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Rabbi Congregation B’nai B’rith, Santa Barbara, CA August 5, 2011

In the past two weeks, the attention of the media focused briefly on the lives and struggles of two extraordinary young Jewish women. On Monday, Gabrielle electrified the country by appearing on the floor of the to cast her vote, less than seven months after a deranged gunman shot her through the brain at point blank range. Her recovery and appearance in Washington brought a brief moment of transcendent joy to our nation after weeks of debilitating and disgusting political conflict. One week before Gabby Giffords’ triumphant return to her place in Congress, the hugely talented and deeply tormented Jewish singer and songwriter Amy Winehouse was found dead in her London apartment, her life over at age 27. It is impossible to imagine two more different lives. The worlds inhabited by Gabby Giffords and by Amy Winehouse seem like different planets. But both Gabby and Amy are Jewish, both are daughters of our people. Both have been fighting to regain their lives, have been struggling to regain, literally, the ability to speak. Both are looked up to by literally millions, albeit for very different reasons. The drama of both of their lives has been acted out on the world stage…and it is worth taking a moment this evening to tell their stories…and to ask what meaning we may find there. Gabrielle Giffords was born in Tucson in 1970, attended Scripps, earned a Masters in Regional Planning from Cornell and won a Fullbright Scholarship to study for a year in Mexico. At age 26, she became President and CEO of a chain of Auto Service Centers founded by her grandfather. At 31, she ran successfully for the State Assembly and two years later the State Senate. That year, after a trip to Israel, Gabby-- whose father is Jewish and mother is Christian Scientist,-- became an active member of Reform Congregation Chaverim in Tucson. In 2006, she ran for United States Congress and became Arizona’s first Jewish congresswoman. A political centrist, with real friendships on both sides of the aisle, she was regarded as a rising star in the Democratic Party. Then on Saturday , seven months ago, Gabby was running a “Congress on Your Corner” gathering in front of a Safeway supermarket in a suburb of Tucson when a disturbed young man ran up, shot her in the head, and then proceeded to shoot nineteen others…killing six. In that chaotic, violent scene, Gabby Giffords’ life was changed forever. Her life was saved by her 20-year-old intern Daniel Hernandez Jr., who administered first aid. Think back to the first days following the shooting. At that time, doctors offered no predictions. She was put into an induced coma, to allow her brain to rest, and then the waiting began. A month later, she spoke for the first time. She asked for toast, and the entire country cheered. In May she flew to the to witness the launch of the Endeavor, commanded by her husband . On May 18, while her husband was in off in space, Gabby underwent surgery to replace part of her skull which had been removed to allow her brain to swell during its healing. On June 9th her Chief of Staff Pia Carusone gave an interview in which she revealed that Gabby was comprehending perfectly, but communicating primarily through facial expressions and gestures. And then four days ago, there she was…on the floor of the House of 2

Representatives, and the House exploded in a thunderous ovation that went on and on. I know that I choked up hearing that report on the radio as I was driving…and I imagine that tens of millions of others were similarly moved. Later I watched video footage of her waving, a little bit awkwardly to her congressional colleagues, and was struck by the paradoxical combination of her frailty and her strength. She is physically fragile…that is clear for everyone to see. But what a ferocious spirit…as put it, “as you’ve seen, she’s got the heart of a lion.” Gabby did not say a word more than repeatedly mouthing “thank you”, but got it right when she said “there is not a name that stirs more love, more admiration, more respect, more wishing for our daughters to be like her, than the name of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords.” Amy Winehouse was born thirteen years after Gabby and died seven days before Gabby returned to the floor of the House. Daughter of a London taxi-driver, Mitch, and her pharmacist mother Janis. She grew up in a Jewish neighborhood of North London, and was just a few years older than my own daughter Rachel. Family and friends recognized Amy’s talent early; it was impossible to miss. She became nationally famous in England at age 20, with the release of her first album, Frank. Twenty years old is too early to become famous, especially for a young woman with a tempestuous, unstable spirit. She was deep into alcohol and her boyfriend introduced her to crack cocaine and to heroine. When she was twenty-three, her second album, Back to Black, catapulted her to international stardom. That album won five Grammy awards, which got her into the Guinness Book of World Records for most Grammys for a British female act. The most famous hit song on that album was titled Rehab, and in the haunting refrain, she sings over and over, “they tried to make me go to Rehab, but I said no, no, no.” The entire musical world sat up and noticed Amy and declared unanimously: she is troubled but she is a awesome. She wrote songs that came from real depths, with passion and intelligence, and brutal honesty. Using complex rhythms and achingly beautiful melodies, all delivered with a deep, growling, sultry voice, and a self- consciously super sexy persona…the world ate it up. Young people and the older generation also; everyone saw that she was the real thing, a gutsy and gifted artist. All of this at age 23, for a young woman struggling with hard drugs, and serious emotional disorders, whose parents divorced when she was nine. To top it off, her grandmother, the one stable influence in her life, died in 2006, the year Amy became an international star. How many of us could have survived that kind of hurricane of emotion? In one of her top hits, Amy sings “You Know I’m No Good,” and while it is obvious that she was fascinated with breaking rules, there was nothing evil about Amy, in my opinion. As her life spiraled out of control, she began to show up more and more often at performances completely drunk, or stoned, slurring her words beyond comprehension, forgetting the lyrics of songs, dissolving into incoherence. Tragically, cursed to be born in this age of the unforgiving Internet, some of her disastrous performances were filmed and spread instantaneously across the globe. Her tour scheduled for this past June was cancelled after the first performance. Her last appearance was a surprise appearance in London’s Camden Roundhouse, six days before her death. Then they found her, dead, alone in her room. Even now, two weeks, later, no official announcement has been made about the cause of her death….and it may remain a mystery. It is difficult to resist applying a religious interpretation, that Amy came too 3 close to the fire at the core of life. Too young. Too soon. Too close, before she was old enough and wise enough to stand fully in the Divine Presence. These two extraordinary women…these two Jewish daughters….Gabby Giffords and Amy Winehouse, both lost their words. For completely different reasons….but the result was virtually the same. Silence. Cut off from the world of words, of human communication. And both faced the same immense challenge, of regaining their voice. Now Amy Winehouse’s magnificent voice has fallen silent forever; we are left to wonder, helplessly, what if anything might have made it possible for Amy to return to health and wholeness. Gabby Giffords, with the help and support of the people who love her most, is slowly but steadily finding her way back to speech….and the entire nation is watching, and praying for her success. I wonder if somewhere along the way Gabby will find inspiration in the life of our teacher Moses, who when God first commanded him to go to Pharoah and to lead the Hebrews to freedom, Moses replied “Please, God, I am not a man of words. I am heavy of mouth and heavy of speech. Pick someone else. Now this week’s portion, forty years later, begins “eleh hadvarim asher diber Moshe… these are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel.” Thus begins the great book of Deuteronomy…known in Hebrew as Dvarim, words. The entire book is Moses’ final words of teaching, in the weeks before he dies. On a certain level, the entire journey of the Torah is Moses’ journey from his beginnings as a man of no words to the end of his life, when he poured forth like a fountain with words of poetry and wisdom that have endured and given life to our people for three thousand years. No one knows how far Gabby can travel on this road she is on, from silence back to speech. Perhaps God knows….but I suspect that Gabby may surprise even God. As she surely did last Monday, when she stood and smiled, waving and teaching the entire nation the meaning of the great verse that Moses spoke on the last day of his life: “I call heaven and earth to bear witness today: Life and death I have set before you, the blessing, and the curse. Choose life.” Thank you Gabby Giffords, for teaching us how to choose life. Shabbat Shalom.