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May 27, 2023
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Shabbat Shavuot
May 27, 2023 — 7 Sivan 5783
Control
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
Rabbi Samuel Chiel, of blessed memory, used to say: the Jewish people are not superstitious…kenahorah.
Recently I was an eyewitness to the birth, the thriving, and the death of a superstition…kenahora.
It happened in our evening minyan in the Gann Chapel, and it concerned the seating arrangement of two of our evening minyan regulars, Grant Finkel and Lisa Hills. Every night Grant sits in the section to the left, facing the bimah, in the second row. Every night Lisa Hills sits in the section to the right, facing the bimah, in the first row. That is how it has been forever. But one night, for whatever reason, only God knows, Grant Finkel sat next to Lisa Hills in the first row of her section. He had never sat there before. And do you know what happened as a result?
I’ll tell you what happened. The Celtics won that night. They were in the midst of a playoff series. Their play had been inconsistent. The previous game they had not played so well in the fourth quarter and lost. But the night that Grant sat next to Lisa, the Celtics won a tough game on the road. Obviously, they won because Grant sat where he sat.
The next night, as folks walked into Gann at about 7:28, we said to Grant: sit next to Lisa again. He did. And the Celtics won again.
The next night, at 7:28, as folks walked in, Lisa and Grant came in as usual. But on this particular night Lisa’s husband Matt Hills also came in. We said to him: scram! You can’t sit next to your wife. The Celtics are playing! Sit a few seats away from your wife so that Grant’s magical powers continue to lift up the Celtics. Matt himself is a big Celtics fan. As it happens, that very night he was wearing a Celtics t-shirt. He happily complied. Grant sat next to Lisa. The Celtics won.
Then came the Miami series.
Suffice it to say, the superstition fever has passed. Grant is back to sitting in his usual seat, Matt is back to sitting next to Lisa again, all is well in the Gann Chapel.
What is a superstition about? A superstition responds to the following gap: What happens when we care a lot, but we control nothing? We care that the Celtics win. We love our home team. But we don’t control anything. We have no impact on the game. A superstition gives us the illusion of a modicum of control where none actually exists.
Alas, this care a lot, control a little problem does not only apply to sports. It applies to life itself.
We are about to recite Yizkor. The painful reality is that there is so much about the lives and deaths of the people we remember this morning that we do not control.
We don’t control when they died.
We don’t control how they died.
There is this Jewish tradition that when Moses died at the age of 120, with his vision undimmed and his vigor unabated, God took his life with a kiss, a neshikah. A gentle passing. A painless passing. A passing achieved after a full life with no diminution in cognitive or physical skills. No regrets. None. A neshikah.
Well, Moses got a neshikah. Good for him. He deserved it. The vast majority of the rest of us, our loved ones, don’t get a neshikah. There is mess, there is pain, there is unfinished business when our loved ones leave the world.
They died too young. They died tragically before their years were up. They died while they still had decades to live. No control. And there is no balm in Gilead for that pain. Only the faint hope that the passage of time might somewhat dull the pain.
Or they shlepped on too long. Their last chapter was prolonged and protracted and marked by diminishment. Their mind was not what it used to be. Their body no longer functioned the way it once did. Dignity! Where was the dignity? The one thing they never wanted was to become dependent. They became dependent. The one thing they never wanted was to become a burden. They required constant care, 24-7, just to make it through the day. No neshikah. This could go on and on for weeks, months, years. No control.
But it’s not just that our loved ones had no control over how or when they died. Very often how they lived was also shaped by factors beyond their control. When I meet with families, when talking about the adversities that shaped their departed loved ones, I will often hear the word scarred. Families will tell me things like: My father was scarred by the depression. He always told the story of the time, when he was ten years old, that he lost a dime. He came home and told his parents. Mama, Papa, I lost a dime. I don’t know where it went. A dime! A dime! You lost a dime! They went bananas. The depression never left him. Or, I’ll hear something like: my mother lost her mother when she was a little girl. She was scarred by being raised without a mother. That shaped her.
We have no control over when or how our loved ones died. We and they have little or limited control about the adversities that shaped them.
But there is one crucial area where we do have control. Judaism gives us that control.
We do control how and how often we remember them.
This control clicks in immediately. Part of the utter genius of Judaism is what I always think of as the mathematics of mourning. How long should I mourn my departed loved one? Theoretically that could be an inchoate problem with an inchoate solution. One could imagine other truth systems tackling this question by saying: how long should you be in mourning? That’s personal. Consult your own heart.
That’s not what Judaism does. Judaism gives us math. How long? For the first year, for a parent, say Kaddish for 11 months and a day. For a sibling, spouse, or God forbid a child, say Kaddish for 30 days. That’s for the first year. What about after that? How often am I supposed to mourn my loved one after that? Answer: Five. Five times a year. Not four. Not six. Five. Mourn your departed loved five times. Recite Yizkor for them four times: on Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Pesach, and today, Shavuot. Say Kaddish for them on their Yahrtzeit. Four plus one equals five. At last, some control. We have control over how often we mourn them.
But not only how often. We also have control over how we remember them, especially when our relationship with them was complicated.
Here is what we can do. We can forgive them for their imperfections. Lord knows, we have our own imperfections, and when it comes time for our loves one to remember us, we hope they will forgive us too.
As you know, Rabbi Harold Kushner passed away a few weeks ago. One day a reporter asked him: You are a rabbi. You are a theologian. You come from a faith tradition that sees God as all powerful. How then do you teach that God is not all-powerful?
The reporter’s question was good. More than good. Excellent. After all, every day in the Amidah, three times a day, four times on Shabbat and holidays, we say that God is ha’el hagadol hagibor vehanorah, God is great, mighty, awesome. That being the case, the reporter’s question was spot on: how could Rabbi Kushner possibly teach that God is not all-powerful?
But Rabbi Kushner’s answer was even better. Rabbi Kushner answered: God and I have reached an accommodation. I forgive God for God’s limitations. I pray that God forgives me for mine. Rabbi Kushner continued: We have to forgive people, we have to forgive life, we have to forgive God, for being imperfect.
We have the control of working towards forgiving our loved ones their imperfection.
We also have one other very important piece of control. We can ask what is good and right and true about our loved ones, what do we most admire and love about them? We have the control that comes from doing our level best to become their living legacy.
Was our loved one gritty, determined and resilient? What would it look like for us to become gritty, determined and resilient?
Was our loved one, despite life’s many challenges, hopeful and optimistic? What would it look like for us to become hopeful and optimistic?
Was our loved one faithful and true? Are we?
Was our loved one an ever-curious learner? What body of new learning can we embark upon as a tribute to their curiosity?
Did our loved one take Judaism super seriously? What would it look like for us to grow in our Jewish learning and practice as a testimony to their life?
We don’t have control over how they lived. We don’t have control over how they died. But we do have control over how we remember them. We do have control over whether we forgive them. We do have control over how we emulate their most admirable qualities. We do have control over whether we become their living legacy.
When it comes to superstitions around basketball games, we care so much. We control nothing.
When it comes to our loved ones’ memories, we care so much. And we control so much. Please rise.