July 12, 2025
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Parshat Balak
The Deepest Love
July 12, 2025 – 16 Tamuz 5785
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
When she was six years old, Erin Paisan fell in love not only with Camp Mystic in the Hill Country of Texas. She specifically fell in love with the Guadalupe River, which was the life force, the energy, the joy, of Camp Mystic. Decades later she still remembers with perfect clarity the very moment when she fell in love with the river. As she told the story to the New York Times Daily host Michael Barbaro, she and her mother were picking up her brother from a nearby camp. Six-year-old Erin saw the girls of Camp Mystic playing, splashing, smiling, in the Guadalupe River. She turned to her mother and said: “I want to go to that camp.”
It was far from inevitable that she would be able to go. Camp Mystic is a century-old camp. Generations of the same family would go, m’dor l’dor, from mother to daughter to granddaughter. Erin’s family was not a generational family. And they were not, in her own words, an elite family. Her parents were divorced. Her father was not in the picture. And yet somehow, she was accepted at Camp Mystic, which she joyfully attended from ages 10 to 16. She loved Camp Mystic so deeply as a child that every year she packed her trunk in December. She loves Camp Mystic so deeply as an adult that she has instructed her family, when she passes, to have her remains spread at the camp.
She loved that all the girls got a fresh start. Nobody knew or cared how rich they were, how big their house was, what kind of reputation they had at school. In the regular year, Erin Paisan was the child of divorce without a dad who was seen as a geek, in her words. But not at Camp Mystic.
She shared that when her husband can’t sleep, what centers him is thinking about golfing 18 holes at his favorite golf course. When Erin can’t sleep, what centers her is thinking about the river at Camp Mystic.
But wait a minute. Didn’t that river at Camp Mystic flood last weekend, claiming a heartbreaking number of innocent lives and leaving a heartbreaking number of devastated families? How could Erin Paisan find calm by thinking about the river at Camp Mystic?
But the problem is deeper than that. While the flooding of the river last weekend was by far the worst and most catastrophic, it has not been the only flooding. There was also flooding in 1978, when Erin herself was a camper. She remembers being moved to higher ground and going two days without food because the waters were so turbulent that counselors could not safely bring the hungry campers the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Then there was a flooding of the Guadalupe River again in 1987 which had deadly consequences.
With all that loss, with all that tragedy, how could Erin Paisan still love the river?
This question gets at a deeper question. What does it mean to love deeply? What does it mean to love deeply a person? A place? Our nation? Our homeland?
Here is what it does not mean. To love deeply never means: I love you because you are perfect. It never means your perfection engenders my love. It never means You keep being perfect, and I will keep loving you.
It does not mean that for our parents.
It does not mean that for our spouse.
It does not mean that for our children.
It does mean that for our grandchildren, but I digress.
It does not mean that for America.
It does not mean that for Israel.
It does not mean that for Temple Emanuel or any community that we love that is not perfect.
If loving deeply does not mean we love what is perfect, what does it mean? Loving deeply means living with what is imperfect. Living with the whole package, much of which is beautiful and joyful and easy to fall in love with, and some of which is decidedly not beautiful, joyful and easy to fall in love with, some of which just is.
Just is can be painful, even heartbreaking. Just is can be unfair, even tragic. But the sad truth is that just is often comes with the whole package, much of which we deeply love. That is Camp Mystic. That is Israel 644 days after October 7. That is our own beloved and divided country. Who we love and what we love sometimes also contains impossibly hard parts. It isn’t just. It just is.
This is a human truth. But it is also a Jewish truth. On page 1 of every daily siddur are words from this week’s portion that come from God, and are put into the mouth of the pagan prophet Bilaam: Mah tovu ohalecha yaakov.. How lovely are your dwellings, people of Jacob. Our homes are tovu, good. Sane. Grounded. Peaceful. Serene. Healthy. Happy. Harmonious. Drama-free.
And yet, immediately after the prophet pronounces these beautiful words, mah tovu:
While Israel was staying at Shittim, the people profaned themselves by whoring
with the Moabite women, who invited the people to the sacrifices for their god.
The people partook of them and worshiped that god. Thus Israel attached itself
to Baal-peor, and the Lord was incensed with Israel. Numbers 25:1-3.
Israelite homes were supposed to be mah tovu—happy, harmonious, drama-free. Instead, the opposite. Idolatry and adultery. They were supposed to be faithful to God, but the opposite: they worship a false God. They were supposed to be faithful to their spouses, but the opposite: they engage in a mass orgy.
What is the real Israel?
Is the real Israel mah tovu, happy, harmonious, drama-free? Or is the real Israel whoring with the Moabite women and worshipping their god?
The answer is they both are real. To love deeply is to live with not only imperfection—but also the significant pain that this imperfection can cause. And yet God still says, and we still say, mah tovu.
Which brings us back to Erin Paisan who still loves Camp Mystic and the river that runs through it.
It is said that courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to live with fear.
So too love is not the absence of pain, but the ability to live with pain.
Living with. Are we capable of that kind of love, which is the deepest love of all. Shabbat shalom.