The High Holidays are a time when we take the
measure of our lives. What have we done well? At what have we missed the mark?
What must we do to make up for our failings and improve our life and our world?
It is also a time when we notice what is missing from our lives as well as what
we have: health, happiness, love, financial security, friendship. Most of all,
we note the absence of those who once were here alongside us. There have been
separations and divorces. Children have gone away to college or for work. Some
have returned home for Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. There may be friends with
whom we’re no longer close. Most painful of all is the absence of loved ones
who have passed away, whose very presence enriched our lives; whose glance was
reassuring, whose smile lit up our world, whose touch warmed our hearts. Our
thoughts may be of them today.
Many of us will attend the healing service this
afternoon and the Yizkor service that
follows it, seeking healing as we remember. The services are both filled with prayers
and readings of comfort. One particular reading, written by Herbert Louis
Samuel, challenges us to consider the benefits of death and new birth:
“If some messenger were to come to us with the offer that death should
be overthrown, but with the one inseparable condition that birth should also
cease; if the existing generation were given the chance to live forever, but on
the clear understanding that never again would there be a child, or a youth, or
first love, never again new persons with new hopes, new ideas, new
achievements; ourselves for always and never any others—could the answer be in
doubt?”
The expected answer is “No.” Our minds tells us
“No.” Of course, those new things are some of the best things in life, some of
the most joyful. Yet, for some of us, if not for all of us in some way, our
hearts say, “Wait a minute!” If we could live in health, if we could be young
always, in love always, if we could sit here today and close our eyes and know
that, if we put out our hand, it would be grasped by someone who loves and
cherishes us… Could the answer be in doubt? “Yes.” Our minds understand that we
must let go. Our hearts may never
agree.
The rabbis tell us that Yom Kippur is the day when
to an extent we rehearse our own death, the white of our robes and our kittels,
connecting to our desire to humble ourselves on this day. On Yom Kippur, we are
especially aware that we are mortal and we ponder life’s big questions: How
good do I have to be? Why do bad things happen to good people? What is the
purpose of my life? Why must we die?
Today, I am going to speak about the last of these,
about death. However, I am not going to talk about what happens to us after
death. Instead, I am going to talk about what the fact that we are mortal
should mean to us in relation to three other questions:
What would we do if we knew how much time we had to
live?
What would we do if we had no idea at all, that it
would simply happen?
What lessons may we learn from reflecting and
considering our mortality?
First, what would we do, if we could, to use the terminology
of our tradition, number our days?
To an extent, over the past two years, I along with
my family, many colleagues and friends, and untold others lived vicariously
through the writings of Rabbis Phyllis and Michael Sommer, friends of our family,
from rabbinical school days. Their son, “Superman Sam,” was diagnosed with
Myeloid Leukemia in 2012 and died in December 2014. They came to call his
illness, “Ninja Leukemia,” because it kept evading treatments. Their campaign
to raise money to combat childhood cancer is the reason that my hair is this
short. I shaved my head in March as one of over 70 rabbis who responded to a
call for #36Rabbis to do so. Working with St. Baldrick’s, we raised well over
$600,000 for Childhood Cancer research and raised awareness about the need for
research. My wife and children have also been running races in honor of Sam.
Over the course of the past two years, we learned
many things from the Sommer family as they faced the challenges brought by
Sam’s illness. Phyllis Sommer wrote
in January after Sam died:
Throughout the last two years, Sammy used to say to me
often: "I miss my old life." I feel that way all the time now. I miss
my old life. I miss my family of six. Desperately.
Do I want to turn the clocks back to May of 2012 and be in
our "normal" life? Oh yes, I miss the oblivion of a
"charmed" and "perfect" life with four healthy children
whose biggest problems involved birthday parties and math problems and potty
training.
Oh the pain and guilt of telling you that I don't know that
I would want to give up some of the last two years. We made friends -- real,
beautiful, powerful friendships -- with families in crisis, people who helped
us, doctors, nurses, staff and volunteers at so many organizations....all of
the people [who] touched our lives and became our community. How could I beg to
erase that even as much as I wish I could turn back the clock?
It’s this idea that led to me entitle my sermon
today, “Cherishing the Struggles.” It is the understanding that for Phyllis and
for many others, there are meaningful things that can be cherished even from
times of deep struggle. Time and again, I have heard from families about the
people who helped to care for their loved one during their illnesses. In some
cases, they became like family members. Those relationships were born of the
struggle. In the case of Superman Sam Sommer’s struggle, there was the addition
of not only raising money and awareness but of educating hundreds of thousands
of people about childhood cancer.
Those of us who have followed the Sommers’ blog, as
they chronicled their son’s battle, saw this in every posting. On November 13,
2013 Phyllis Sommer told the world that the cancer had returned, even after the
bone marrow transplant, and that there were no more options left. I can’t read
much of that posting without tearing up, but these words are important for us
to hear on this day when we think of what is most important in life. She wrote:
He still feels well. We don't know
how long that will last. We're going to "suck the marrow out of life"
as long as we can.
Quite literally and figuratively. Capitalize on his good days. Fill them with
joy and blessing and delight. Stick his feet in the ocean and his head in the
clouds. Fill his days with wonder and love.
When I look around this
room, I see people with whom I know those words resonate because they have experienced
similar feelings with their own family members and friends. In this room are wives
and husbands, children, parents and others who have similar experiences. As you
and your loved one faced illness, there were good days and there were bad days.
Like the Sommer family, you did your best to capitalize on the good days, often
altering plans to seize the day.
Knowing that time may
be limited, we make different choices because our priorities change. Make a Wish Foundation is an organization that helps families “suck the
marrow out of life” and work to accommodate that changed set of priorities.
They helped to bring Sam and his family to Disney World, in August of last
year, four months before he died. Make a Wish, along with help from the Sommers’
rabbi and congregational community, sent a special plane to bring Sam and his
family to Florida so that he would not have to face all of the viruses that are
found in the air of commercial planes. Then at Disney World, they provided a
special suite at a hotel, a guide for the family, and a permanent-Fast Pass,
enabling the family to skip all the lines. Phyllis wrote:
From 9am-3pm, we rode over 11 rides
(and had lunch and met Mickey!) and some of them twice. It was awesome. Sam
kept repeating over and over, "this is the best day ever!"
Gratitude? It doesn't even begin to
describe it. We are bursting with it. It was the most amazing gift our family
has ever received. It was an experience that will hold its magic for us for a
long time to come.
When Disney wants to do
magic for an eight-year-old, very sick child and his family, they’re stellar at
it. For kids like Sam, families may not have lots of opportunities to achieve “Best
Day Ever!” Disney is exceptionally good at delivering that. And with the help
of Make a Wish Foundation, children like Sam are enabled to have experiences in
life that they would otherwise miss.
Regarding priorities, as
we approached Rosh Hashanah this year, Phyllis remembered the conversation that
she had with Sam’s doctor last year.
Sam was 8 days post-transplant. His
immune system was incredibly compromised.
Solly [Sam’s younger brother] had just begun a
new preschool. Germs....everywhere. (no matter how much hand sanitizer we
used!)
I posed the question [to the doctor]:
Tomorrow is Rosh HaShanah, I said, and it's Day 8. I really want to know if I
can bring Solly over here. Sam hasn't seen him in over a week, and I just think
it is important to have them all together. But if you think this is a bad idea,
I will get over it.
That’s the “time isn’t limited” mindset. It’s the “maybe next
time” or the “I’ll get to it later, when it will be better” mindset. It’s the
mindset through which most of us interact with our world most of the time,
especially as parents: relatively cautious, prioritizing health and safety. It
isn’t the “time is limited, there may not be a next time, just do it” mindset. Phyllis described the doctor's response:
Dr. M cleared his throat, and I could
tell he was going to say something that I knew already. "He has a bad
leukemia," he said. "That's the biggest threat to his life."
I remember taking a very big deep
breath.
"Are you saying that I may never have all
of my children together again on a Rosh HaShanah? That this could be our last
one together?" The words came out all in a rush, almost defiantly.
"Yes," he said.
"That's what I'm saying."
Fine. Decision made. Solly will come. We all
will be there. Together.
So I brought Solly on Erev Rosh
HaShanah.
I imagined that every day was his last.
Just in case.
Today, I'm glad I did that.
At the end of her blog posting from November, when she announced that
the cancer had returned and that time was limited, Phyllis wrote:
From now on, we will hold on tightly
to each moment, we will celebrate and we will play and we will laugh and we
will create a lifetime's worth of memories and moments in the time that we have
left.
We have no other choice.
We understand that. When
we know how much time we have, we maximize it. More magical moments: more hugs,
more kisses, more time spent together. We call the family together because we
know we won’t have many more, if any, opportunities to do that.
What about when we
don’t know how much time we have?
Our priorities are
different. We are very willing to wait for the next opportunity. We might say,
“We’re too busy to go to Disney World this year.” “Next time around, we’ll see
if we can go to Israel.” “I know that concert is happening next month and you’re
really excited to go, but I have to work that night.” “I’m on a diet.” “I’ll
try it next time.” “I’ll travel when I retire.” We postpone.
Then, often we never
get the chance to do what we hoped to do. Physical limitations may make it
difficult for us to travel: our knees, our back, perhaps the onset of a
disease. Sometimes, we are not afforded the opportunity to live with the slow
onset of age related limitations. We suddenly find ourselves limited or infirm.
Sometimes, death comes with no notice at all. “If only we had… gone on that
trip that we kept putting off.” “If only we had gotten that convertible this
past year.” We’re left with “If only.”
In either case, there
are regrets. We will always have regrets that we misspent our time together and
that we did not have more time with our loved ones when things were good. That
is not affected by whether or not we were given notice that the end was near.
What we miss are the highlights, the magic that we could have created, the joys
we could have experienced, had we seized the day.
What lessons do we
learn from considering our mortality?
We are reminded again
and again today that life is fleeting. No matter how much we think we are in
control, we’re really not able to say, “I’m going to have 95 years and from
65-85 I’m going to travel the world.” We really cannot look at the calendar and
plan that African safari for January 2020 with a degree of certainty. Neither
can we wait to change the way we live our lives if we need to do so.
God may be endlessly
patient with us, but God is endless, eternal. We are not. We are a people who
believes in righting our path every year. We are the people who know that
Unetaneh Tokef with its “Who shall live and who shall die” is the nature of
life, even if we do not believe that God is somewhere writing names down on a
ledger or, for some of us, even believe that there is a God. If I asked those
in this room to stand if a loved one or a friend died too soon, there would be
few who would remain seated and more than likely all of them would be young.
The Yiddish proverb is “Der Mesche Trakht un Got Lakht.” “People plan and God
laughs.” Often, our plans fail.
Our tradition sounds
the Shofar. Not just for us to atone. We sound the Shofar to wake us up and to
pay attention to our lives. We sound the shofar to get us to remove our faces
from our cell phones and see the world that is more than two feet from our eyes
and more than an instant into the future.
The words of this
morning’s Torah portion include a stark choice: “I have set before you life and
death, blessing and curse.” Let us consider today that this choice is not one
facing us only on Yom Kippur, but is instead always before us. We always have
the choice to act or ignore, to seize the day or postpone. We always have a choice
whether or not to take advantage of the good days and “suck the marrow out of
life.”
The Torah gives us, in
this context, the best advice I can offer:
“Choose life,
therefore, that you and your descendants may live.”
Choose life: go on that
magical family vacation, play that round of golf, go to see that concert with
your kids. When it’s all said and done, it is better that more was done than
said.
When it comes to the
end, you’re not going to want your epitaph to read, “Always had time for work,”
“There’s always next time,” or “Never Really Lived.”
So how about on this
Yom Kippur Day, we all take the advice that Phyllis and Michael Sommer decided
was best for Sam:
[Let’s stick our] feet in the ocean
and our heads in the clouds. Fill our days with wonder and love.
Let’s choose life.
L’shanah tovah u’metukah tikateivu u’t’chateimu.
May we be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life for a good and sweet year!
