“What a Can Be Like” Temple Beth­El of Great Neck Rabbi Jerome K. Davidson’s Sermon 2013/5774

I have been thinking about a friend of mine, Paul Cowan, an author and journalist, who died 25 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 . 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 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 . 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 , 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. They are part of us,

3 constituting a large measure of who we are. But we don’t live there any more. Sad things have happened in the lives of each of us: a professional partnership that breaks apart, a divorce, our own insensitive actions toward friends or family. But we need to avoid defining ourselves by those melancholy memories. Rabbi Leder reports that his friend’s grandfather, who survived the Holocaust, put it this way. “What was, was. What is, is. And that’s that.”

Too often, when our lives are boring and unsatisfactory, we accept a diminished life because of its familiarity. We survived the old way, why take a risk? Rabbi Marder notes that Sigmund Freud wrote about “repetition compulsion.” He said people make the same mistakes again and again. For example, they are attracted to the same sort of spouse who made them miserable in the past. Or they complain of the bad parenting they suffered through, and then adopt the same behavior with their own children. Albert Einstein famously defined insanity this way: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. God brought us out of Egypt, out of enslavement, to be free, to be able to make new choices.

To turn away from the past and develop a sense of new possibilities, can begin only from within each of us. Rabbi Marder calls attention to Diane Bloomfield’s book, Torah Yoga, if you can believe the title, in which Bloomfield comments, “once you see the world as constantly unfolding, everything around you looks fresh and new. Without that perception, all we see is time’s winged chariot, robbing us of youth and good looks, health and strength, friendship and love, and eventually, life itself.”

This is what a Chasidic rabbi wanted us to understand through his strange teaching: “It is forbidden to be old.” Not by attempting to look young, but rather by not permitting ourselves to feel old, and thereby lose the sense of life as an unfolding adventure. Remember the Yom Kippur meditation of regret, “for all adventure, before the quest is ended, abandoned or betrayed.”

This summer I read a wonderful Op-Ed in the Times by Dr. Oliver Sacks, noted neurologist and psychiatrist, author of many books including Awakenings, which became an Academy Award nominated film. He wrote on the occasion of his 80th birthday. I took very careful note, now being 80 myself. (Sacks pointed out, so is Gloria Steinem 80!) He wrote: “Eighty, I can hardly believe it. I often feel that life is about to begin…I feel glad to be alive…I’m glad I’m not dead, sometimes bursts out of me when the weather is perfect…. I’m sorry I have wasted, and still waste so much time…. One’s reactions are a little slower, names more frequently elude one, but even so, one may feel full of energy and life and not at all old… I do not think of old age as an ever grimmer time that one must somehow endure and make the best of, but a time free to explore whatever I wish….” He entitled his article, “The Joy of Old Age. (No Kidding.)” Oliver Sacks certainly never lets the past define him. He knows what a day is like.

We also sacrifice the present to our preoccupation with the future. Rabbi Marder again references Sigmund Freud who, one day, went for a walk in the Italian Alps in the company of the young poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. As they walked through “the

4 blossoming summer landscape,” surrounded by colorful flowers and dancing butterflies, Freud noticed that his young companion was strangely morose. He wrote, “The poet admired the beauty…but felt no joy in it. He was disturbed by the thought that this beauty was fated to extinction, that it would vanish when winter came, like all human beauty and all…that men have created.” Freud called this “anticipatory mourning,” meaning Rilke’s thoughts were so consumed by concern for the future, that they made it impossible for him to enjoy the delights of the present.

That is what we do, very often: bypass the present for a tomorrow that captures us with worry. Will my husband be laid off, will my son-in-law be a good father to my grandchildren, will my kids get involved with drugs? The truth is that we have to live with the unknowable. The future cannot be predicted. As Rabbi Harold Kushner put it, “You are not in charge of the universe.” And so we learn to live without certain answers and sure bets. To cease allowing ourselves to be harassed by the past, or imagining frightening scenarios that might occur in the future, for which we do not have an answer, and may never. Instead, to try to discover, what a day can be like.

How can we achieve this, at least, how can we begin to do so? I have a few suggestions. I think they will help us appreciate the here and now of our lives.

The first is gratitude. Jane Kenyon’s beautiful poem may be familiar to some of you. It, too, could well be a part of Yom Kippur liturgy.

I got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise.

I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach. It might have been otherwise. I took the dog uphill To the birch wood. All morning I did the work I love. At noon I lay down with my mate. It might have been otherwise. We ate dinner together at a table with silver candlesticks. It might have been otherwise. I slept in a bed in a room with paintings on the walls, and

5 planned another day just like this day. But one day, I know, it will be otherwise.

Jane Kenyon died only a few years after she wrote those words. Her message lives through them.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life, even while acknowledging its transience. It challenges our human inclination to take so much for granted. In Hebrew, the word for gratitude is “hakarat tova,” literally, recognizing the good. Ingratitude is “kafiyat tova,” to deny goodness, not to recognize it when it is ours.

When I think what we have to be grateful for, the ordinary comforts of a place to go home to, of food on the table, of someone to love; for freedom to follow our dreams, to speak our minds, to live openly and securely as Jews. Who can be ungrateful, who can deny these gifts? They are with us every day when we awaken. The people in our lives, the opportunities that beckon, the quiet beauty. To say with the poet e. e. cummings, “I thank you God for this most amazing day; for the leaping greenly spirits of trees…for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes…. This is the birthday of life and of love….”

What can a day be like? Celebrate life by doing something really important, every day, something for others, for the community, for even one other person, a stranger, perhaps. It will be a better day for us if we do.

The suffering in our world would be unimaginable, if the New York Times front page did not, almost daily, picture every kind of horror, of war, famine, rape, murder, human trafficking, terrorism. And the children! The Syrian atrocity of gassing children to death, with their families outraged us all. 3.1 million children, under 5, die of malnutrition annually worldwide. One in six go hungry in this country, whose lifeline, the SNAP program, formerly food stamps, Congress is considering cutting. Seven children in the U.S. are killed by gun violence each day. We don’t want to hear about it, or read about it.

Next time you go into New York City by train, sit on the right side. Near Woodside is a large sign on a church building, a quote from the biblical Book of Lamentations, “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?” There are countless places on Long Island and in the City where soup kitchens need help, and lonely people need visits and children need a few hours with a caring adult. And there are strangers on the street who need a smile, and shop workers and waitresses who need some kindness and warmth. Rabbi Abraham Heschel said, “When I was young, I admired successful people, now that I am old, I admire kind people.”

The poet called out to us, “Life is the heart, after years of secret conversing, speaking out in the clear air.” To speak out with tenderness, and to speak out for justice. The ugly voices of hate, racism and ridicule of the unfortunate, the losers, the impoverished, the

6 immigrants, fill not only the airwaves, but also the living rooms of people who should know better. Speak out the truth for an American society of equality and respect for blacks, Latinos, gays, and Muslims! Challenge the hurtful gossip that slips into too many conversations. Speak for decency in the community, for tenderness among friends and acquaintances.

Speak out for Israel when strident voices, ignoring or ignorant of history, condemn the State and its people for the tensions in the Middle East, as though Israel, not the Arab states began the conflict, as though Israel, not the Palestinians, have so often said “no” to peace. At the same time, speak out for the women in Israel, at the Wall and on public busses, and for the plight of Israeli Arabs, and for the rights of non-Orthodox Jews. Become part of one of the most crucial conversations of modern Jewish history. The days when kindness and truth are on your lips, will not be empty.

And you will understand what a day can be like when you look to your right and to your left, perhaps within your arms reach, and you will know where the truest, deepest meaning of your life is to be found. In the love you share with your wife or husband, the delight and pride you feel for your children and grandchildren, your dear parents, your siblings, your friends with whom you can share your heart. And those close to you, though in another place. Set them all at the top of your list of blessings.

And if you say, my house is empty; I am separated from those who once filled my life. Then know that you are not alone, really. This congregation is here for you. And there are others, like you, waiting for someone to enrich their days, perhaps waiting for you.

“For love denied, or seen with too much truth,” we read among the enumerated regrets for this Yom Kippur eve. By taking dear ones, and friends, for granted, we deny love; by demanding too much, by being too busy, working too late to eat together, tuck our children in and share our hearts with our beloved, we deny love. By picking at frailties, at mistakes of our spouses, our children, our parents—I assure you I, too, am guilty—we deny love. Who is perfect?

So, sadly, we close the doors on others. We do so because a child doesn’t turn out to be the “world class” genius we deserve; because a parent, being human, is not always reasonable and understanding, because a husband or wife fails at times to be as sensitive and appreciative as we think we have a right to expect. We close the doors with grudges and feuds, jealousies and resentments.

But we can open them so easily, with forgiveness, with the acceptance of others’ weaknesses, hoping, when we say “I am sorry,” they will accept ours; we open doors with love that says we belong to each other, we need each other.

Dear Friends, we step, then, into the New Year, perhaps certain only of this: that life is truly a wondrous, sacred gift, and that living with gratitude, purpose and love will cause each day to be a blessing.

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References: Deane Bloomfield, Torah Yoga: Experiencing Jewish Wisdom Through Classic Postures Sigmund Freud, essays, “On Transience,” Goethe Society of Berlin, 1915 “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” 1920

With appreciation to Rabbi Janet Marder and Rabbi Steven Leder for their beautiful sermons on this theme.

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