Thankful for Every New Moment - My Heart Bypass Story

The last weekend in January, I took a few days of vacation to run the Arizona Rock ‘n Roll Half Marathon in Tempe, Arizona. I raised several hundred dollars for St. Jude’s Childhood Cancer research. My time was a bit slower than my normal, but I figured maybe I was just a bit off from having flown in the day before.

The second weekend in April, I drove down to Kansas City and finished the Garmin Land of Oz Half Marathon. By the end, I was dragging. I finished nearly a half an hour off of my best time. I’ve finished 15 Half Marathons, 13.1 mile races, and one Marathon, 26.2 miles, over the past 5 years. Six in the calendar year, when I finished the race in April. Though, I wasn’t exactly setting land-speed records, I thought I was in pretty good cardio-vascular shape.

When I go to camp, in July, I take some time to run. This year, I tried. I could run for a bit, but mostly had to walk. I thought I had bronchitis, which I probably did. My doctor called in a prescription for anti-biotics and soon my cough went away.

A few days after I returned to Des Moines from camp, we flew to Orlando, to Universal Studios, for a family vacation. We walked all over the parks. Probably six miles a day. I had to rest every now and then, but we rode just about every ride, including going on some of those “People with Heart Problems are discouraged from riding this ride” roller coasters multiple times in row. Yes, I am a roller coaster fan. The faster and more time spent upside down the better!

We went to Volcano Bay, Universal Studios waterpark, and of course, I had to go on the fastest, most intense water slide, right away. Over 200 steps up and a straight vertical drop for a couple of seconds. You reach the bottom pool in seven seconds. I had to stop and rest to catch my breath about ¾ of the way up the stairs, each of the five times that I climbed them. Since, I’ve been running long distances, I have gotten fairly used to never being tired unless I’ve been doing something fairly intense. I was a surprised at being tired.

We were back in Des Moines for a few days and then we flew to North Carolina for my wife’s family’s reunion. With a brother in Japan and nephews in France and Switzerland as well as in a couple of different US states, it isn’t often that they’re all together. As it is, one of the French nephews couldn’t attend.

One of the things one does in the mountains is hike. When we went hiking, I found myself winded pretty easily. I couldn’t keep up. I started to suspect that a medicine that I had been taking for a while might be preventing my heart from working as fast as it needed to work. I didn’t feel bad, just tired, and I was fine after I slowed down. I called to set an appointment to meet with my doctor about it after I got back. The appointment was a couple of weeks out.

We got back to Des Moines in time for the state fair. I went three times. Each time, I was tired pretty easily walking around. I never went up the hill this year. On the way back to the car, the second time I went, I had to stop several times to catch my breath. Again, after resting a bit, things seemed okay. That night I was winded walking up a flight of stairs at home.

Now, I was quite concerned. It’s scary to not be able to breathe.

I didn’t want to wait for my scheduled doctor’s appointment, the next day. I called and asked to see whomever was available. I got in with a different doctor that afternoon.

My EKG was normal. My heart sounded normal. My blood pressure was slightly up, but not high. My cholesterol was good. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but said, “If this is only happening when your system is under stress, we should get a stress test. It might be something electrical. The stress test would show that.” The first available stress test was nearly a week out on Wednesday.

The next day, we went to the fair again, on our 25^th wedding anniversary, we went to see our favorite comedian perform. Again, I had to stop several times on the way back to the car. It felt like I was under water too long. But again, after resting a bit, things seemed okay.

The day before the stress test, I drove three other local Jewish professionals to Cedar Rapids, over 2 hours each way, for our Iowa Jewish Professionals meeting.

The next day, Wednesday, I took my stress test.

They started off giving me an EKG, which was again clear. They did an Echocardiogram as well, which looked good. Then they had me get on the treadmill. It was fairly clear fairly quickly that something was wrong. My heart rate needed to get up to 90% of my max, but well short of that my EKG started to get wonky. They stopped the test and had me lay down to do another Echocardiogram. A few minutes later, I was downstairs in the cardiologist’s office.

They did another EKG then, which came back normal.

A few minutes after that, the doctor came in to see me:

I think it fairly certain that you have a blockage and I’m fairly certain that it’s in a pretty bad location. You need an angiogram. They’ll inject dye into your veins and that will show them where the blockage is. My guess is that you’ll need a stent and probably will have to stay overnight at the hospital. Normally, I’d ask you which doctor and which hospital you want, but you’re lucky. You get to have the first available appointment! As long as your EKG stays normal, you can go home tonight, but if you feel like you have felt when you’ve been short of breath, don’t call your wife or me, call 911.

On Thursday morning, I went downtown for the angiogram. They explained what they were going to do and all the risks. If they found something, which they anticipated, they would put in a stent if they thought that would work. Otherwise, if things were bad, they’d stop and we’d reassess for treatment another day. Then the nurse put in the IV line. They wheeled me into the OR and I was out like a light.

I woke up a while later and the doctor came in to see us. “We had to stop. You have several major blockages. You need bypass surgery.” Another doctor told me that one of the blockages is normally discovered by the forensic pathologist and that I was extremely lucky.

They weren’t going to let me go anywhere. Rather quickly, I was given a room and put on a blood thinner. They scheduled the surgery for Monday, an expected Triple Bypass, but told me that if anything happened in the interim, I’d be going to surgery right away.

My cardiologist came in and told me that I’d had this condition to a pretty severe degree for a very long time. My heart had created natural bypasses, collaterals, veins that went around the blockages. Those were what was enabling my heart to perform okay on a resting EKG. They just weren’t providing enough blood flow to allow my heart to do anything more than that at this point, because blood flow was so limited.

That Saturday, I walked a little in the hallway with my IV pole in tow. I could walk about 100 feet before I was very tired. I was afraid that I would need the surgery right away; that I wasn’t even going to make it to Monday. But I did.

People kept asking me if I was afraid about the surgery. I really wasn’t. I had been afraid all of those times when I couldn’t breathe. I was upset that I had made my family stress out. When I started running in early 2015, I did so because I wanted to prevent exactly this sort of thing. I wanted to get myself healthy and thought I had done a pretty good job of it, shedding weight and getting my heart in shape. I didn’t know that by that point, most, if not almost all, of the damage was already done.

I just kept thinking of all of the times, running dozens upon dozens of examples through my mind, when the worst could have happened. I thought about how miraculous it is, in fact, that it didn’t happen, all things considered. How many times had I gone on long runs? How many trips had I been on? Several times to Israel. Long drives in the car by myself? Those times when I was running by myself on the sports’ fields at camp while everyone else was at lunch. No one else around for an hour. And on and on.

No, I wasn’t afraid of the surgery so much as relieved for having made it to surgery and hopeful that it would be fixed. One doctor told me that with decent blood flow to my heart, I would likely find myself able to do far better at my running than I had before. I was hopeful.

I ended up having Quadruple Bypass surgery, which they tell me, went extremely well.

Recovery isn’t and hasn’t been easy. I have been able to get moving a little easier than most people would. The rest of me was in pretty good shape. But coughing and laughing hurt for a while. Sneezing, hurt a lot. And a week after surgery, when my kids decided to play some funny videos on their phones and were laughing, it hurt when I joined in. I had to ask them to stop making me laugh and I love to laugh.

It’s was especially hard for me not to be able to do all of the things I would like to do with my family and friends over the past few weeks. No, I am not going to be running the Des Moines Half Marathon again this month. I deferred my entry to next October. It’s also been difficult for me to not be able to be there for you as rabbi as much and in the ways that I would have liked since this began. Being tired while recovering is a real thing.

What has made it all better for me is the tremendous amount of support that my family and I have received. So many people have reached out in concern. Again, your support has meant a great deal. Thank you.

Today, Yom Kippur, it is said that we Jews rehearse our death. We contemplate what will happen when the end comes. What will be accrued to our benefit? What to our detriment? Have we had a positive impact on people’s lives? Can we do better? If we heard eulogies about us, what would they say?

Over the past couple of months, I have had the opportunity to hear some of these things about me. Thank you for all of your beautiful sentiments, heartfelt thanks and concerns, and wishes for a full and speedy recovery.

I have also had ample opportunity to imagine not being here today. To not have been here, to not have experienced so many wonderful things over the years, to not have been able to be there to help others either. It’s been quite a time of Cheshbon Nefesh, of an accounting of the soul.

This morning, we read, “Atem Nitzavim hayom kul’chem lifnei Adonai Eloheichem,” “You stand this day, all of you, before Adonai your God.” It is a passage that reminds us that today, we should humble ourselves, recalling the dictum of the rabbis, “Da lifnei mi atah omeid,” “Know before whom you stand.” Think about what it means to be where you are. For me, this is not just about before whom, but how and why.

Why are we here today? What has our journey been to reach this place? Thinking not only of physical movement, but of thoughts and feelings. Am I appreciative? Do I want things to change? Am I willing to do what is necessary to bring about the changes that I would like to see? In my life, what do I stand for? How did I arrive here at this moment? Would I like to be in a different place physically, spiritually, mentally?

This afternoon, during our Healing service, I will come up to stand before the open ark thanking God for allowing me to reach this day, for the many miracles, far too many to count, that have enabled it to come to pass, for the skill of my healthcare providers, for loving family and friends who lifted my spirits and may well have given me a lift in their cars to go out as well, and for all of those whose thoughts and prayers helped bring me healing of spirit as well as body. It will be all the more meaningful a service this year and every year going forward for me.

I have come to realize that every moment is one deserving a Shehecheyanu:

“Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, shehecheyanu, v'kiy'manu, v'higiyanu laz'man hazeh.”

“Blessed are you, Adonai, our God, Ruler of the Universe, for keeping us alive, sustaining us, and enabling us to reach this moment.”

L’shanah Tovah tikateivu v’teihateimu.

May we all be inscribed and sealed in the book of life for a good and healthy new year.

Unetaneh Tokef. Life Happens.

***Six weeks before delivering this sermon, I had quadruple bypass surgery.***

Many things have happened in this past year, some good, some not so good. On the bright side, this past year, over the past couple of months, I learned to be less concerned about having my blood drawn.

I am thankful to be able to be here today. I’m not 100% yet. It isn’t an easy or short recovery. My voice isn’t what it normally is and you’ll have to bear with me coughing now and then.

Before I continue, I wanted to thank you for the tremendous amount of support that my family and I have received. So many people have reached out in concern, sent notes of support, and made donations for my recovery. Your support has meant a great deal. Thank you. 

[Personal thank yous to my family, friends, and congregational leaders followed, which I have not included here.]

Today, in the context of what happened to me, I want to talk about a traditional prayer that is difficult for most of us to deal with conceptually. The Unetaneh Tokef prayer tells us that God determines not only who lives and who dies, inscribing some in the Book of Life and not others. We are told:

On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed,

And on Yom Kippur it is sealed.

How many shall pass away and how many shall be born,

Who shall live and who shall die,

Who shall reach the end of his days and who shall not,

Who shall perish by water and who by fire,

Who by sword and who by wild beast,

Who by famine and who by thirst,

Who by earthquake and who by plague…

The statement concludes:

But repentance, prayer and righteousness avert the severe decree.

Most of us do not believe in this sort of theodicy, this sort of understanding of divine judgement, the causing of blessing or curse, with reward or punishment. I have long argued against this concept as traditionally understood. With my recent ailment, though I’m still not a believer in this idea, I’ve come to see this portion of our service in a slightly different way.

The purpose of this prayer is truly to try to help us to find order in what otherwise would appear to be chaos, seemingly random chance. We know that bad things happen. We know too that they don’t just happen to bad people; they happen to good people as well. And more importantly than this abstract conception:

They happen to us and they can happen suddenly.

• ·      We live in a world in which we can set the temperature of our homes and cars to whatever temperature we like.
• ·      We can wear clothing that is impervious to rain, keeping us dry in the worst of downpours.
• ·      We can have food from just about every restaurant in town delivered to our homes for a nominal delivery fee or even for free!
• ·      We know about and can monitor and treat high cholesterol and high blood pressure.
• ·      We can use a laser to fix our eyesight in addition to wearing glasses.
• ·      We have ways to treat some of the worst of diseases, ones that once would have taken lives before we were even aware of them.
• ·      We can ask a wireless device in our homes to turn on the lights, open the shades, play our favorite music, read us a book, change the channel, or order us a new pair of jeans to be delivered free of charge to our doorstep in less than two days. We can even do these things from wherever we are on our cell phones.

We appear to be in control of our lives, much of the time. But we’re not. We’re truly not. It’s an illusion.

Life happens. Some people prefer to use a different word than “life” in that statement, especially when the results are not good ones. Life happens and sometimes what life brings isn’t remotely ideal.

This High Holidays, Jews around the world remember those who were killed over the past year, simply because they were Jews. It has not been a good year for us as a people.

Lori Kaye was shot and killed in the shooting in Poway, California five months ago. It’s hard to believe it was only at the end of April. Lori evidently confronted the shooter near the door. In addition to supporting the synagogue, Lori was heavily involved in raising money to combat Childhood Cancer and for Chai Lifeline which aids families with seriously ill children. By all accounts, she was an eishet chayil, a woman of valor, a woman of courage. She fought her own battle with illness and was doing well. A few months prior, she celebrated her 60^th Birthday and posted about it on Facebook. She wrote:

"Fearless at 60! As I enter a new decade, I am full of "gratitude" & thankfulness for the many blessings in my life. As I said on my 40th & 50th birthdays:

Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

Unetaneh Tokef. “The moments that take our breath away.”

So many of us here have our own lived examples and those of our loved ones, times when life happened. Unetaneh Tokef is a painful prayer. It makes us remember. It makes us think about seeming randomness, chaos, and things beyond our control that happen to us, to our friends and family members, or to others. It’s both the hurricanes far away from us and the whirlwinds that strike our homes.

Some of us have had the opportunity to live in times of blessing, of prosperity and relative security. For others, the Kol Nidrei prayer, for which this evening’s service is named, was a way of coping with being forced to face and do what they neither wanted to face or do. Living under threat, they had to swear oaths that they did not believe and act as they would not or could not act.

Unetaneh Tokef. Life in the places and times they lived brought them challenges, difficulties, threats, not just opportunities and blessings.

The Unetaneh Tokef prayer is both about those who died before their time and those who lived ad meah v’esrim, to 120. It’s about those whose businesses became successful and those who tried, tried again, and failed over and over. It’s also about those who have been struck with illness. Some of us, this past year, found out that we weren’t quite as healthy as we thought and suddenly faced severe challenges.

Unetaneh Tokef. You need surgery. Or

Unetaneh Tokef. You need radiation. Or

Unetaneh Tokef. You need to radically change your diet, your lifestyle. No more fried cheesecake at the fair for you! No more rushing from task to task while barely taking the time to breathe or taking time to care for yourself.

New priorities---- breathe. Take time for yourself to make yourself what you need to be. Prioritize your health.

But Unetaneh Tokef. Sometimes, no matter what you do… Life happens.

You can get out there and run, three times a week. Three 10Ks a week. You can run Half Marathons. You can be on the right medicines and seeing a doctor regularly.

Unetaneh Tokef. Do you have a family history? Yes.

“You won the lottery,” the doctor said, “Genetics.” Control is a delusion. No matter how much control we think we have, we really don’t have the ability to bring it all under our control. We may not have much of an ability to control at all.

Unetaneh Tokef. Life happens.

What we can do is do our best to adapt to it in the best ways. How we respond when life happens is really what defines who we are.

• ·      It’s not difficult to smile when everything goes our way. It may be difficult to remain humble when everything and everyone around us seem to elevate us.
• ·      It’s not difficult to feel depressed or sad when everything is going wrong, when bad things have happened. It may be difficult to react with hopefulness and seek happiness, when they do.
• ·      It’s not difficult to avoid action when action is painful. “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.” “Don’t do that.” So easy. But it may be difficult to get moving and endure it as we move on and get better. Rehab can be painful and tiring. But after rehab, hopefully, less pain and more energy.

Unetaneh Tokef. Life happens. The challenge before us when it does happen is to do what is difficult.

L’shanah Tovah Tikateivu v’teiteimu.

May we all be inscribed and sealed for a good and sweet and healthy and blessed New Year.

But if the coming year doesn’t bring some or even any of these things,

May we do our best to do the difficult and

Help and support each other as we do so, 

Just as you have done for me and for my family.

We’ll make the next year and the years to come, the best that we can make them.

Good yom tov.

The Lottery - A Sermon about Realizing our Blessings for Yom Kippur Morning

Lucy has all sorts of good things going on in her life, a loving husband and children, a comfortable apartment, a job she enjoys doing, but she focuses her attention on her financial accounts. She has enough to have a nice retirement already, just maybe not lounging around a pool in Hawaii for months on end each year or for annual exotic cruises with her whole family. Lucy’s not poor, but not rich either. What she is most is discontented.

She often prays that she will win a lottery and her problems will be solved. One night, she dreamed, as she had so often, of checking off all of the Powerball numbers. An angel appeared in her dreams. The angel said to her, “Lucy, I’ve come to grant your wish. You will win a lottery. All you have to do is help a person, to whom I will introduce you, figure out how to live without all that you have in your life. You will know of whom I speak when you see them.”

The next day, Lucie was excited. Who would this person be? Where would she meet him or her? When? Maybe at the coffee shop? She went first thing in the morning, ordered her favorite latte, and sat by the front window, looking out at the sidewalk of the downtown street as swarms of people walked by.

There were people walking dogs, some with two or three. There were people pushing strollers. Some people dressed smartly in expensive tailored suits or fur coats. Others wore uniforms. She wondered to or from what jobs they headed. Some people smiled. Many didn’t. More than a few talked on their phones or texted as they walked and almost ran right in to others doing the same. It was cold outside. You could see everyone’s breath.

Lucy came to enjoy watching the people outside, staring out the window, forgetting all about the people inside.

A woman sat down at the table next to Lucy. She wore several layers, two scarves and a woolen hat. She held a mug of coffee in both of her hands, warming them by its heat. She coughed. It was not the excuse me sort of cough, not a little cough to get your attention. It wasn’t a normal cough either. It was a deep raspy, this person is really sick, sort of cough, the kind of cough that gets people concerned about their own health and gets them to move away. A man on the other side did just that a few moments later.

Lucy noticed briefly and turned back to looking at the people walking down the street. The woman coughed again, then again and again in succession. That got Lucy’s attention.

“Are you alright?” Lucy asked. “Do you need some water?”

“No, thanks.” She paused, “need to go to the doctor I think.”

She coughed again, this time so loudly that everyone turned to stare.

“Do you have a doctor?” Lucy asked.

“No. Can’t afford a doctor. Can’t afford much, have to pay for food and a place for me and the kids to live. Nice man bought this coffee for me. Saw me sitting outside. I guess I was shivering.”

Lucy didn’t take long to realize that perhaps this woman was the one about whom the angel was speaking. “Okay,” she thought to herself, “I’m supposed to figure out how to help her live without all that I have.

“Have you tried going to a clinic or the ER to have them check out that cough? Maybe there is a free clinic, I could help you find one.”

The two talked for a while longer. The woman finished her coffee. Lucy gave her money to pay for a bus ride to the hospital. The woman wouldn’t accept anything more. Then she left.

That night, the same angel appeared to Lucy in a new dream.

“Did you see her?”

“That woman today, the one with the cough? I helped her go to the hospital.”

“No, Lucy. That was nice of you, but she’s not the one.”

In the days that followed, Lucy met several other people whom she was sure were “the one:”

·      There was the older man whom she helped with his groceries and

·      The construction worker with two broken wrists in casts who needed help fixing his coffee.

·      There was the homeless woman for whom she purchased a hot chocolate and talked about her life’s story.

·      There was the mother battling a debilitating illness who was tearing up while on the phone as she spoke to her sister about her children’s future.

·      There were the teenage boys talking about how people treated them differently because of the color of their skin.

·      Then there was the woman who was worried about losing her job and not being able to support her children and

·      The wealthy man who worried about losing his wife and children because he was constantly working.

Each night, she dreamed. Each night, the angel told her, “No, not the one.”

From each person, Lucy learned. She became better at talking with people and gained a better understanding what makes life meaningful. Lucy stopped praying to win the lottery.

One day, as Lucy looked out the window at the people passing by, she saw her face reflected in the window as she had every time. But this time, she stopped and looked at herself. She looked a bit more confident than she had, kind and welcoming.

Lucy thought about her own life. How lucky she was to have a loving family. How lucky she was to have health, to have worked for years at something she enjoyed, to have a comfortable place to live, to be able to come and have a warm coffee and watch people walking by. How lucky she was that she could help others.

Lucy smiled at herself in the window. It was then that she knew for sure she had seen “the one.” And at that moment, she also realized that she had already won the lottery.

Last night, as we recited the words of the Kol Nidrei prayer, we remembered our ancestors who were forced to say, “Yes,” when they meant, “No.” That is a simple statement, but implies so much more. How thankful are we not to live in such a time and place wherein we are threatened because we are Jews? How thankful are we that we have the opportunity to follow the path of our choosing, to not repeat the words of Moses, “Let my people go,” with a painful longing in our hearts.

This morning, we read in the Torah that the ability to follow the proper path is within our ability, not over the sea, but within us, like looking at our own reflection to find the solution to our problems. May we each turn ourselves in the best direction for us.

Today is a day for Heshbon Nefesh, an accounting of our souls. Most days, we look around us. We take note of others. We think of things beyond us. We look through windows at others, sometimes kindly, sometimes critically.

On Yom Kippur, we take the time to look at our own reflection, to appreciate what we have in our lives, to realize what we lack, and to look along the path that we have taken and the path that lies before us. Are we heading in the right direction? If not, where must we turn? How do we turn?

Again, it is not across the sea. Those answers are within each of us. We can turn. We can begin the process of T’shuvah. We can renew ourselves.

This day, we reflect and consider.

This day, we remember.

This day, we seek to understand the pain of others.

This day, we seek to understand our own pain.

This day, we are mindful of the blessings that we have in our lives instead of simply focusing on what we lack.

This day, we seek forgiveness for actions we should not have taken and for our inaction when we should have acted.

This day, we promise to do better.

This day, we reflect and consider the many times before that we have promised to do better.

This day, we renew our promise.

The Jewish Tradition tells us that when we look at our image, we’re seeing something else. Looking at our reflection, we’re seeing an image of God looking back at us. We see our parents and grandparents too, every one of our ancestors in some way. And are we that different from others, others whose image, like our own, is also the divine image?

This High Holiday period:

·      I spoke about priorities we would like to see in our lives, in our homes, and in our communities.

·      I spoke about how our tradition sees us as both being present now and present in the distant past. We were there and then, just as we are here and now facing challenges, going on journeys. Hineini, here I am. Hineinu, here we are.

·      I spoke about how we are all created in the image of God, how we are all like each other, how we can potentially see our reflection in others who make us very uncomfortable, and how all of us have the capacity to perform T’shuvah, to turn and move in a better direction. And today,

·      I spoke of seeing our own reflection, of Heshbon Nefesh, an accounting of our souls, of looking at ourselves and our lives, of realizing our blessings.

May we be mindful of our true priorities in life,

May we face our challenges with dignity and courage,

When we look upon others, even those who are difficult and problematic,

May we remember that we are tainted with some of the same faults for we are all B’tselem Elohim, created in the image of God. And

Whenever we look at the world around us,

May we not forget to consider the reflection that we see in the window, mindful of who we are and thankful for the blessings we have in our own lives.

G’mar Chatimah Tovah.

May you be sealed in the Book of Life for a good, sweet, and happy New Year.

Sermon on Teshuvah, Btselem Elohim for Kol Nidrei 5778 2017

225 years ago, in 1792, Moses Seixas [say-shuss], a Jewish congregational president in Newport, Rhode Island, wrote a letter to the first President of the United States checking to see if the new nation’s leadership would, using Seixas’ words, “give to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” President Washington responded, repeating those words, in one of the best statements of the nature of America. President Washington wrote:

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

Hearing those words, some of us cringe. Is our country still there? Was America ever truly there? We live in a time of great partisan divide. Today, discussions are often over the victories or losses of a party and not necessarily over the improvement of the lives of the people. Far too often in our real communities and in our digital ones, we see hatred put into words and action.

The Jewish people have seen that happen before. The flag and torch bearers, the hate filled marchers, too often have come for us. Whenever minorities have been persecuted or oppressed, if we have not been the initial target, historically, neither have we been far down the list.

We have seen some of humanity’s worst. We have seen inhuman hatred. Three thousand years ago, our people’s story already proclaimed our origin to be found in the words, “Let my people go!” Two thousand years ago, living under oppressive Roman rule, Hillel proclaimed, “In a place where there is no humanity, strive be to a human being.” We know that evil exists.

Yet, our tradition also loudly proclaims that we are all created, “B’tselem Elohim.” That is one of the most beautiful and, at times, also difficult teachings in the Jewish Tradition, the idea that we are all created in the image of God.

On the beautiful side of things, it is a teaching that reminds us of the inherent value of all people, that people should be treated equally. It is a directive to rise above concerns about difference, to overcome concerns about race, ethnicity, physical capability and beauty, or sexual orientation. B’tselem Elohim is an idea that helps us feel compassion for those who suffer, urging us to aid them. We should not be able to tolerate seeing people suffering. Everyone is like us. Each of us, in the image of God.

On the difficult side of things, that we are all created B’tselem Elohim is a teaching that reminds us that we have things in common with all people, including those with whom we’d much rather not, enemies, people whom we consider to be evil.

In the Mishnah, in Pirkei Avot, we find the statement: “Who is wise? The one who learns from every person.” Traditionally, this teaches that the wisest person can learn something from anyone and everyone, the most exalted can learn from the lowest. The teacher can learn from the student.

The Baal Shem Tov taught in regard to the statement:

When you look into a mirror you see your own blemishes. Think of other people as being your mirror. When you notice a defect or imperfection in someone else, that should tell you that you are tainted by the same shortcoming... Remember that Heaven shows you these sins in others in order that you search yourself and mend your ways.

It’s like a gut-punch. Our first response is “No way am I like….” “Not me! I could never act like that, feel like that, do something like that.” “I could never get so angry.” “I could never hate like that.”

How difficult is it to look at that image of those white supremacists and neo-Nazis standing with torches while shouting hateful slogans and say not only, “B’tselem Elohim,” this one too was created in the image of God, but perhaps, to use the words of the Baal Shem Tov, “I am tainted by the same shortcoming?” No, perhaps not exactly the same, not the same sort of hatred, not of the same things. But:

·      An ability to become enraged?

·      An ability to hate others?

·      A willingness and even desire to march along with others, to be part of a crowd, to rebel against authority, to want to fit in with a group?

·      An unwillingness to stand up to friends and family members even when we know that they are wrong, because we care about them?

·      A tendency to repeat hateful things about others whom we’ve never met?

·      A desire to see faults in others, to pass the blame to others?

·      A willfulness to see the worst in others who disagree with us.

·      A willingness or even eagerness to rise up from a place of frustration and hopelessness to take actions we might regret later.

·      An ability to look out at other people and easily say of them, “These are not B’tselem Elohim.” “I am likened to God, but them, those people, they’re nothing like God, they’re nothing like me. They’re evil.”

·      A blindness towards our commonality with those we do not like.

Remember that Heaven shows you these sins in others in order that you search yourself and mend your ways.

And how many of us would want to be defined by the worst picture taken of us, perhaps not one that was taken but one that could have been taken? Has there ever been a time when we acted in a way that would anger or embarrass us now?

We may not have ever considered the possibility of ourselves preaching hatred while holding a torch, but, and here is another difficult lesson, far too many otherwise good and even religious people participated in horrors in ages past and still in many places around the world do today. No few of those bearing and sharing their hatreds publicly will eventually repent and change their ways. There are a multitude of stories.

Father William Aitcheson, formerly the parochial vicar at St. Leo the Great parish in Fairfax City, Virginia recently wrote an editorial in The Arlington Catholic Herald acknowledging his past.

“My actions were despicable,” he wrote. “When I think back on burning crosses, a threatening letter, and so on, I feel as though I am speaking of somebody else. It’s hard to believe that was me. While 40 years have passed, I must say this: I’m sorry. To anyone who has been subjected to racism or bigotry, I am sorry. I have no excuse, but I hope you will forgive me.”

There is Frankie Meeink, who was a prominent skinhead when he was younger and living in South Philadelphia. He spoke at Beth El congregation a couple of years ago about his story. On TV fairly regularly, he is now an outspoken critic of white supremacy and an advocate for overcoming their hate with love and caring. Today, he lives in Des Moines and coaches youth hockey.

There is the story of the teenagers who defaced our building. They went through a restorative justice process, a teshuva process of learning with Rabbi Fink and working for the Temple that resulted in them not only overcoming their hatred of Jews, but in later inviting Rabbi Fink and Jack Huff to attend their wedding.

And then there is the story of Larry Trapp, once Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in Nebraska, which you can find in Chicken Soup of the Jewish Soul. Larry Trapp repeatedly called to harass and threaten Cantor Michael Weisser and his wife Julie after they moved to Lincoln. Trapp was known to be dangerous by the FBI. He was heavily armed and made explosives. Trapp spewed hatred in numerous ways. The Weissers were warned to avoid him.

Trapp evidently was responsible for firebombing several homes of African Americans and had been making plans to bomb Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Lincoln, Cantor Weisser’s congregation. Over time, the Weissers called in to his radio show to tie up the phone lines, then eventually to ask him why he hated them, why he hated Jews. Trapp never responded but he listened.

They found out things about him. He was isolated, lived in a small apartment. He was in a wheelchair.

Cantor Weisser once left a message reminding Larry Trap that the Nazis came for those with disabilities first. They kept reaching out. They offered to help him, to talk with him, to take him to the grocery store. Eventually, Larry Trapp realized that the Cantor and his wife were the only people who seemed to care about him at all.

When Trapp finally met the Weissers, he burst into tears. Trapp took the swastika rings off of his fingers and handed them to Cantor Weisser, telling him that he couldn’t wear them anymore, to take them away.

“On November 16, 1991, Trapp resigned from the Klan.” He went on to right apologies to many of those he had threatened or harmed over the years. Trapp said, “I wasted the first forty years of my life and caused harm to other people. Now, I’ve learned we’re one race and one race only.”

Only a little over a month later, Trapp learned that he had less than a year to live because of the progression of his illness. The Weissers invited Trapp to move into their home so that Julie could take care of him. It was disruptive to their lives. They had three teenage children.

On June 5, 1992, Larry Trapp, former Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, converted to Judaism in a ceremony at B’nai Jeshurun in Lincoln, in the very building that he had planned at one point to bomb. Only a few months later, on September 6, Larry Trapp died in a hospital bed in the Weissers’ living room, Michael and Julie, holding his hands.

One doesn’t really atone for the acts committed by Larry Trapp over the course of his lifetime. But people can change their direction in life. We can perform T’shuvah, turning from paths that led us in bad directions to the path of righteousness. Sometimes, those who hate simply need to see that we are all created B’tselem Elohim, in the image of God. Sometimes, what the haters need is for others to see them in that way as well, not as other, as entirely different, or as inherently evil.

Cantor Michael Weisser, during the time he was interacting with Larry Trapp, offered a prayer for healing during services in his congregation, one that I will repeat here with the hope that it impacts not one specific person in our country, but many, all of those so afflicted:

            May those who are sick with the illness of bigotry and hatred be healed.

And in this time of political discord, when our passions are easily kindled, when we too often forget even among our family and friends that our commonalities are greater than our differences. May we recall the words spoken by President Abraham Lincoln as he closed his First Inaugural Address:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.

Though passion may have strained,

It must not break our bonds of affection.

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and

Patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land,

Will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched,

As surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

May our better angels allow us to see the divine in those with whom we disagree and in all of God’s children.

This Yom Kippur, this Day of Atonement, this Day of T’shuvah, of turning and returning, let us remember the words of the Baal Shem Tov:

When you look into a mirror you see your own blemishes. Think of other people as being your mirror. When you notice a defect or imperfection in someone else, that should tell you that you are tainted by the same shortcoming... Remember that Heaven shows you these sins in others in order that you search yourself and mend your ways.

After all, we are imperfect human beings and all created in the image of God.

Shabbat Shalom and Shanah tovah tikateivu v’teihateimu,

May you be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life for a good year.

Kein Yehi Ratson. May it be God’s will.

From Despair to Hope - Yom Kippur Morning Sermon

On Erev Rosh Hashanah, I spoke about how having a positive attitude matters in accomplishing our goals. On Rosh Hashanah morning, I spoke of what it means to be a Jew and why I am a Jew. Last night, I spoke of remembering the trials and tribulations of our ancestors along with tremendous acts of courage that enabled us to survive as a people. This morning, I will speak to you about hope. First about biblical prophecies that have inspired generations and then, about how we might envision a brighter future even amid troubling times.

This morning, we read from Chapter 29 of the Book of Deuteronomy:

¹⁰ All of you are standing today in the presence of Adonai your God—your leaders and chief men, your elders and officials, and all the other men of Israel, ¹¹ together with your children and your wives, and the foreigners living in your camps who chop your wood and carry your water. ¹² You are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with Adonai your God, a covenant Adonai is making with you this day and sealing with an oath, ¹³ to confirm you this day as his people, that he may be your God as he promised you and as he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. ¹⁴ I am making this covenant with its oath, not only with you ¹⁵ who are standing here with us today in the presence of Adonai our God but also with those who are not here today.

This passage brings to mind on this traditional day of judgement the rabbinical directive, “Da lifnei mi atah omeid,” “Know before whom your stand.” These words are often written above the Holy Ark and remind us that we are not merely standing in a congregation of people, but that all of us come before God individually for judgement.

The passage from Deuteronomy serves a dual purpose. In its original context, it comes at the end of the consequences of failing to uphold the Covenant on the one hand or fulfilling them on the other. Among those curses for failing to uphold the Covenant is one that proved itself prescient in the minds of generations of Jews. It is found at the end of the previous chapter of Deuteronomy. In chapter 28, only a dozen verses earlier than today’s Torah portion, we find a description of exile:

⁶⁴ Then Adonai will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known. ⁶⁵ Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There Adonai will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. ⁶⁶ You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life.

In conjunction with the Kol Nidrei prayer from last night, the prayer of those who were forced to say “yes,” when they meant “no,” people scattered among the nations, people threatened with further exile, people living in a state of constant anxiety, how much more accurate could a description of their lives be? For most of the past two millennia, this was the life of the Jews.

This fact was not missed by Isaac ben Moses Arama who lived during the time of the Expulsion from Spain. He wrote of these words from Deuteronomy:

We may possibly find an allusion in this verse to the time when thousands of Jews would change their religion as a result of suffering and persecution. Regarding this, the Torah states “and among these nations shalt thou have no repose.” For although they would assimilate among the nations, they would not find relief thereby, since the nations would still constantly revile them and denounce them as relapsed converts as we indeed have seen in our day, when a part have perished in the flames of the inquisition, a part have fled, and yet others continue to live in fear of their lives.

For a people inclined to believe in the truth of the text already, the seeming accuracy of the vision from Deuteronomy was strong reinforcement. Not all of the texts that were seen as relevant were filled with doom and gloom, however. Somewhat in parallel to the curse from Deuteronomy that proved all too accurate for generation after generation was another textual source, the Book of Ezekiel the prophet. With the seeming accuracy of the passage from Deuteronomy, why couldn’t this passage be accurate as well?

From Ezekiel (37: 11-14, 21-22, 26-28)

¹¹ Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ 

¹² Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign God says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. ¹³ Then you, my people, will know that I am Adonai, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. ¹⁴ I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I Adonai have spoken, and I have done it, declares Adonai.’”

21 Say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign God says: I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land. ²² I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel.

²⁶ I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever. ²⁷ My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people. ²⁸ Then the nations will know that I Adonai make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever.’”

Looking at these two passages together, Deuteronomy and Ezekiel, it is not that difficult to understand how the creation of the modern nation of Israel could be viewed in their context. There is no messianic figure involved here. God makes the exile happen and then God affects the return from exile.

When we speak of God feeding the hungry and housing the homeless, we believe that God acts through us. Likewise, when we speak of God gathering the exiles, it is we who make Aliyah, who return from exile into the Land of Israel.

In his recent book, Future Tense, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks talks about his great-grandfather and Israel:

In 1871, my great-grandfather, Rabby Arye Leib Frumkin, left his home in Kelm, Lithuania, to go to live in Israel, following his father who had done so some twenty years earlier. One of his first acts was to begin writing a book, The History of the Sages of Jerusalem, a chronicle of the continuous Jewish presence in Jerusalem since Nachmanides arrived there in 1265 and began reconstructing the community that had been devastated during the Crusades.

In 1881, pogroms broke out in more than a hundred towns in Russia. In 1882, the notorious antisemitic May Laws were enacted, sending millions of Jews into flight to the West.

As an aside, this was the beginning of the major wave of immigration to the United States from Eastern Europe that ended after World War I. Rabbi Sacks continued:

Something happened to him [Rabbi Sacks’ grandfather] as a result of these experiences. Evidently he realized that Aliyah, going to live in Israel, was no longer a matter of pilgrimage of the few but a vital necessity for the many. He moved to one of the first agricultural settlements in the new Yishuv [the new area of settlement]. It had been settled some three or four years earlier, but the original farmers had contracted malaria and left. Some were now prepared to go back to work the land but not to live there. It was, they believed, simply too much of a hazard to health.

He led the return and built the first house there. When the settlers began to succeed in taming the land, they were attacked by local Arabs, and in 1894 he decided that it was simply too dangerous to stay, and he moved to London. Eventually, he returned and was buried there…

What fascinates me is the name the settlers gave to the village… It was set in the Yarkon Valley, and when they discovered that it was a malarial swamp, it appeared to them as a valley of trouble. But they knew the Hebrew Bible, and they recalled a verse from the prophet Hosea [2:15] in which God promised to turn the “valley of trouble” into a “gateway of hope.” That is the name they gave the village, today the sixth largest town in Israel: Petach Tikvah, the gateway of hope.

By the way, this is from the same passage in the Book of Hosea that discusses the marriage between God and Israel from which we often recite these verses during a wedding ceremony:

¹⁹ I will betroth you to me forever;
    I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
    in love and compassion.
²⁰ I will betroth you in faithfulness,
    and you will acknowledge Adonai.

Hope.

Hope is what helped our people survive nearly two thousand years in exile, enduring great suffering.

To despair of the hope of redemption was one of the greatest of sins according to the rabbis. Our Golden Age was not one of the past, but one not yet reached. As the historian Cecil Roth once noted, “The worse external conditions grew, the more profound and deep rooted was the certainty of deliverance.”

This hope is the very same hope, the very same hope that is found in HaTikvah, the national anthem of Israel:

Od lo avdah tikvateinu, “We still have our hope!”

Hatikvah bat shnot alpayim, “The hope of two thousand years,”

Lihiyot am hofshi b’artzeinu, “To be a free people in our land,”

Eretz Ziyon, vi’rushalayim, “The land of Zion and Jerusalem.”

Hope is the true beating heart of the Jewish tradition and the Jewish people.

We know, furthermore, that it isn’t just our hope that matters. We must help those without hope find hope for us to truly live in peace.

And this morning, we see this in the words of the traditional YK morning Haftarah portion from Isaiah 58 (verses 4-12):

You cannot fast as you do today
    and expect your voice to be heard on high.
⁵ Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
    only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
    and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
    a day acceptable to Adonai?

What is desired of us in not merely inward reflection and contemplation, not merely mourning over the sad state of our world; it is instead that we bring hope to the hopeless. That is our great task. In the words of Isaiah:

⁶ “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Doing these things gives people hope in the midst of their despair. It brings light into their lives and just as it does for them, so too will it for us. As Isaiah tell us:

⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
    and the glory of Adonai will be your rear guard.
⁹ Then you will call, and Adonai will answer;
    you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

“If you do away with the chains of oppression,
    with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
¹⁰ and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
    and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
    and your night will become like the noonday.

Hope makes one’s light rise amid the darkness so that even at the worst times, there will be light. Once we have become the people of hope, the people of light, the people whose job it is to be a “light unto the nations,” to quote from Isaiah chapter 49, then the people of Israel will be restored unto the land. Then, as we read in our Haftarah this morning:

¹¹ Adonai will guide you always;
    he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
    and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
    like a spring whose waters never fail.
¹² Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of the Breech,
    Restorer of Streets with Houses.

It is often said that the first commandment in the Torah is “Pru urvu”, “Be fruitful and multiply.” But that isn’t actually true. That commandment is the first one given after human beings were created. The very first commandment in the Torah comes at the very beginning of the creation narrative and is given to all beings, “Y’hi Or!” “Let there be light!”

This Yom Kippur, this day which recalls to mind generations of Jews past and urges us to regain the right path in our own lives, may we strive to bring light and hope into our world, through our words and our actions.

Y’hi Or! Go forth and bring light and hope into the darkness.

G’mar Chatimah Tovah! May we all be sealed in the Book of Life and Blessing for a good, happy, healthy and sweet year!

Kein Y’hi Ratson! May it be God’s will!