“What a Day Can Be Like” Temple Beth-El of Great Neck Rabbi
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
“What a Day Can Be Like” Temple BethEl of Great Neck Rabbi Jerome K. Davidson’s Yom Kippur Eve Sermon 2013/5774 I have been thinking about a friend of mine, Paul Cowan, an author and journalist, who died 25 years ago at this season. Shortly before his death, when he was in the hospital after a long battle with leukemia, I spoke to him by phone a day or so following Rosh Hashanah. He asked about the sermons I had given; I told him both had dealt with political and social issues and that I thought my beleaguered congregants deserved a spiritual message. “I have one for them,” he quickly responded. Then there followed a pause. It was clear he was struggling with the words: “Tell them about the preciousness of life, what a day is like, what a wife is like.” What reminded me of Paul, is the “unetaneh tokef” prayer that is central to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. “Let us proclaim the sacred power of this day,” it begins. The prayer, as you know, portrays God as the Judge of our deeds, and based on them decides “who shall live and who shall die who shall see ripe age and who shall not, who shall perish by fire and who by water, who be sword and who by beast, who by hunger and who by thirst, who by earthquake and who by plague…who shall be secure and who shall be driven….” It is a rough, painful prayer to read and contemplate. What hits us so hard every year is the profound truth the prayer dramatically conveys, the uncertainty of life which every one of us must face, not knowing what tomorrow may bring. That is why I think of Paul’s message, “Tell them what a day is like.” That is Judaism’s response to the terrifying precariousness of our lives: will terrorism explode as we run our life’s marathon, will disease strike down my child, will a colleague undermine my professional advancement? Tell them what a day is like. What does Judaism teach us about managing the dread of mortality, the unknowns the “unataneh tokef” spells out, to which we might add, in modern terms, automobile accidents and cancer cells? Under a shadow of such precariousness, how do we live each day productively, with appreciation and joy, and not be consumed by worry, fear and self pity? Not by being Pollyannaish, denying the harshness of life’s realities, but by linking mortality with the urgency of living well. Rabbi Janet Marder writes, “Our refrain for this season is ‘zochreinu l’chayyim,’ remember us for life. It’s an odd phrase, actually, for nobody supposes that God is prone to forgetfulness and needs to be reminded that we are here. But maybe we need to be reminded. I like to think of the words ‘zochreinu l’chayyim’ — remind us that we live, help us remember the precious and astounding gift of our lives, to treasure our days and use them well.” Yet there is a poignant reading in the meditation section for Yom Kippur afternoon that I always find to be very sad. It is a poem by the British poet, Humbert Wolfe; it reminds us we don’t really get the message of Yom Kippur. For all we sought and missed, or left unclaimed, for all the dreams we had and lost, for love denied, or seen with too much truth… for all adventure, before the quest is ended, abandoned or betrayed, for beauty misted by the half-lights of vision, for pity attended with the bitterness of those who take and give… for all who die before we live, for all the crippled feet along the long road You made for angels, we forgive You, God. I resonate with those words, don’t you? The author, of course, is writing critically; it is our fault, not God’s. That is how we die before we live, failing to claim joy, leaving behind duty, abandoning adventure for another day. Rabbi Steven Leder calls attention to a powerful message from the plane that crash- landed in the Hudson River a few years ago. Everyone survived thanks to the great skill of the pilot. One of the passengers, Richard Elias, has publically spoken of the terrifying moments before the crash, and what it taught him. “Imagine a big explosion as you climb through 3,000 feet. Imagine a plane full of smoke. Imagine an engine going clack, clack, clack, clack. It sounds scary. I had a unique seat that day. I was sitting in 1D. I was the only one who could talk to the flight attendants. I looked at them nervously, and they said, ‘No problem. We probably hit some birds.’ The pilot had already turned the plane around. We were approaching Manhattan. “Two minutes later, three things happened at the same time. The pilot lined up the plane with the Hudson River. Not the usual route. He turned off the engines. Now imagine being in a plane with no sound. And then he said three words — the most unemotional three words I’ve ever heard. ‘Brace for impact.’ I didn’t have to talk to the flight attendant anymore. I could see terror in her eyes. Life was over. “I learned three things about myself that day. I learned that it all changes in an instant. We all have a bucket list, things we want to do, people we want to reach out to, fences we want to mend, experiences we want to have, mountains we want to climb but never did…. And that urgency, that purpose, has really changed my life. “The second thing I learned that day was a deep regret. I’ve lived a good life. In my own humanity and mistakes, I’ve tried to get better in many ways. But in my human frailty, I also allowed my ego to flourish. As the plane plummeted, I regretted the time I wasted on things that did not matter, with people that did not matter. I thought about my relationship with my wife, with my friends, with others. As I reflected, I decided to eliminate negative energy from my life. But it was very sad. I didn’t want to go; I love 2 my life. And all that sadness is framed in one thought. I only wish for one thing…I could see my kids grow up “A month later, I am at a performance by my first grade daughter and…I’m crying like a little kid. And it made all the sense in the world to me, that the only thing that matters is being the best dad I can be…. “I was given the gift of life that day… Next time you fly, imagine the same things happening on your plane. How would you change your relationships and the negative energy in them? And more than anything, are you being the best person you can?” Why do we need near death experiences or even hearing about them, or the truth of our mortality Yom Kippur forces us to contemplate, to wake us up? How can we better focus on living the fullest, most meaningful lives we possibly can? A rabbi asked his students, “What is the most important thing in the world?” Hands went up, the answers came quickly, “prayer, Torah study, helping the poor.” “No!” shouted the rabbi, “The most important thing in the world is what you are doing right now!” There is a current movement called Mindfulness that derives from a Buddhist meditation practice. Now I’m not a Jew-Bu, but Mindfulness makes a very important point about our lives. Much of the time our minds wander through all kinds of thoughts, fears, angers, cravings, revenge. Most are about the past and the future. Mindfulness asserts, the past no longer exists, the future is fantasy until it happens. The one moment we can actually experience, the present moment, is the one we seem most to avoid. Yes, think of all the stuff in our heads, muddling the clarity of what we are doing at the moment, eclipsing the beauty, the joy, the significance of the day. Wherever we might be, with whomever we might be, so often we’re not really there. It is true, frequently we are back in the past, imprisoned by memories of struggles, failures, guilt. Or we are held hostage by what we obsess are the demands and uncertainties of the future. So much so, we don’t realize what a day can be like. The poet David Whyte wrote: “Life is no passing memory of what has been…nor the remaining pages of a great book waiting to be read. It is opening of eyes long closed; it is the heart, after years of secret conversing, speaking out loud in the clear air.” Let’s break the lock on the past we have allowed too often to imprison us. Remember the story of God destroying the evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah? God instructs Abraham’s nephew, Lot and his wife, to flee and not look back at the destruction. But Lot’s wife cannot help herself. She turns around to look back at the ruin of her past, and she becomes a pillar of salt. Indeed, if we become so bound to the past , especially its painful times, if we continually dwell on it, our spirits become resentful and deadened. Of course, we can’t completely abandon the past. Our dear ones are there, as are the many experiences of our lives, some wonderful and some hurtful.