The Work of our Hands

Happiness, said George Burns, is having a large, caring, close-knit family …in another city. So our large and close-knit extended family gets together every summer and spends a few days in Mammoth enjoying the simple pleasures of nature – hiking, fishing, playing cards, drinking beer. Our trip this past summer brought us a little too close to nature. One dark night Shelly and I were waiting to use the pay phone at Red’s Meadow when we spotted something out of the corner of our eyes: a large, bulky, shaggy shape…something massive moving ominously in the shadows just a few feet away. Before we could say “Arnold Schwarznegger,” the shape materialized into a giant bear who was prowling around the campground.

Now, my husband is giving this same sermon tonight, over at the Jewish Home in San Francisco, and in his version of the story, he wrestles that bear to the ground. But the truth is that we ran back to our cabin as fast as we could, and spent the rest of the night huddling there, listening for the monster outside our door.

One of the best things about having an adventure like this is the opportunity to tell your friends and co-workers all about it and get some well-deserved sympathy. But when I got back to my colleagues at Beth Am and they asked me how my vacation was, I no sooner mentioned the words “terrorized by a bear,” than they all, without exception, said, “Wow! I bet you’ll be able to work this into a sermon!”

So I had no choice but to work this into a sermon. And speaking of grisly experiences… how ‘bout the parking tonight at Flint Center? You know, Shelly warned me about using that terrible joke in this sermon, but I told him that if it didn’t get a laugh, well… I’d just have to grin and ….bear it.

Another Rosh Hashana is upon us. The curtain of night comes down, and the year 5763 slips into history – with all its monsters and heroes, its triumphs and fears.

It was, as always, a year when we mourned the passing of the great and the not-so-great. As is our tradition here at Beth Am, we turn to this year’s collection of N.Y. Times obituaries, which were, as always, lovingly presented to me by my husband, as his annual Rosh Hashana gift:

Lost to the sports world last year were Johnny Unitas, perhaps the greatest quarterback in history; Ray Hayworth, teammate of Ty Cobb, and the oldest living major leaguer; Bobby Bonds, who played for 14 seasons and fathered a legend; and Beth Am member Leonard Koppett of blessed memory, sportswriter and sports maven extraordinaire.

The entertainment world lost some giants: actors Richard Harris, Hume Cronyn, Kim Hunter, Richard Crenna, Buddy Ebsen, Charles Bronson, Katharine Hepburn and Gregory Peck. We lost animator Jules Engel, who choreographed the dancing hippos of “Fantasia,” along with singer-composer Warren Zevon and country singers Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash; Billy Mitchell, the lead singer on “Love Potion Number 9”; musician Herbie Mann; dancer Gregory Hines; playwright Herb Gardner, who wrote “A Thousand Clowns,” and lyricist Adolph Green, who teamed with Betty Comden to write the screenplays for “On the Town,” “Bells are Ringing” and “The Band Wagon.” We lost three creative men who were in a class by themselves: Bob Hope, Al Hirschfeld, and Mr. Fred Rogers – taken, too soon, from our neighborhood.

Gone from the Senate this year were Strom Thurmond and Paul Wellstone; as well as journalist David Brinkley and two memorable figures from the Vietnam era: Philip Berrigan and Ronald Ziegler. Literary critic Leslie Fiedler died, along with novelist Howard Fast, historian Stephen Ambrose, and Rabbi Emil Fackenheim, one of the greatest Jewish philosphers of modern times. We lost philanthropist Walter Annenberg; physicist Edward Teller, and mathematician Harold Coxeter, who inspired the drawings of M.C. Escher.

Israel lost some of its heroes last year: Shlomo Argov, former ambassador to Britain, who was shot in the head by Palestinian militants in 1982 outside his hotel in London. Ida Milgrom, who fought to free her son, Natan Sharansky, from a Soviet prison camp. Uzi Gal, who invented the submachine gun that bears his name; brilliant orator and diplomat Abba Eban; Simcha Dinitz, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. during the Yom Kippur War. Dr. David Appelbaum, who directed the Emergency Room at Sha’arei Tzedek hospital, killed at a café by terrorists while having a snack with his daughter the night before her wedding.

As always, some of those who passed from the scene defy all the categories: Jannie Brandes-Brilleslijper, the last person to see Anne Frank alive, in Bergen-Belsen; Sydney Omarr, astrologer to the stars, born Sidney Kimmelman in 1926, under the sign of Leo; William Rosenberg, founder of Dunkin’ Donuts; Selma Koch, who owned a famous Manhattan bra shop and worked six days a week, 10 hours a day, until her death at 95, still a trim 34-B. There was Bernard Manischewitz, who once said that the invention of bottled gefilte fish signified the biggest change in Jewish domestic life since biblical times. And last but not least, there was Dolly, the sheep who made history, dead at the age of six -- not because Shelly wrestled her to the ground, but from natural causes.

My husband says that he reads the obituaries to learn how to live. I thought about that as I thought about the year we’ve been through together at Beth Am. It was a hard one. So many of us were touched by loss and pain. There were real monsters outside our doors this year – illness and death, and the draining desperation of joblessness, and kids in trouble, and husbands and wives estranged. So much sadness. So many times I’ve wished for strength that I could share with you, and words that could offer some comfort and hope.

I found some words, at last, in an unlikely place: in the writings of Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish philosopher of the 19th century. They are hard words, in some ways, but I think they say something important for Rosh Hashana. Like those words of George Burns, they are a message about happiness.

“The only happiness a brave man ever troubled himself with,” writes Carlyle, “…was happiness enough to get his work done. Not ‘I can’t eat!’ but ‘I can’t work!’ -- that was the burden of all wise complaining among men. That he cannot work; that he cannot get his destiny as a man fulfilled. Behold, the day is passing swiftly over, our life is passing swiftly over; and the night cometh, wherein no man can work.

“The night once come, our happiness, our unhappiness – it is all abolished, vanished, clean gone; a thing that has been: not of the slightest consequence whether we were happy as…the fattest pig of Epicurus, or unhappy as Job… But the work; behold, that is not abolished, that has not vanished; our work; behold, it remains, or the want of it remains; -- for endless Times and Eternities, remains; and that is now the sole question with us for evermore!

“Brief brawling Day, with its noisy phantasms…is gone; and divine everlasting Night, …with her silences and her veracities, is come! What hast thou done, and how? Happiness, unhappiness: all that was but the wages thou hadst; thou hast spent all that, in sustaining thyself…; not a coin of it remains with thee, it is all spent, eaten; and now thy work, where is thy work? Swift, out with it: let us see thy work!” [emphasis added]

They are hard words, as I said. Carlyle tells us that ultimately, it’s all about the work. Notice that he does not say “it’s all about your job.” The two are not the same. The Jewish word for what Carlyle describes is “avodah.” It means “work,” but also something more profound. It means “service” – sacred service, service to something greater than ourselves.

It’s not that happiness doesn’t matter. Happiness, Carlyle says, is the reward – the wages – which some of us are fortunate enough to receive. But happiness is what we earn for ourselves; our work is what we give to others, and what remains when we are gone.

The new year begins, reminding us that a year has passed and the night will come. The new year begins, and we ask ourselves: how should we live?

Here, then, are some life lessons from the obituary page.

Salvator Altchek, who died this year at the age of 92, grew up in Spanish Harlem – a neighborhood where his Sephardic Jewish family felt comfortable. Salvator and his brothers worked to put one another through medical school. After graduating, he set up his own practice in Brooklyn Heights.

For 67 years, he began his workday at 8 a.m., took a half-hour break for dinner at 5, closed his office at 8 p.m., and then made house calls, sometimes until midnight. Dr. Altchek made his house calls on foot, carrying his black bag. He knew everyone on the block, and he often greeted people by grabbing their hands and playfully taking their pulse. He treated people from all walks of life – prominent lawyers, shopkeepers, streetwalkers, homeless men, families that made up the ethnic rainbow of Brooklyn.

He delivered thousands of babies; some of his patients were people he’d brought into the world 60 years before. He charged his poorest patients $5 or $10 a visit, when he charged at all. Other patients went out of their way to pay generously, to make up for those who could not pay. Once, to his wife’s displeasure, he gave away his winter coat to a patient.

“He wasn’t out to make money; he was out to help people,” said a woman whose daughter was delivered by Dr. Altchek. And another wrote: “He was a physician who treated the poor…They paid when they had it, and he treated them as though they were Park Avenue residents.”

Dr. Altchek fell into a deep depression 32 years ago when his wife died; he gradually recovered by throwing himself into his work. He stopped making house calls just two months before his death, when he could no longer climb steps easily. His last spoken thought was to remember that he owed a patient a medical report.

“What hast thou done, and how? Out with it: let us see thy work!” We often think of a job as something practical, rooted in necessity; it is what we do to provide for ourselves and our family. But a job – even the most mundane job, done with vigor and integrity—can become avodah, holy work, work with moral significance.

Dr. Altchek lived a long and fruitful life, and saw his goals fulfilled. Paul Wellstone, whose life ended in a plane crash last October, when he was just 58, never achieved most of his goals. In fact, one way to describe his career in the Senate is that he was consistently on the losing side.

Wellstone was born in humble circumstances to parents who were Russian Jewish immigrants; his mother worked in a junior high school cafeteria. Growing up, he had trouble in school because of what was later diagnosed as a learning disability. He scored lower than 800 on his SATs, out of a total of 1600. Even as an adult, he had trouble understanding charts and graphs; he always said that he had learned to overcome his disability by studying harder and taking more time to absorb the information.

He got into college on a wrestling scholarship; got married as a student, at the age of 19, and stayed married for 39 years (his wife and daughter died with him in the crash). He was teaching political science at Carleton College when he decided to run for the Senate, against an opponent who spent $7 million on his campaign, seven times more than Wellstone. He served there for 12 years, fighting for bills favored by working people, family farmers and the poor, and against bills favored by banks, agri-business and large corporations.

Wellstone never bargained away his principles. In Senate votes, he sometimes stood alone, or was one of just a few. He was among the handful of Senators to vote against the war in Iraq, and the only one in the midst of a close re-election campaign. He always said he was not afraid that his strong stands would hurt him politically. “What would really hurt,” he said, “is if I was giving speeches and I didn’t even believe what I was saying.”

He was a friendly, rumpled, unfailingly modest man who, unlike many of his colleagues, lived on his Senate salary. He was one of the few senators who took the time to learn the names of elevator operators, waiters, police officers and other support staff at the Capitol. One night he came back to the building well past midnight just to visit with the cleaning staff and tell them how much he appreciated their efforts.

Even right-wing Republicans liked and respected Wellstone as a man. Said Bob Dole: “He was a decent, genuine guy who had a different philosophy from almost everyone else in the Senate.”

In February of 2002 Wellstone announced that he had just learned he had multiple sclerosis, but he said the illness would not affect his ability to do his work. “I have a strong body, I have a strong heart, I have a strong soul,” he said.

Even a life that ends too soon can leave its mark upon the world. Even a modest, ordinary guy can make a difference by what he does. Paul Wellstone taught us that doing your work isn’t about winning. It’s about faithfulness and commitment, even when you lose.

We know about Altchek and Wellstone because they had obituaries in the New York Times. Their work was recognized by the larger world. The final story I want to tell is of a woman whose work was known only to the small circle around her. One of our members wrote these words for her mother, and read them to her at a party on her 90th birthday:

“Dear Mom,

I feel so lucky to be writing you this note on the celebration of your 90th birthday. I am truly blessed to have you all these years and to have the memories of our life together as mother and daughter.

I REMEMBER:

• The day World War II was over and you gave me a pot and cover to bang while we marched around in the joy of the day.
• The cold winter days at 70 Paulson Road when you would take me under your robe to keep me warm while we waved goodbye to Dad
• How you held my forehead and stomach when I would be vomiting from the stomach flu
• How you would put clean sheets on my bed after I had been sick with a fever
• The little table in the kitchen
• Herring and onions
• How sad you were when you had to take the circus away from me because I stole a candy bar (she really did make me do it!)
  
• The day I got my driver’s license and you gave me your car so I could be with my friends
  
• Saying goodbye as I left for college
  
• Your happiness when I called to tell you about my engagement
  
• How you looked at me on my wedding day
  
• The day we told you we were expecting our daughter
  
• The terrible day that Daddy died and all the sadness that overwhelmed us
  
• Your courage as you healed from your devastating loss
  
• All the times you visited our family and helped me with the children, and gave them and us all your love
  
• The Thanksgivings we shared, the stuffing you made
  
• All our phone calls
  
• Making Mundelbrot for you
  

I remember all this and more, and I will always be warmed by the memories of my beautiful, classy, loving, sensitive and giving Mom, whose love and devotion have sustained me all these years.”

Two years after our member shared those words with her mom, she read them again at her funeral. I thank her for letting me share them with you tonight. They remind us that a beautiful life, a life of generosity and love, is the best answer to Carlyle’s question: “What hast thou done, and how?…Thy work, where is thy work?” We can perform avodah – our true work – whether or not we’re employed for pay. And even when we’re old, even when our strength fails, we can still perform the labor of love.

The three people I’ve described tonight were not perfect. Dr. Altchek probably didn’t spend enough time with his kids. Paul Wellstone could be strident, stubborn and single-minded in pursuit of his goals. Even a loving mother and grandmother has her foibles and flaws. But all of them knew that life is not, ultimately, about how you feel. It’s about what you do. Happiness comes to us in greater or lesser measure; good fortune is mostly beyond our control. What rests in our hands is the power to work; to work hard, to work well, to give ourselves to something beyond ourselves.

One day Barbara Myerhoff, an anthropologist at USC, came across an old Jewish woman in Venice, down by the beach. The old woman was about to leave for a Spanish class. She was learning Spanish because she worked with migrant workers; after her class, she’d be passing out petitions in support of their strike. “Do you enjoy that work?” Dr. Myerhoff asked her. “Who could enjoy standing in a parking lot on a cold day, arguing with ignorant strangers?” answered the old woman. “You don’t do these things to enjoy. It has to be done, that’s all.”

I look out on our congregation this evening, gathered to greet the new year, and I see men and women whose work I know very well. Here tonight is a volunteer fireman, who sometimes gets up in the middle of the night to go to a fire, then comes home, showers, and puts in a full day at the office. There are parents here tonight who care for a child with a serious medical condition; they give selflessly to try to keep their child comfortable and free of pain. There are busy professionals who find time to look after relatives who are elderly and frail. There are college students who spend their summers trying to help the poor.

I know many of you who make your job into avodah: a therapist who treats a patient in need without payment; a lawyer who gave his time to keep a family from losing their home; a social worker who donates her time to lead a group for people with cancer; a retired physician who volunteers at a clinic for the poor; businessmen who have used their wealth not for self-indulgence but to give back to the community.

And there are many of you whose work is of the deepest and most personal kind. I know wives who care for husbands who are ill, and husbands who care for their wives; they get up every morning and they put on a smile for the world. I know people who are unemployed or under-employed, who bravely refuse to succumb to despair. I know widows and widowers who face a deep and private grief, but don’t give up on the world – among them a teacher who gives personal attention to every student, a retired executive who helps those who are out of work. I know folks who look fine on the outside, but who fight the lonely battle against depression every day.

There’s a 12 year old boy I know who reached out this year to comfort a friend who lost his grandpa. I know a family that suffered the ultimate, heartbreaking loss. They struggle to bring some blessing out of the tragedy, and multitudes of good-hearted friends stand by them in their anguish.

I know all of you who give tzedaka quietly, unpretentiously, on the happy and sad occasions of your life, and for no particular occasion at all. I know devoted men and women who work hard all day at their jobs and then go to a board or committee meeting at Beth Am, because they care about the future of our people. I know generous souls who give me home-made jam and home-grown fruit and home-cooked meals at especially busy times of the year.

There are more of you than I could possibly name, and the work of your lives fills me with awe.

I offer these concluding words in tribute to you. They were written by Chaim Potok, in his novel “The Chosen,” set in the years just after World War II. They come from a scene near the end of the book, in which Reuven, a college student, worries about his father overworking.

“This was [my father’s] third cold in five months. It was also the first time in weeks that he had been home at night. He had become involved in Zionist activities and was always attending meetings where he spoke about the importance of Palestine as a Jewish homeland and raised money for the Jewish National Fund.

…He rarely got home before eleven. I would always hear his tired steps in the hallway as he came in the door.

“…You’ll be working late tonight, abba?” [I asked] “Yes.” “You’re not taking care of yourself, you know…Are you going for another check-up soon?” “Soon,” he said. ….“I wish you’d take it a little easy,” I said.

“This is not a time to take things easy, Reuven. You read what is happening in Palestine.” I nodded slowly.

….[My father] sat on the bed, lost in thought. We were quiet a long time. Then he stirred and said softly, “Reuven, do you know what the rabbis tell us God said to Moses when he was about to die?”

I stared at him. “No,” I heard myself say.

“He said to Moses, ‘You have toiled and labored, now you are worthy of rest.’

….“You are no longer a child, Reuven,” my father went on. “…So listen to what I am going to tell you.”

He paused for a moment, as if considering his next words carefully, then continued. “Human beings do not live forever, Reuven. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value there is to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives mean nothing more than the blink of an eye?”

He paused, his eyes misty now, then went on. “I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant. Do you understand what I am saying? A man must fill his life with meaning; meaning is not automatically given to life. It is hard work to fill one’s life with meaning. That I do not think you understand yet. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest when I am no longer here.”

The new year begins, reminding us that a year has passed and the night will come.

We hear the questions of this sacred hour: What have you done in the years that have passed? How will you live in the year just begun? What is your avodah – the work that gives your life meaning and purpose?

We cannot know what the rest of our lives will be. There may be monsters at the door; there may be happiness yet undreamed.

With hope and affirmation we welcome another year of life – another chance to live a life that matters. And with the ancient words of our tradition, we pray:

“May God’s favor be upon us, and may the work of our hands endure. U-ma’aseh yadeinu koneneihu – May the work of our hands endure”[Ps.90: 17].