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September 24, 2023
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Yom Kippur
Next, Next! Now, Now!
September 24-25, 2023 — 10 Tishrei 5784
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
A writer named Robert Hubbell is not Jewish. He and his wife are both observant Catholics. But earlier this year he wrote an essay entitled “My Kippah” about the fact that one of his most cherished possessions is a kippah. He did not know any Jews growing up. One of the first Jewish people he ever got to know was a law school classmate, a woman who became a fast platonic friend and study partner. After they graduated from law school, their friendship continued, and Robert Hubbell and his wife were invited by this friend to join what she called their synagogue havurah, a group of friends that met regularly for conversation, learning and friendship. This observant Catholic couple finds themselves going to Shabbat dinners, Passover seders, Neila services at the Temple and the break-fast after Yom Kippur was over. At all these moments, Robert Hubbell would borrow a kippah and return it when the event was over.
When his friend had her first son, Robert Hubbell and his wife attended the brit milah. Before the ceremony began, his friend presented him with a beautiful hand-knit kippah and said: “Here. It’s about time you had your own.” Since then, Robert Hubbell would wear the kippah to all the events as the young families in this havurah lived their lives. He wore his kippah to their Bar and Bat Mitzvah services, weddings, and joyful religious gatherings.
As the years went by, however, he started wearing his kippah to the funerals of the families in his havurah. One day, alas, he had to wear his kippah to bury his friend. He writes:
On Tuesday, I helped to bury my dear friend. She was 65…As I approached the grave, I wondered, “What profound thought is one supposed to hold in mind while helping to bury a lifelong, dear friend?” My mind was blank. No profound thoughts. All that came to mind was, “I am wearing the kippah I wore to her firstborn’s bris.”
That kippah symbolizes the wellspring of our relationship, our mutual respect for one another’s faith traditions. The taut stitches of the kippah mirror the strong bonds of family and friends she wove into the beautiful tapestry of her life. She is gone, but I will hold tight to the kippah as a physical manifestation of her life, just as I will hold fast to the community of family and friends that is her enduring legacy and testament to the world.
There is so much pathos, poignancy, beauty, sadness to this story. The deep friendship of people who meet in law school and become friends through the years. The mutual respect of friends who come from different faith traditions. The changes that time can bring. How this same kippah can bear witness to birth, to bar/bat mitzvah, to Shabbat and holiday gatherings, to funerals. That this same kippah is worn through the deepest joy and the deepest sorrow.
When I first read this story, I wondered: what is the response to the kippah story? How should one live knowing that the same kippah is worn at the brit milah of the son and at the funeral of the mother? What Jewish texts help us grapple here?
And then I remembered. I remembered that when I first met Shira, in the fall of 1983, one day I was in her dorm room, and she got the mail, and in the mail was a cassette from her father who I had not yet met. But she told me that he was a rabbi. And that he gave sermons. Do you want to listen with me to my father’s sermon? That felt like a different kind of romantic move. A sermon date. But why not. Turns out it was his first High Holiday sermon that he delivered at his new congregation in Atlanta.
That was 40 years ago. I never forgot that sermon. In all the years since I wanted to get a copy of the sermon but could never find it. Roll the film forward 40 years. This past April, Shira and I spent a week cleaning out our father’s apartment. There was one thing I was determined to find and bring home. That sermon.
At last, at the bottom of a drawer of old sermons, I finally found it. The sermon was entitled “Growing Older and Growing Old.” The text he wrestles with is that haunting line from the machzor: al tashlichenu l’eit zikna, cichlot kocheinu al taasveinu, do not cast us off in our old age, when our strength wanes, do not abandon us. Two things about this sermon stand out.
The first is that 50-something young and healthy Arnold Goodman predicts the trials and tribulations that 93- and 94-year-old Arnold Goodman would personally experience. He says:
We all grow older—we are all growing older. What is sobering—and frightening—is if we live long enough, at some point we will grow old. Growing old means not being able to take care of yourself as you once did. Growing old is a body that doesn’t quite work the way it used to or doesn’t function at all. Growing old is Medicare forms, and growing old is Shalom Home and the unbelievable alienation from reality that besets people in even the best of such facilities. Growing old is depleted strength and energy…
In his 50s, my father would say these words. In his 90s, he would live them.
The other reason that this sermon is so special to me is that he bequeaths a metaphor that I think about all the time. He cites a Belgian singer and poet named Jacque Brel who describes life as a carousel, and at every stage the conductor is shouting next, next! If that metaphor is true, it makes demands upon how we live our lives.
Next! Do not take even a single day of life for granted. Savor what we have while we have it.
Next! When we have had a loss, love what we have left.
Next! Show up for the people in our life. They don’t live forever. And neither do we.
Next! Tell your loved ones you love them while you and they are still alive.
Next! Fix what is broken while we still can.
Robert Hubbell and his wife, and his first Jewish friend, and her husband, and the families in their havurah, and the kippah she gave him, were all on the carousel together. They met in law school in the 20s, young and strong and healthy with a rosy future before them. Next! They moved to the suburbs, she and her husband joined their synagogue, formed deep friendships, and invited the Hubbells in, and they started doing life together at holiday tables. Next! Young parents started having children, britot and baby namings. Next! She gave Robert Hubbell the kippah who started wearing it for the happiest of occasions. Next! The children grew up and had their bar and bat mitzvahs. Next! Weddings. Next! Growing older, 50s and 60s. Next! Disappointments and heartache. Next! Illness. Next! The funeral.
The carousel is always turning, and the conductor is always shouting next! Next!
And what do we do in response?
Our response to next can only be we are going to live our life now. And that is not inevitable. That is a choice. How many of us have a mindset that right now I am just marking time, I am kind of in the waiting room, waiting for my life to start. My life is really going to start when X, Y, or Z happens. I am single. My life is really going to start when I find my partner. I am married, but my life is really going to start when we have children. We are happily married for many years, enjoying middle age, but my life is really going to start when we have grandchildren. My life is really going to start when I retire. My life is really going to start when we can finally travel, I’ve got all these trips I always wanted to take. My life is really going to start when I finally start feeling better. My life is really going to start when some distant event, quivering over the horizon, finally, finally happens for me.
There are only two problems with this.
Maybe it never happens.
And what about all the todays while we are waiting for tomorrow?
Get out of the waiting room and into the arena. Brace yourself to wear our kippah for all seasons. The conductor can shout next, next. We have got our life to live now, now.
As the poet Mary Oliver put it in her poem, The Summer Day:
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Gmar chatimah tovah.