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.

Justice, Justice

People are obsessed with justice. We demand that murderers be locked up. Rapists deserve no second chance. The death penalty is not used nearly enough. Why do the good continually have to suffer instead of those who really deserve it (and we all know who they are!).

The Torah too is suffused with ideals of justice. Did you know, to choose just one example, that a child can be put to death for disabusing the fifth commandment? Or that an idolater must be executed? Or that murderers are to find no place of refuge from the fury of justice?

And we ask, “Why me? Why do I have to bear the wounds of terror? Just look at all the people speeding by! Why did that cop have to pick on me??”

Dorothy Sayers wrote, “When we demand justice, it is always justice on our behalf against other people. Nobody, I imagine, whatever ask for justice to be done upon him for everything he ever did wrong.”

It does not take a quantum leap of imagination to use this notion about people who cheat on their taxes. “Let them get what's coming to them.” Now, when they ever say this about themselves? I would like to meet the person who states, “Boy, am I glad they caught me breaking the law and pressed charges!”

A paradox: no one wishes to be found guilty of crimes while we fervently hope for others to be punished for the same or similar transgressions.

And, if there is an order to the universe; if God dispenses rewards and punishments, why does it seem that we never get what we really deserve?  I have yet to meet a single soul who asks, “Rabbi, why not me?  I was a “no good” person.”  It is, I believe, that thee word “justice” has a double meaning. Justice applies to the discovery of our innocence while also meaning punishing others.

Sayers continues, “We want justice - we want revenge; and that is why, when justice is done upon us, we cry out that god is vindictive.”

What do we deserve?  Do we merit grace or pain?  I have often thought that the best determination of what we deserve is to approach the most honest person we know (or our fiercest antagonist) and ask them to tell us what hey really think of us.  Few would dare take up that challenge.  This speaks volumes.

A great truth from the Talmud.  A human being should always carry two pieces of paper in opposite pockets.  On one should be written, I am created from the dust and earth.”  On the other, “I am created in the image of God.”  That is us.

Summer's End

The conductor rises to the slightly elevated platform. Invested with great energy, the conductor slowly lift the baton: the orchestra tenses ready to perform their well rehearsed, perhaps over over-rehearsed, rendition of the symphony. Everything must happen at once. If he oboe begins one second after the trombone the evening will turn to disaster.

So it is with the last golden moments of summer.  The Master calls all nature to its predestined assigned role.  Days grow shorter.  Apples begin to turn a brilliant red, tugging heavily on branches.  The young rabbits, which emerged in late spring, are now graced with strength and agility and will soon be envelope din a thicker coat of fur.   Once the playground of squirrels, our backyards have become a frenzied supermarket of last minute collecting of nuts for the long, cold days ahead.

In dank basements wine takes on rich warm hues. Bees will soon disappear having made their last batch of honey.  All of nature colludes, as the nights grow cooler and longer. From the pesky flies to the stately hawk, South Carolina is transformed.  

Lo yisobu b’lekhtan, nature does not comprehend itself; it simply does what it is ordered to do.  Nature does not have a mind that thinks, “It is fall and time to begin the shut down”. Rather, the Master poised at the lectern, raises His baton and nature responds uniformly.

Obedience is a sine qua non for the universe; it obeys the Master’s wishes.  Even the earthworm takes its cue from the same motion of God, as does the lion. We feel the subtle changes in the earth and, at the same time deep within the soul. We know that the curtain of summer has fallen and it is time to gather the family, send cards to relatives, and connect with those with whom we yearn to be. It is a time of ingathering - Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  We begin to think about rearranging our clothes for winter and other small shifts as we enter a new year for the Universe.

There are many names for God. The one that we use now is Melekh, King. The whole universe is summoned to stand before the King. All that exists falls before the Infinite One.  Of course, we are the only creation that can choose to not respond to the summons. The ability to do a “pesha” a considered sin lies within our purview.  This is the truest difference between nature and us; our will be defiant for no obvious cause, just ego.

I will be there, perhaps for the last time.  Soon you and I shall meet again at the appointed time and place.  We have been called.  L’Shanah Tovah Tikateyvu v’Takhatemu.  May the Master inscribe you for goodness.

God's Voice

Gifts are something received, usually from another person.  Yet, there are times when gifts are received from Above or from within, not from a person. The origin of the gift does not diminish or change its value. In fact, it will often enhance it.

In conversations throughout my career with people going through turmoil I will often ask whether someone believes that God has a plan for them. After they briefly reflect, the answer I usually get back is “no,” they do not believe in destiny.  God does not steer them through life.  They choose their own path and choices.

“What if,” I urge them on, “What if God whispers into your mind options that exceed your present mindset?  What if ideas come randomly that tell you that there is more to life than what you know now?  It is then becomes your choice to follow the voice or take the path that is most familiar.” In other words, I suggest, God has a plan for us but we can turn aside from it or remain indifferent to the directional.

Pain and the fear of pain is one of the strongest impediments to change and growth.  Those who can reinvent themselves or change life’s direction may find deep reservoirs of creativity and strengths they never knew existed.

Renoir uttered as he struggled with painful arthritic fingers, “The pain passes, the beauty remains.”

The artist would not be deterred from his passion despite the pain.  For Renoir, the gift needed to be released.  Nothing would stand in his way of making artistic masterpieces.

That is our challenge.  Can we muster the internal fortitude to live up to God’s expectation of us and our potential?

The Talmud declares, “Growth or death.”  Of course they do not mean to say that if we do not grow we actually die physically; but we do kill our potential.

Once, when we were young, we were fearless. Challenges were taken to be opportunities.  Then with age, we learned to take fewer challenges to avoid failure.  This decision limited our ability to learn and transcend what we are.  Of course that does not mean that we should immediately take up skydiving.  Or does it?  In any event, the risk of failure is worth the price paid as it results in a more meaningful life.

In “Living with Loss,” the authors declare, “Ultimately whether grief destroys you or strengthens you is something only you can decide.”  I suspect that throughout our lives, God gently encourages us to move out of our comfort zone – to learn new skills, take a Hebrew class, become an adult Bar Mitzvah, travel to Israel, stand up and speak out for our beliefs, sing more loudly, take up dance lessons, enroll in an on-line course in Jewish thought, take the class in creative art that you’ve always dreamed of…   Listen to the whisper of the Voice.