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January 1, 2022
Author(s): Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger,
Parshat Vaera
January 1, 2022 — 28 Tevet 5782
Higher Resolution
by Rav Hazzan Alia Berger
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
In 1949, David Schacker’s life was radically transformed. Up until that point, he had been a healthy, bright-eyed, 10-year-old boy who loved running and playing tennis. He had the kind of raw talent that promised opportunity. Everyone knew he would get an athletic scholarship somewhere fabulous and looked forward to watching him succeed.
But that dream was not to be. At ten, Schacker was diagnosed with Polio. Instead of running outside and playing tennis, he spent the year cooped up in St Giles hospital in physiotherapy and treatment.
That year changed the course of David Schacker’s life. He recovered from Polio, but he never returned to what he once was. His left hand and arm, which had formerly been his throwing and batting arm, were now impaired. He couldn’t run the way he used to. He was mobile and able to function normally, just not in the extraordinary way he was accustomed to. Out of necessity, he stepped off the sports field and into the newsroom.
Schacker became the sports editor for his high school newspaper and followed this newfound passion to Cornell. There, he was hanging out with a friend at the Figaro Café when his future wife, Maxine, walked through the door and became not only the love of his life, but also his business partner and best friend. Maxine founded a school of animation in Toronto, for which David did marketing and advertising, David became a lyricist and recently a children’s book author, and the two raised their daughter together and are now happy grandparents.
As David looks back on his life, he holds one photo particularly close. It’s a black and white picture of a bright-eyed little boy in the St. Giles hospital shaking hands with Gil Hodges dressed up as Santa. For 72 years, David has treasured this photo and has brought it with him wherever he has gone.
Why? Why treasure that photo?
You might expect that David treasured that photo because he met his childhood hero. Because of Gil Hodges. But that wasn’t the case. David treasured the photo not because it represented the moment of greatest joy, but because he recognized that his moment of greatest challenge opened up doors he otherwise wouldn’t have imagined.
As David recently shared with the New York Times, “My life might have gone an entirely different way if not for my diagnosis in 1949. I might have gone to a different college, I might have had different friends, I might have been a standout athlete. But my life might not have been as happy as it has been…Suppose I’d gone to some other school on an athletic scholarship…I wouldn’t have been at Cornell to meet the guy who was with me years later in Greenwich Village, when I met Maxine. One change in your life can change everything that follows.”
Joseph, in our tradition, carries a similar tattered photo. When Jacob dies, all his children travel back to Canaan to bury him together. On their way, pass the pit where the brothers once threw Joseph. Joseph stops. He walks up to the pit and stands there in quiet contemplation remembering his journey—of slavery and incarceration and judgement and solitude which enabled him to save a nation from famine. The brothers are terrified that the sight of the pit will inspire Joseph to exact revenge, or at least to rage at them for the life they stole from him. But, as our rabbis explain, Joseph is simply there to do what is required of every human being. וּבֵרַךְ עָלָיו, כְּמוֹ שֶׁחַיָּב אָדָם לְבָרֵךְ עַל מָקוֹם שֶׁנַּעֲשָׂה לוֹ נֵס, בָּרוּךְ הַמָּקוֹם שֶׁעָשָׂה לִי נֵס בַּמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה Joseph stands by the pit, holding the tattered black and white photo of his childhood loss and says, “blessed is this place in which God created a miracle for me.”
When I first encountered this text in rabbinical school, I remember talking with my chavruta about Joseph’s extraordinary capacity for forgiveness. What an incredible man, I thought, who could endure such suffering and go back to that place of loss and only see the blessings that came of his struggles. But this year, as I was rereading the midrash, I was struck not just by Joseph’s clear vision, but especially by the dry midrashic voice that introduces his narrative. In the eyes of the midrashic author, Joseph is not exceptional for going back to that hard place and blessing it, he is doing what is required of each one of us.
How can that be? You might think, that’s lovely that Joseph could do that, but that’s not something I could ever do. That’s not something I do. I don’t treasure the moments of my greatest pain. Those moments don’t inspire what I do now. Those are moments I try to forget.
But is that really true?
A week ago, I came across an unexpected, tattered photograph. We were sitting together in Classroom two downstairs. Across from me, sat the adults from both Afghan families we are supporting, and their adorable three-month-old baby, next to them, our fabulous translator Malyar, and beside me three incredible volunteers from our core team. We could hear the joyful chatter of their two little girls playing with a volunteer in the Housman Activity Center.
We were meeting ostensibly for two purposes: to go over the families’ new benefits and to discuss their long-term goals and needs. But before we could begin, we had some explaining to do. Malyar, our fabulous translator, shared that the families were confused about who we are. In Afghanistan, American forces offered so many empty promises. They lived in a tiny rural community in the North of Afghanistan, a place without running water and where only about 10% of people have electricity. They left Afghanistan believing they were heading for a safe and happy new home with all the comforts of the modern world and instead landed on an American military base which was cold and uncomfortable and where they waited for months for a placement without knowing where they would end up. When they landed in Boston, a social worker met them, gave them money and took their documents. And then we showed up. We’ve been helping them with food and clothes and housing, but we haven’t been able to get back their documents they handed over at the airport, and we haven’t been able to expedite the paperwork they need to start working. Malyar told us that we had to explain to them who we are so they understand we’re not professionals, we’re just a ragtag group of volunteers who care about them and want to help.
We started to explain. “We’re not government workers, we’re not social workers, we’re just a group of Jews from Temple Emanuel who want to help you.”
Malyar translated and then turned to us. “If it’s ok with you, I’d like to share some more context.”
He spoke in Pashto for a while and then turned to us with a smile and told us what he’d told them. He explained that they’ve never met Jews before, and so he told them that we’re part of a rich and old religious tradition called Judaism and that our people have been persecuted for thousands of years. He told them that our ancestors arrived in the United States after pogroms and oppression, fleeing threats and hoping for a better future. He told them about the Holocaust and about how some of our volunteers still remember what it felt like to arrive here with nothing and to only have the support of a few kind volunteers who could help them. That’s why, he told them, they are helping you. They aren’t part of the government, they don’t have formal training, they just remember what it’s like to be a stranger in a strange land and don’t want you to feel alone.
Today is the first day of 2022. Traditionally, on the New Year, we make all sorts of New Year’s resolutions. We commit to exercising more and to eating healthier diets. We promise to cut down our time on our phones and to be better people. But this year, instead of just making New Year’s resolutions, I want to invite you to see your life in higher resolution. What are the tattered black and white photos which have inspired the course of your life? Where are the pits in which God has blessed you? And what is the gift that only you can pass forward?