On Sukkot

The Zanzer Rebbe had a sparsely decorated Sukkah.  Instead of spending money on decorations he gave it to Tzedaka, charity. The Rebbe used to say; “There is no finer way of decorating the Sukkah then to see that the poor are not hungry.”

The first two days in the last two days of Sukkot are counted as Yom Tov, holy days. The rest are still part of the holiday but do not carry the restrictions and commandments that adhere to the other four days.  So, on the Yom Tov days of Sukkot we go to synagogue, say Kaddish, refrain from work and commerce. Unlike Shabbat to enhance the holiday we are allowed to cook for our needs on the Yom Tov.

On the first occasion when we pickup the lulav and etrog, we say the appropriate blessings along with the Shechechiyanu, the prayer the Lord thanking God, allowing us to live in rejoice in this moment. Hallel, specific Psalms all of which contain the word Hallelujah or Hallel, is recited each of the days of Sukkot along with the requisite Torah readings.

The sixth day of Sukkot has a special designation: Hoshannah Rabbah or the Great Hoshannah.  On this day, seven circuits are made in the Synagogue carrying the lulu and etrog. Special prayers imploring and God’s mercy and kindness are part of the service. Traditionally, Hoshannah Rabbah is the last reprieve when Heaven will hear our final pleas for life, health and prosperity. After the Hoshanot have been completed, the willows (part of the lulav) are beaten on the ground.  As we leave the Sukkot holy days we pray, “May this be our final atonement.”

Many people will save the etrog as a fragrant spice-box to last until next Sukkot. Cloves are pressed into the skin of the etrog for sweet smelling b’sammim to be used throughout the year for Havdalah. The palm can be used for the search for leaven on Passover and the willow branches to make fire to burn our hametz at that time. The myrtle continues to exude its fragments for many months.

Shmini Atzeret is the final day of the Holy Days.  It is not technically Sukkot though.  We eat in the Sukkah but do not say a blessing when sitting there.  We do not bensch lulav: the lulav and etrog are set aside the day before.  Only the ritual service is basically the same as it was during the holiday.  Shmini Atzeret is the day of transition when we move from summer to fall, from the warmth and comfort of plenty of the harvest to the cool, reflective distance of shorter days and longer nights.  A prayer for water is added.  Introspection is an impetus to gaze into he pages of Kohelet, Ecclesiastes.  It is traditional that we read the wisdom of Solomon’s tome on the Festival.

Life as it Becomes

Wonder. A stream of light from the window provides a rainbow of colors on the wall. Daddy's watch creates an animated being that flickers up-and-down defying gravity. Who cares that it does not fall?   It glimmers and shimmers for me.

It is fun to dance with one’s shadow. Move and it moves. Wherever he goes, it follows.  There is a joy in life as all things are alive and beckon. A rock can be a boat tossed by the sea; mud a delicious appetizer.

Then he awakens a second time. This occasion is no less startling than the first. Arising again, he’s not so amazed as internally befuddled. Confusion sets in has he becomes aware of what people are really. He never suspected that uncle Phil was an alcoholic. Or that mom had such a bad temper. “If I was wrong about her,” he thinks, “perhaps I am wrong about other things too.”

So he grows to learn to satisfy himself rather than look to the world or to others to satisfy him. That was a painful lesson.  He takes great delight in his own achievements. Learning to laugh again he chuckles at mortality and despises obstacles. This creature becomes a monster on ego feeding. Stuffing himself on self-gratification, he lives to live. The joys of life right now measured in the markers of tangible success.  Values become slaves to valuables.

Hair loss becomes a dramatic loss of stature but he fights on. Using an arsenal of tonics, combs, singeing, he wages war on time. Tired eyes are masqued by paints. Until his strength is sapped in the war against the creeping ravages of time he remains a stalwart warrior. Paleo-diets swimming, weight watchers, tanning salons, hair transplants will stand in line waiting for his attention. In the final analysis, sedentary life wins. Time has more strength than he can ever possess.

Weight.  A quiet satisfaction slowly replaces the hectic race of physical aggrandizement, as the girth expands. It’s all right. If he cannot win, he might as will capitulate on this score so we can concentrate on the big one. “There are other wars to be fought,” he murmurs as he ventures on to the next challenge.

Soon death replaces life as his biggest obstacle. His family and relatives seem to prove a point with her passing. They succeed. He watches as bodies are swallowed up by the earth, the same earth that bore them. They leave without a trace. There are no goodbyes or departing words of wisdom. Pain accompanies the lives of the next generation. Even more than pain is the deep realization that maybe he has been playing the wrong game. Life itself suddenly takes on new meaning. For him, the joy in life can no longer be found in the trivial distraction of things. When mortality looms close he clutches fiercely onto life.

And again wonder.  The rush of light through the window raises his spirits. He’s happy again. It is amazing that the glass on the table reflects a rainbow of color that splashes on the wall. He twists the cup and the colors dance. So what if he did not meet all his earthly goals? He smiles as the grandchildren run around the house. This is what God intended. It’s just a shame that it took so many years to become so wise. 

At best, our lives are fragmented episodes related to reach other is some haphazard and seemingly random fashion. We work hard to find satisfaction and meaning.  But the world deceives us; it offers distractions instead of truth.  It does seem odd that the Holy One, blessed be He, can wait so long for His children to learn the truth.

Stories of Pain

My teacher once asked, “Can they be prayers after the Holocaust?”

Each catastrophe that has befallen us has had a major impact on our way of thinking. The Crusades with the terror of rampaging villagers burning, looting, writing, murdering we remember through the prayers and litanies that we recite on Tisha B’Av. That speak of the atrocities committed at York, Mayence, Speyer, Worms, the auto-de-fe’s of the New World are also included in this heartbreaking the liturgy.  In some towns they still recite the names of the victims from long ago. Each year they are read publicly.  On Yom Kippur, the prayers conjure up blood stained images of the martyrs-Rabbi Haninah, Rabbi Tarfon, Rabbi Ishmael, Rabbi Akiba….  We recall the horrific attacks in the Middle Ages on Jewish homes and Synagogues. For these things too, the memory of the Jewish people finds expression in the Kinot, poems and eulogies written by survivors; eye-witnesses to the atrocities.  We have specific mourning chants for each of the liturgies.

 What words, what testimony can be recited for the victims of the Shoah?

No prayers existed for decades. The poems had yet to be recorded. On the day of collective memory, Tisha b’Av, there is no mention of the Holocaust. Its pain, its proximity to us, makes all these other tragic events of history insignificant by comparison. A separate day of memorial had to be created the pain of the trauma was too overwhelming great.

The words describing the events of bygone epochs is insufficient grasp the enormity of Auschwitz.

Even the familiar biblical story of Isaac’s near death does not tell the story of one and one half million children who died in the camps. Instead, silence reigns.  In the aftermath of the inferno prayers were slow to emerge.  It took Elie Wiesel, the first real voice of testimony, nearly 15 years to tell his story. Survivors were still being urged to speak for decades afterward. Up until recently they had their dark memories and secrets behind locked doors. 70 years have passed and the terror is only now sufficiently distant to begin the process of hearing the stories and creating lasting memorials to the victims.

The closest biblical analogy we have is that of Aaron witnessing the death of his sons. When they perish, the Torah offers her most anguished and terse sentence, ‘Va-yidom Aharon,” “and Aaron was silent.”  It is the other silence of disbelief, shock and humility. Any words uttered would degrade the memory of the dead.

It is trying and nearly impossible to compose new prayers. Instead, we tell their stories. And that must be enough.

Age Well

People are living longer. Baby Boomers are reaching ages far beyond from what used to be retirement. The population of elderly is exploding as the government scurries to find solutions to Social Security, Medicare and those still affected by the 2008 stock debacle.

In the play, “I'm not Rappaport,” the protagonist establishes his office on a park bench in Central Park. His daughter, dissatisfied with her father's activities, tells him to either move in with her in Great Neck, enter a nursing home, or continue to live in Manhattan but attend a senior citizen center on the West Side. To this Rappaport replies, “So my choices are either, exile, Devils Island, or kindergarten.”

It takes no great stretch of imagination to lament the pains of being old. Out of deference to the elderly, the Torah exhorts us, “In the presence of your elders, stand.” Being old may once have been considered a comfort and blessing, but no more.

Patsy Neal, education teacher, tells the story of her grandmother who is placed in an old age home. 89 years old and confined to a tiny room she became dependent on a walker when gradually her legs begin to give away. Grandma learned to attach a bag from her walker, which remained close by all times. In it with the vestiges of her old days. Disconnected fragments of a life that was taken away. In that small pouch for the final artifacts retained from my lifelong accumulation of courts. There was once a comfortable lounger, expensive delicate China, and a safe comfortable environment. But the furnishings of her home were sold or given away as she no longer needed them where she lived in the nursing home. The car was given away when her vision began to fail.  And now there’s grandma lived in a nursing home the final bits of her life or thrown into the small bag which never left her walker. A few odds and ends were her sole possessions, an alarm clock, a small radio, assorted needles, some thread, pieces of sewing…

With sudden clarity her daughter, Patsy Neal, cried as she realized that her grandmother was a bag.

Aging is a biological and situational fact. It is also a function of attitude. There are times when we are guilty of making our parents invalids.  Rappaport was right.

Consider Jonas Salk who first developed the polio vaccine and later on this life worked to find a cure for AIDS.  Nolan Ryan, who retired as a major-league pitcher to pitch to children on Sunday afternoons. And who led the Maccabean revolt against the Syrians but the elderly man, Mattathias? In our communities the remembers in their 70s and 80s and even 90s who are younger than some teenagers I have met.

Dr. Wilder Penfied, A Canadian neurologist, wrote, “Disease and disability makeover take man at every age and force them to withdraw from work. But the capacity of the human brain for certain purposes often increases through the years… At 60 the body has passed beyond its greatest strength and physical demands should be lessened and changed. But the brink quite often is ready for the best performance…”

The lessons of the Salks, Neals, Ryans and even the Maccabees is clear: Give me a chance.

Job Description

What do I do? I am the mashgiach for the kitchen, supervising the kashrut of the synagogue ensuring that it does not become tainted. I am official paginater, announcing Sequitur and non sequitur pages to the congregation during worship. Solemnly, I attend to the role of periodically rising to inform the community of the page we are now on.  I am a sermon maker. The first thing that any community wants to know of it’s rabbi is, ‘Does she speak well?”  Most members want to hear good stories and uplifting morals when I go to synagogue. I counsel the grieving and bury the dead. When those who are called to the Next Universe I comfort the bereft while escorting the dead to the next appointment.  

I scribe the Hebrew on tombstones and officiate at unveilings.  I am called to the bedside the dying alongside the newly birthing mothers.  I guide both parents through the process of naming and bris.  I hold the hands of those whose marriage s are dying and take them through the process of getting a Jewish divorce.

I plan weddings and delivery homilies.  I represent the Jewish community at any number of interfaith gatherings- gatherings, vigils, colloquiums, Lions Club, Rotary, human rights issues, guest speaker at local colleges college, and tour guide for students who come through the synagogue.  One question that communities need to know is will the rabbi keep us together? Factions proliferate and attitudes are about as diverse as they can be. Is the rabbi able to keep the congregation as one people, and one single community, while increasing numbers? 

During my tenure I have sought to create and independent community, one that is capable of living a meaningful Jewish life in the quietude of their own homes. Consider all of the energy has gone into adult education. It should not seem surprising after all the hours spent in creating programs in the shul that my personal goal was to create a more literate Jewish community.

A Rabbi's Direction

There are times when being a rabbi can be a most difficult and terrible burden. I may not be in a particularly good mood one evening and may offend people by not smiling or saying hello. While this does not sound like a terrible crime, it can be distressing for someone who is hurting inside. There are, I have to admit, times when I do not wish to be disturbed and I cannot find a place for solitude; but if someone needs me I cannot tell them to call back tomorrow.

And yet that role suits me better than being the official paginator. There have been more than a few people in my lifetime who have become irked because I do not announce pages every five or so minutes.  And there are others who are bothered that I do not include more English in the service. Admittedly, for those who neither read Hebrew nor wish to read Hebrew, the service would be more meaningful if I became a full-time paginate and introduced lots of English. Stubbornly, I refuse. 

Wouldn’t service be so much more stirring if everyone could participate by reading the Hebrew language? Imagine everyone singing, everyone reading, and davenning. Talk about uplifting! I seek to spur, urge, the congregation to mindfully educationally and spiritually grow. There in lies the core of the largest number of sermons I give, Growth. As individuals and as a community we must continually seek to expand to push the boundaries of our abilities.  “Where there is no growth there is death,” teach our sages.  I will not stand idly by and watch people die of spiritual malnutrition.

So I create more work for myself. More telephone calls. More letters. More urgings. And I have no problem with that. I look with pride at what I have accomplished these past years together with you. We are stronger, wiser, more active Jewishly and more capable of survival than ever before.

Organs

A prominent halakhist wrote:

“Human life is not a good to be preserved as a condition of other’s values but as an absolute, basic and precious good in its own right. The obligation to preserve life is commensurately all-encompassing.”

So much discussion in our time is given to how much we need to devote ourselves to the quality of life and surrounding issues. As we edge closer to a fuller and better understanding of human physiology we begin to wrestle with the deepest issues of the value of life.

As indicated by the above quote, which is in consonance with the Conservative Jewish understanding of law, a person’s life is about the most important factor to be considered in any ethical dilemma. In fact, the Torah dictum, “do not stand idly by as your neighbor’s blood is being shed,” an is imperative to take action when someone is in danger.  Rashi interprets this phrase to mean that we must use every available resource to ensure that our “neighbor’s blood” is not shed. We are exhorted to preserve life.

An example of this kind of compassion extends to the laws of Yom Kippur.   A critically ill person must not fast on the Day of Awe. Similarly, a sick child’s brit milah (ritual circumcision) is postponed from the eighth day.  To do otherwise is to violate a commandment cited in the name of God!

The Rabbis extended the idea of preserving life to encompass the enhancement of life. For example, it is deemed critical to preserve a person’s eyesight. To stand by as a person’s vision atrophies is be tantamount to watching them lose their life’s blood.

The question of saving or enhancing a life has been one, which has vexed the Jewish community for some time.  Swirling around us has been the idea that organs donated can be used for experimental purposes. This is clearly against Jewish law. For this reason, I continue to be reluctant to endorse the donation of organs.

Yet the Conservative Movement has designed a legal document that affords us the possibility of organ donation to be only used in the instance where it can save or enhance someone’s life.  I urge you to obtain a copy.