May 31, 2025
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Parshat Bamidbar
Jane Austen Did Not Wreck My Life
May 31, 2025 – 4 Sivan 5785
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
I am not a huge fan of rom coms. But there was one rom com I just had to see the minute I heard about it. I was drawn to its title. Its title was irresistible. Its title conveyed the central problem in the Book of Numbers. Its title conveyed one of the central challenges in our own lives. The title of this rom com is Jane Austen Wrecked My Life.
Jane Austen wrecked my life. Let’s dwell on that. Some other person wrecked my life. Some external person or event or disappointment wrecked my life. If my life is not what I want it to be, there is somebody or something else to blame.
How often are we tempted to say our own version of Jane Austen wrecked my life? We’ve all heard, or said, different versions of this.
My parents wrecked my life. I still remember the time I came home with an examination where I got a 98. And they said: what happened to the other two points? I still remember the time I came home with my report card. All As and one A-minus. And they said: A-minus?
Or: My parents wrecked my life. I was always a creative type. I dreamed of becoming a singer. A writer. An actor. But my parents threw cold water on my dreams: “How are you going to make ends meet,” they would say. “Do you have any idea how many unemployed singers, writers and actors there are,” they would say. They pressured me to become an accountant. I work at Price Waterhouse as an auditor. I am not living my dream.
Parents are frequently the target of Jane Austen wrecked my life energy, but there are plenty of other targets.
My boss who had it in for me wrecked my life.
My co-worker who betrayed me wrecked my life.
My business partner who cheated me wrecked my life.
My teacher who gave me an unfair grade wrecked my life.
My doctor who failed to diagnose and treat my condition properly wrecked my life.
In each case, the narrative could well be accurate. The feelings could well be valid. Parents did say: where are the other two points? The boss did have it in for you. Your business partner did cheat you. The doctor did not treat your medical condition properly.
But here’s the problem: Even if the claim that Jane Austen wrecked my life has some basis, does this energy serve us? Does this energy help us? Or does this energy consign us to a doom loop of reliving past frustration?
Of course the answers to these questions are all obvious. Jane Austen wrecked my life energy is not helpful, it does not serve us, because it focuses on the past, not the present and the future. It casts us as a victim, somebody to whom bad things happen, not as the actor in our own story, somebody who can make good things happen. It strips us of agency and ownership for our own lives.
And yet, even though it is not helpful, so often we engage in Jane Austen wrecked my life energy.
That is why the central message in the Book of Numbers is: don’t do it.
Time and again, the Israelites complain to Moses: Moses you wrecked our lives. Moses, why did you take us out of Egypt to die in the desert? Moses, we are hungry. Moses, we are thirsty. Moses, we are angry.
Nothing good ever comes out of this energy. To the contrary, only bad outcomes come out of this energy, which is why virtually this whole generation dies in the desert.
So, what is your version of Jane Austen Wrecked My Life? What are you still holding onto that you need to let go of? What bugaboo has been living rent free in your soul that you need to evict for your own good and welfare, so that you can travel with less baggage?
If Biblical Israelites role model what not to do, contemporary Israelis role model what to do. Two words take this in. Yuval Raphael. So aptly named. In the Hebrew Bible Yuval is the ancestor of music, the inventor of instruments like the flute. Raphael means God will heal. Yuval Raphael is a 24-year-old Israeli woman whose song testifies to a divine healing energy.
As Elias shared with those of you who were here last week, on October 7, Yuval Raphael was at the Nova music festival when the killing began. She and her friends ran for safety to a concrete bomb shelter built to accommodate 18 people. There were over 50. The Hamas terrorists fired into the shelter repeatedly and then threw in hand grenades. Yuval Raphael survived by playing dead and by hiding amongst dead people who were on top of her. On top of which she had shrapnel from the hand grenades in her leg. For eight hours, lying amongst the dead, her leg bleeding, she played dead so that she might once again live.
After eight hours, she was rescued. Her response to that moment was to sing.
Yuval Raphael sang Israel’s song in the recent Eurovision contest, entitled New Day Will Rise. Yuval sings this song in perfect English, perfect French, and perfect Hebrew. The recurring words are: “new day will rise, life will go on.”
Israel’s song won the popular vote.
So many obstacles could have gotten in Yuval Raphael’s way.
Countries like Ireland, Spain, and Belgium urged that Israel to be barred from the Eurovision competition. An activist made threatening gestures towards Israelis at the opening ceremony.
Yuval Raphael had already endured unimaginable trauma. You might have thought that she would be thrown off her game; that she would not have brooked the hatred of the world to sing a song of hope during a time of war. But sing she did.
We need to channel Yuval Raphael.
She didn’t say Hamas wrecked my life. Though she could have.
She didn’t say: anti-Israel countries wrecked my life. Though she could have.
She didn’t say: antisemitism wrecked my life. Though she could have.
She said, “A New Day Will Rise.” That is a Jewish message. That is an Israeli message. That is a universal message. That is a song all human beings need to hear.
It is not easy.
It is easy to say Jane Austen Wrecked My Life.
It is hard to say A New Day Will Rise and to live with the strength to make it happen.
But that is the song, and that is the strength, that can heal our souls. Shabbat shalom.