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Rabbi Josh Zweiback May 1, 2009 Not Dead Yet Shabbat Shalom. Because there are more Torah portions than there are weeks in the Jewish year, we sometimes double-up. This Shabbat is one of those "doubled up" weeks so tomorrow two portions are read: “Acharei mot” which describes the death of Aaron’s two sons and “Kedoshim” which includes the holiness code and the famous teaching to “love your neighbor as yourself.” When you put the names of these two parshiot together, you get a Hebrew sentence: "Acharei mot, kedoshim. After death there is holiness.” Traditionally, the name of this double portion is understood as a lesson about how we are supposed to speak of the dead. After death, we should focus on holiness, on the best parts of the lives they lived. This lesson is often taught to rabbinical students as part of their training in officiating at lifecycles. When delivering a eulogy, emphasize the positive. This, by the way, should help all of us sleep better at night--your rabbis have been trained to say nice things about you. After death, holiness. Now maybe this Shabbat was chosen to honor me as my family and I prepare to move to
But perhaps there is a deeper message. Maybe this Shabbat was chosen to teach us something about relationships. In June, my family and I will leave this area. We will leave Beth Am. We will leave you. We will leave behind eleven years of relationships. Eleven years of Asilomar retreats and High Holy Days and Purim Celebrations. Eleven years of sharing simchas--we were there for each other to say "mazel tov" on the birth of our children and we stood together, shoulder to shoulder, to say kaddish for loved ones. Leaving is hard. Saying "farewell" is hard. And even when you are quite sure that you will see someone again, even when you know that you will someday, probably in the not so very distant future, see those friends again in Jerusalem or in Northern California or in this very room, it is hard knowing that the regular, everyday connecting that you so cherish will soon become a thing of the past. It is hard. But to compare that parting to a type of death? Acharei mot--kedoshim? Is the implication that leaving a place, going away, is like dying? Our tradition, interestingly, understands parting in just that way. When someone leaves us physically, when they are no longer with us everyday, when they are in fact quite far away and very much out of sight, our tradition compares this to a type of death. When you see someone whom you have not seen in more than 30 days, traditionally you say words of Shehechiyanu. And when you are reunited with someone whom you haven't seen for more than 12 months, you say these words: Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, m'chayeh hameitim--Blessed are You Eternal One, Ruler of the Universe, who brings the dead back to life. Pretty clear that the tradition is comparing "goodbye, see you around," to, "you're dead to me." Now to be fair, one could certainly argue that in the ancient world--a world without telephones, email, and twitter--it was difficult to know if a person was merely far away or if, Chas v'Shalom, God forbid, something awful has happened and the person has died and you just haven’t heard about it yet. And so then, in that ancient world, when you see your friend again you naturally rejoice because, who knew, maybe he was no more and then you discover that, there he is, right there in front of you, alive and well. Thanks be to God, the one who preserves life. The one who revives the dead or perhaps, the one who revives relationships we thought were dead. A Hasidic master, Rabbi Pinhas of Koretz, shares a beautiful teaching about this tradition and about this blessing. He explains that when two people meet and become friends, the joy they experience in this coming together creates an angel. A special divine being that is connected to their love and friendship. This angel is given a life expectancy of one year. Every time these friends meet, the angel receives a new lease on life. If 12-months pass, however, without the friends sharing the joy of each other's presence, the angel dies. But there can be a happy ending to this story for when they meet again after the yearlong absence, the angel is resurrected and for this reason the friends recite the blessing over the revival of their angel.[1] Goodbyes are hard. This one has been hard for me and for Jacq and the girls. We love this congregation. We love this community. Our friends, our colleagues, this gorgeous, gorgeous
And this goodbye has been a long one. And in true Jewish fashion, after we say farewell tonight, I'll still be around for another month or so. You know the difference between Gentiles and Jews, right? Gentiles leave without saying "goodbye." Jews say "goodbye" without leaving. One of the students in my weekly Talmud class has taken to greeting me each Thursday with, "Are you still here?" Sometimes I do notice people speaking about me in the past tense. I find myself quoting that unfortunate man in Monty Python's "Holy Grail," "But, I'm not dead yet." Here is what I find comforting and here is what I think is true of our relationship in particular and, more significantly, true of relationships in general: when we make friends, when we share our lives and the best parts of our selves, we create angels. Out of our friendships are born Divine Beings. And while these angels can lie dormant, while it may appear as if they are no more--in reality, there is something permanent, eternal about friendship and about love. Thank you. Thank you Beth Am for being a wonderful friend to me and to my family. Thank you for your love and your support and your goodness. This is an amazing place. It is blessed with wonderful rabbis, wonderful staff, wonderful leaders. Beth Am has gone and will go from strength to strength to strength. I look forward to hearing about your successes, your innovations, and your simchas. Someday, maybe on the sidewalks of
Maybe we’ll say a blessing, right there, thanking God for what is good. But we don’t need to wait a year or a month or even a single day to give thanks. We can, at any moment, simply tell the people we care about that we love them. Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu Melech Ha-Olam, m’chayei ha-meitim--Thank You God for gifting us with Holy Relationships, that can transcend time and space. Holy relationships that revive and sustain us. Holy Relationships that can live forever. |
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