Wonder Takes Work

June 12, 2021

Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,

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Parshat Korach
June 12, 2021 — 2 Tammuz 5781
Wonder Takes Work
by Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA

            Some 45 years ago, in 1976, I saw an episode of a sitcom that I still remember today.  It was an episode in the seventh and final season of The Mary Tyler Moore Show entitled “Ted’s Change of Heart.”  Ted Baxter, the pompous news anchor played by Ted Knight, has a mild heart attack in the middle of delivering the evening news.  After a brief stay in the hospital, he is restored to full health, a rephuah shelaimah, as we would say.

            But while he emerges from his cardiac incident healthy and whole, he is not the same person.  The trauma changed him.  He is filled with an acute sense of wonder and gratitude for blessings that he had never noticed before.

            He is grateful for the setting of the sun and will stare out the window at the majesty of day turning into night.

            He is grateful for the blessing of little things like salt.  Eating dinner at Mary’s home, he points to the salt-shaker exclaiming: this salt is amazing, each grain tiny and tasty. I never noticed before, but I do now.

            Mostly he is grateful for the blessing of people.  He tells all the people he works with how much he loves and appreciates them.

            Fresh from his heart attack, Ted Baxter’s heightened consciousness of blessing evokes the comment of Rashi about the Israelites as they were walking through the Sea of Reeds. Fresh from their miracle, walking through the sea on dry ground, every ordinary Israelite was so filled with heightened wonder that in that moment they were like the prophet Ezekiel.

            In that moment.  But what about after that moment?  How long does a moment of wonder last?  That is our question now.  Many of us are beginning to do things for the first time in 16 months, and doing them fills us with intense wonder.

            The Torah procession we just experienced was no mere Torah procession.  It was an intensely joyful reconnection, hugging dear friends we had not seen in almost a year and a half.

            Daily morning minyan is not just daily morning minyan.  It is an exuberant affirmation of normalcy, of beginning our day in person in sacred community. 

            And so it is in so many areas of our lives.  We go to a loved one’s graduation party in person again. Intense wonder. We have friends over for Shabbat dinner again. Intense wonder.  We go out with friends to a restaurant for dinner again. Intense wonder. We get on an airplane and reconnect with family and friends. Intense wonder.  

            But how long does wonder last?

            The answer, in both The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and the Book of Exodus, is not long.

            By the end of the episode, Ted’s heart changes again.  He has lost his wonder. He no longer stares out at the sunset.  He no longer sees and values the people in his life.  He reverts to his old character of narcissism and pomposity.  So too, the Israelites’ intense wonder does not last.  The Torah quantifies precisely how long wonder lasts: 72 hours.  Three days after the miracle of the splitting of the sea, the Israelites have lost their wonder. They revert to their old character of complaining.  Where is there water?  Why did you take us out of Egypt?

            Is it possible not to lose our wonder?  Is it possible for our wonder to grow?  

            Our tradition has a helpful move here—what Abraham Joshua Heschel called “radical amazement”—the capacity to feel wonder on an ordinary day inspired by the ordinary people we see, the ordinary places we go, the ordinary things we do, every day.

            I want to tell you a story that was taught to me 30 years ago when I was a Seminary student.  I call it the purple onion story. 

            My late professor of Jewish philosophy at the Seminary,  Neil Gillman, tells the story of the time when, one Friday night, he was making a salad for Shabbat dinner.  He was chopping up a purple onion to put into the salad.  As he chopped the onion in half, he was suddenly overwhelmed by the beauty of that onion. He called out to his daughters Abby and Debbie:  Come quickly.  What is it Dad?  Is everything okay?  Pointing to the onion, he said: look!  Look!  They said: look at what?  He said: look at the onion.  They said: it’s an onion.  He said no, it’s not just an onion, it’s a miracle.  Look at the concentric circles. Look at the layers.  Look at the intersplicing of white and purple.  This onion was made by a divine hand!

            I have always loved this story, but I must say that in the 30 years since I first heard it, I have gone through three stages with it.

            The first stage was love.  I have to do what Neil Gillman did.  Find God in the kitchen. Find God when I am chopping an onion.   If I could do that, if I could live radically amazed, what a blessing that would be.

            The problem was that it never happened for me.  I am the Sioux chef in our family.  I have chopped up 1,000 onions, purple and otherwise, and 1,000 other vegetables: broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant, sweet potatoes.  I have tried to find God in all that chopping. But I never have.  I loved when I first heard about Neil Gillman’s epiphany in the kitchen. I’ve just never been able to duplicate it myself.

            The second stage was to try another move.  Shira bought me this lithograph of purple onions, including one that was cut in half, which for years now sits every day on my desk. Its purpose is to remind me to reach for radical amazement.  But to be honest, it’s not working. This lithograph of the purple onions, like wallpaper, is always here, and I never see it.

            Which leads to the third stage, which I am in now.  Radical amazement, wonder that lasts, is not a sudden epiphany or feeling like Neil Gillman had in his kitchen.  Rather, wonder  is a spiritual muscle.  Like any muscle, like every muscle, use it and it gets stronger.  Don’t use it, and it atrophies.  Wonder takes work.

            Every night at 8:30, Shira and I stop whatever we are doing and ask:  what are we grateful for today?  This 8:30 slot puts reflecting on wonder into our daily calendar.  Knowing that I have to share at night about what wonder I experienced in the day causes me to move through the world with eyes wide open for wonder:  might this person, might this experience, be something I could talk about at 8:30 that night?  Sometimes I find wonder in the most unexpected times and places.

            Just one recent example:  when we were flying home from Israel last month, our plane got in late because it left late because of missiles fired off by Hamas that got intercepted by iron dome.  The captain of our El Al flight explained that the ground crew needed to sweep the debris off the surface of Ben Gurion Airport. Not a lot of wonder there.  As a result, when we got into Kennedy late, we missed our connecting flight to Boston.  Not a lot of wonder there.  Instead of flying to Boston, we had to rent a car and drive to Boston. Not a lot of wonder there.

            But an interesting thing happened when we got to the Hertz counter at Kennedy.  The Hertz employee behind the counter took one look at us, registered real empathy, and said: are you okay?  How can we help?  She could not have been more empathetic.  After assigning us our car, she blessed us: May God help you get home safely.

            While shlepping our luggage to the Hertz rent a car at Kennedy, I said to Shira: That’s my 8:30.  After a long flight from Israel, before an unwanted drive back home, a kind Hertz agent who saw us and cared.

            Not as exciting as seeing God in a purple onion. But to me, anyway, more real and more sustainable.

            Wonder can last. It just takes work.  8:30 is coming soon enough. What filled you with wonder today?  Shabbat shalom.