. Tzadee is also very close to the word Tzadik, or a righteous good person. The tzadee is shaped like a bent-over letter nun, with her hands lifted toward heaven in prayer. It’s totally Bev.

Ninety also corresponds to the word Pele, or “wondrous.”

It is also the value of the word Mayim, or water, the wellspring of life, another epithet for God. And the word Melech, or king/ruler is also equal to 90. And surely Bev is someone who is a Melech here at Temple Sinai, and we are grateful for her leadership.

And one final teaching from our tradition: The famous Hassidic teacher, Nachman of Bratslav had a favorite saying. It was: We are forbidden to be old! I think that is the right message for Rock Shabbat on Bev’s birthday. We will, if fortunate, get old in years; our bodies get old and stop cooperating; our patience get strained, but our hearts and our spirits – these we must keep as young as we can, and Bev, you are an absolute role model for all of us, as so many of you are, in learning how to age gracefully by keeping your hearts and spirit and intellects forever young. Thank you.

And to celebrate this, let’s sing the Shehecheyanu together.