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November 27, 2021
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Parshat Vayeshev
November 27, 2021 — 23 Kislev 5782
What If This Is All There Is?
A Sermon for the Shabbat of Thanksgiving
by Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
It was only 17 years ago, but it feels like forever ago. It feels like it was a different century when, in 2004, David Brooks wrote a book about America called On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense. His main point was that Americans lived in the future tense, by which he meant that whatever problems we faced in the present moment were not really problems because we imagined a future that would be so much better.
Our house is too small, but no matter. One fine day we will live in a big and spacious house.
Our income is too small, but one fine day we will have a better job which will generate all the resources we need for the life we want to lead.
My health is challenged now, but one fine day I will find the doctor and get the treatment that will have me feeling better than ever.
Our children have not yet found themselves, but in the future they will be living just the happy life they dream of living.
The key to living in the future tense is this limitless sense of optimism that the future will be better than the past.
Most of us do not believe that today if we ever did. Most of us ask a different question. What if this is all there is? What if this is it? What if there is no one fine day? What if the present moment is all we’ve got?
By now, we all know that there is not going to be a glorious day when some medical or government authority announces: Covid is over. It is time to go back to pre-Covid life. We all know that for an indefinite future it is going to be about risk mitigation, where different members of the same family will have different views on questions like: can we go see a movie tonight and have dinner at a restaurant before the show?
If this is all there is, if our house is what it is, if our job is what it is, if our financial situation is what it is, if our health is what it is, if our marriage is what it is, if our adult kids are who they are, how do we make peace with a more sober picture? How do we do a deep Thanksgiving for the complicated present rather than an imaginary perfect future?
We get the answer from the matriarch who gets the least press, our mother Leah. You will remember that both Leah and her sister Rachel marry Jacob. Jacob loves Rachel but does not love Leah. Leah, unlike Rachel, is fertile. She gives birth to four sons in quick succession. With the first three sons, she lives in the future tense. She names her first son Reuben, meaning since I have born my husband a son, now my husband will love me. But still Jacob does not love her. She gives birth to her second son, whom she names Simeon, meaning, since I have given my husband two sons, now my husband will love me. But still Jacob does not love her. She gives birth to her third son, whom she names Levi, meaning since I have given my husband three sons, now my husband will love me. But the future she imagined, Jacob loving her, still does not happen.
Finally, when she gives birth to her fourth son, she does an entirely new move. No need to imagine a better future. Better that I see, and celebrate, the present in its totality. Hapaam odeh et Adonai, This time I will praise the Lord. Therefore she called her fourth son Judah, meaning I praise God now, I celebrate life now, I no longer pant after a husband’s love that would not come.
Now what happened to Leah in between sons 3 and 4? How did she go from I have born my husband three sons, now maybe he will love me, to this time I praise God?
I think what happened to Leah is that she finally had a crucial insight that is the mark of making peace with our adult lives. She came to understand that not all blessings are given to every person. But every person has some blessings. Not all blessings are given to every person. Panting after that blessing, as Leah panted after the love of Jacob that would not come, is a recipe for despair. But every person has some blessings. Take the blessings that we have and be grateful for them. Take the blessings that we have and deepen them. Take the blessings that we have and find peace in them.
That is what Leah does. I don’t have Jacob’s love. OK. But I am blessed with the gift of motherhood. After her first four children, Leah would go on to have four more sons, Gad and Asher through her concubine Zilpah, and Issachar and Zebulon, as well as their daughter Dinah. Of the 13 children of Israel, Leah is the biological mother of seven of them, and the Torah accounts her as the mother of nine of them, including Zilpah’s sons. Not every blessing is given to every person. But every person has some blessings. Go deeper with the blessings we have.
This gift of Leah is not just a biblical story. It is a real-life strategy. There is a woman in Baton Rouge, Louisiana named Julia Hawkins who was married to the love of her life, Murray, for 70 years. They met on the first day of college. “I knew he was the one. I went home that first night and wrote about him in my diary.” They shared children, grandchildren, great grandchildren. They shared a love of reading. They did not have a television, preferring instead to read books out loud to one another, to try to foster a family reading culture among their children and grandchildren. Eight years ago, at the age of 95, Murray passed away.
What happened to Julia? It is not uncommon, after a long and loving marriage, that after one spouse passes away, the other spouse loses the will to live and passes away soon as well. But not Julia. She did the Leah move. Every person is given some blessings. What is right with my life now? It was important for her to have passions, plural. She still loves attending to her physical health. She loves eating and drinking healthily and carefully. She loves getting a good night’s sleep. She still loves reading, but with her eyesight diminishing, she now listens to books on tape. She loves growing and nurturing bonsai trees. Her trees are spread out over an acre of land, and watering them regularly helps her stay fit for athletic competition.
Athletic competition? One of the passions, plural that she became most excited about after Murray passed away was competitive centenarian sprinting, that is racing for people who are 100 years or older. At 105, earlier this month she became the oldest woman to run the 100 meters in an official competition. As the Washington Post drily noted, “Clocking in at 1 minute 3 seconds, she was the only competitor in the race for people 105 and older.” Her life is far from paradise. She laments: “I miss my husband so much.” But she still wakes up and, between her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, her plants, her audio books, her training and running, her careful eating and drinking, her getting a good night’s sleep, she still loves life every day.
Now being able to run 100 meters at 105 is a rarity. But being able to praise God, and savor life in the present moment, is what all of us are meant to do as Leah’s descendants. Can we do what Leah did? Can we make the switch from child 3 to child 4 that Leah made? Not every blessing is given to every person. But every person is given blessings. Can we let go of the blessings are not ours, and go deeper with the blessings that are ours?
That is Leah’s brilliant insight and gift to us.
That is the meaning of Yehuda, after whom we, the Jewish people, are named: I praise God now, despite what I do not have and never will.
That is a Thanksgiving for the world we’ve got, not an imaginary future world we’ll never have–a Thanksgiving we can believe in today and every day. Shabbat shalom.