Simchat Torah, One Year Later

Mount Nevo

The Torah ends with sadness. Moses, the Torah’s author, dies, and its final sentences are written with tears. 

Moses liberated the Jewish people from slavery and led them to the edge of the promised land. But after 40 years of difficulties, Moses is left behind; not even his body gets buried in the holy land. This is a bitter irony. Moses, who personally carried Joseph's bones from Egypt for burial in Israel, is himself interred in a forgotten unmarked grave on the other side of the Jordan River. The life of the greatest man in Jewish history comes to an abrupt, unpleasant end. 

Lurking under the surface is a universal tragedy: death. Kohelet reminds us that both the fool and the wise man meet the same end. Spiritual excellence is irrelevant to the Angel of Death. And that intensifies the Torah’s tragic ending; a book that in Genesis began with the promise of eternal life for all ends with the death of the greatest man to ever live, Moses. The conclusion of the Torah makes it clearer than ever how far we are from the Garden of Eden.

This tragedy is the focus of Gerald Blidstein’s book Etzev Nevo, a study of the Midrashim written about Moses’ death. Most of the Midrashim grapple with this riddle; why did this person, who was more angel than man, die? The question is so large, that one text denies his death entirely; instead, it insists, Moses continues to perform his holy tasks in heaven. Other Midrashim depict Moses outsmarting the Angel of Death, who eventually needs to ask God to take Moses’ soul Himself. In another, the angels ask God “Why did Adam die?” God responds that Adam had sinned. Then the angels ask “Why did Moses die?” God responds: “It is a decree of mine, which must equally apply to every human being.” Moses isn't worthy of death, but he dies because all humans must die. 

This is the supreme tragedy of life; no one can escape death, no matter how good or worthy they are. And the Torah ends on this note to teach its most important lesson: how to find personal fulfillment in a tragic world. 

Whether we like it or not, death is our constant companion. Ernst Becker argues that Freud failed to recognize that the fear of death is the primary psychological drive. The question asked of us is whether we will look away, or face death directly. Will we choose to “tranquilize ourselves with the trivial” and amuse ourselves with pleasure, or will we find a sense of purpose? To live without a higher purpose is simply marking time until the inevitable end. 

Becker explains that only through meaning can the tragedy of life become worthwhile. When we live lives of true purpose, we can transcend the ordinary.  And there are so many ways to grasp eternity; through spirituality, family, community, charity, and more. 

This is the lesson of the final passage of the Torah: how to face death. And that is what the Midrashim focus on. The Torah writes that Moses blessed  the community “before his death.” This unusual phrase is seen by the Midrash as indicative of a struggle between Moses and the Angel of Death; in his last gasp, Moses must use every last ounce of strength to offer this moving blessing “before his death.”  No matter what, he will leave one last gift for his people.

The Midrash also explains Moses' strange burial. It writes that Moses chose to be buried anonymously in the desert. The generation he had redeemed from Egypt had all died there, buried in unmarked graves. God told Moses “If you are buried here with them, by your merit, they will come with you.” In other words, once the ultimate redemption comes, Moses will finally lead those unfortunate freed slaves into the promised land. Caring for the freed slaves has always been his mission; and even in death, he is Moses, their leader, waiting for his chance to bring them home.

Even when looking the Angel of Death in the eye, Moses never stops thinking about the future.

The importance of meaning is not just a spiritual teaching; it is a psychological insight as well. The worst pain is bearable when one has a purpose. Victor Frankl recounts how this gave a great deal of relief to one of his patients.  He writes:

Once, an elderly general practitioner consulted me because of his severe depression. He could not overcome the loss of his wife who had died two years before and whom he had loved above all else. Now, how could I help him? What should I tell him? Well, I refrained from telling him anything but instead confronted him with the question, “What would have happened, Doctor, if you had died first, and your wife would have had to survive you?” “Oh,” he said, “for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!” Whereupon I replied, “You see, Doctor, such a suffering has been spared her, and it was you who have spared her this suffering—to be sure, at the price that now you have to survive and mourn her.” He said no word but shook my hand and calmly left my office. 

In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.

When you love another, even the most difficult sacrifices are possible. 

A year ago Simchat Torah became a day of mourning. This year, everyone is struggling with how to rationalize celebrating a holiday on the yahrzeit for nearly 1,200 members of our extended family. We know we must celebrate; we just don’t know why. 

The answer lies in our mission. Like Moses, we now confront the Angel of Death face to face; and like Moses, we must never lose sight of our goals. It would be more comfortable for us not to celebrate this year. Celebrations are particularly painful for the brokenhearted; it's much easier to stay home. But we can’t take the easy path. Jews celebrated Simchat Torah in the ghettos, and they celebrated just days after the Yom Kippur War. They did so in defiance, people with broken hearts letting the world know that they were not broken in spirit. 

We must be defiant as well. We can’t allow Hamas to destroy Simchat Torah.  

Instead, we will carry those who have fallen with us, even as we dance. Hundreds of synagogues have joined the Simchat Torah Project; it has provided the synagogues with a new Torah cover dedicated to the memory of one of those who have died in the past year. As we dance with the Torah, we will be thinking of them.

There are times when we best honor the dead by celebrating; and this year, that is our responsibility. We must make it clear that there is, and always will be, a bright Jewish future. We must make it clear that those who died have not died in vain, and that we will never forget the sacrifice they made for a Jewish future. 

We must make it clear, to the living and the dead, that Am Yisrael Chai.

And that’s why we will celebrate. 

Who is a Hero? Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur 2024

 

Rami Davidian, An Extraordinary Hero   In December 2018, I broke my femur on the subway.   After writhing in agony on the train floor for nearly an hour, an ambulance eventually arrived. I was overwhelmed with pain; and during our traffic-delayed trip to the hospital, George, the paramedic, kept the chatter going to distract me. When I told him I was a rabbi, he decided to share a story he thought would resonate with me.

A few weeks earlier, George had been called to aid a 96-year-old man in great pain.   George said to the elderly man: “This is probably the worst day of your life, right?” The man looked at George and said: “No. The worst day of my life was when I was in Birkenau.” The elderly man went on to describe memories of a particularly horrific day there.   I was taken aback; it felt like the heavens had opened. My late mother was a survivor of Birkenau, and to me, this story was personal.   Immediately my perspective changed; I realized that whatever pain I was experiencing, it did not compare in any way to what my mother had endured. And that gave me hope. If my mother got through it, so could I.   When your challenges are overwhelming, you need a hero; and at that difficult moment in the ambulance, I was lucky to have one.   Since last October 7th, we have been enveloped by a gloomy darkness, pulled down by extraordinary sorrow. But what has made it bearable were the heroes, the tiny points of light that remind us that there is hope and that we must hope.   But who is a hero?   Mythology depicts heroes as supernatural. Hercules, Achilles, Gilgamesh, and Thor, among others, are all descendants of the gods.   This definition of heroism remains extremely influential. Yes, movie superheroes have superpowers, for sure. But in our day-to-day lives, our perspective about who is and isn’t important is shaped by a cult of celebrity. The financial elite are called “corporate titans” and “masters of the universe”; and these terms are more than mere metaphor. Athletes and movie stars, larger-than-life characters who appear on the big screen are revered, and their moral failings are overlooked. Our contemporary heroes are very different from you and me.   Sadly, firefighters, teachers, and police officers don’t count. They are not wealthy, not famous, and not glamorous, and therefore unworthy of inclusion in the pantheon of heroes. Their exceptional service is taken for granted, while the crowd chases celebrities.   In his 1978 essay Catharsis, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik focuses on the contrast between what he calls the “classical” (Greek) and “biblical” perspectives on heroism. The classical vision of heroism, which is deeply rooted in mythology, is theatrical, outward feats of strength that elicit the cheers of the crowd. (Think Olympics.). Raw power and public adulation combine to create the classical hero.   Judaism offers a very different view of heroism. It distinguishes between raw power, koach, and gevurah, inner strength. Heroism is best described by the Mishnah in Pirkei Avot:   Who is a hero? One who can control his own heart.   Gevurah, true heroism, comes from inside; it is about the person’s self-control, even self-negation, in the service of a higher cause. It is a function of one’s spiritual nature and a reflection of their higher calling.   This Biblical definition of heroism offers three critical lessons.   The first is that the hero is a mensch.   The Mishnah connects heroism to virtue; and true heroes are motivated by love, not hate.   On October 7th, we saw so many who were true heroes. One of the mantras I heard from Israelis in the last year was a quote, (originally from C. K. Chesterton,) that a “true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” There are a multitude of stories from Israel that reflect this idea; I will mention one, far too briefly.   At Zikim Base near the border of Gaza, the army was in the middle of training 90 new soldiers who had just been drafted two months earlier.   The base was attacked by 50 Hamas terrorists. The commanders of the base, fourteen in total, sent the trainees into a shelter.   Then they took on the battle themselves. And they saved the 90 trainees.   Tragically, seven of those who went into battle died:   Maj. Adir Meir Abudi, 23 Capt. Or Moses, 22 (She insisted on being in a combat unit, despite getting into an elite intelligence unit.) Lt. Adar Ben Simon, 20 2nd Lt. Yannai Kaminka, 20: (US-Israeli soldier) Staff Sgt. Eden Alon Levy, 19 Lt. Yoav Malayev, 19 Cpl. Neria Aharon Nagari, 18   These young men and women courageously sacrificed their lives to save others.   Yes, they were excellent soldiers; they had to be, to be able to fight off such a large group of terrorists. But what made them heroes was their willingness to be there for others, to stand up for others.   The second lesson is that heroes stand ready to leap into the absurd.   Rabbi Soloveitchik offers the biblical story of Jacob’s wrestling match with the angel as an example of a heroic struggle. He explains Jacob was extremely impractical in taking on the battle:   Was Jacob's victory something to be expected; could it have been predicted logically? Was he certain of victory? Of course not. He was alone, weak and unarmed, a novice in the art of warfare. His antagonist was a powerful professional warrior.   So why didn’t Jacob surrender to the foe who attacked him in the dark?   The answer Rabbi Soloveitchik offers is that a Jewish hero has to be willing to leap into the absurd. (He borrows this phrase from Kierkegaard.) There are times when you must fight for a better future, even if you have to face impossible odds.   Jacob leaps into the absurd. He takes on an angel because his destiny demands it. And then the improbable happens: Jacob wins.   One leaps into the absurd when the dreams of the future are more important than the practicalities of the present. And that is the story of the Jewish people. As Rabbi Soloveitchik puts it:   Is this merely the story of one individual's experience? Is it not in fact the story of Knesset Israel, an entity which is engaged in an "absurd" struggle for survival for thousands of years?   We are called Israel, the name awarded to Jacob that fateful night he wrestled with the angel, because we wouldn’t be here if generations of Jews before us hadn’t wrestled through the darkest of nights, again and again. We wouldn’t be here today if they hadn’t believed the absurd to be possible.   In short, Jewish heroes are willing to take long shots because they are part of a people who are the longest of long shots.   One of those long shots was the Entebbe raid on July 4, 1976. Terrorists had hijacked a plane and taken it to Uganda. They held over 100 Israeli and Jewish passengers hostage. In what remains to this day the most daring rescue in military history, the Israeli army flew 2,500 miles to save them and take them home.   This long-shot rescue continues to inspire. When Natan Sharansky was imprisoned by the Soviet Union in 1978, it was the heroes of Entebbe that gave him courage, even when he was being threatened with the death penalty. Sharansky would explain:   "Each time when I heard the engine of an airplane in Siberia, I thought about Israeli airplanes. And I remembered Entebbe. I knew that a day would come when an Israeli airplane would come to take me out of prison. And that day came.”   Jewish heroes are willing to leap into the absurd. Just a few months ago, on June 8th, we had another long-shot rescue when Israeli troops brought the hostages Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv back home.   It was an exceedingly difficult operation. Ben, who has spoken at KJ, is in a unit that took part in the rescue. He told us they had trained for over two months non-stop to bring these four hostages home.   And they did.   You have to watch the videos of the rescues. In one, the soldiers burst into the room where they are held. Initially, the hostages think these are Hamas terrorists, coming to murder them - and then, in a moment - after the soldiers say “don’t worry, we are taking you home” - their faces change from sorrow to relief.   When Noa Argamani says to the soldiers that she’s scared, they tell her not to worry, they will protect her. And when the soldiers are leaving, they call their commanders and say: “The diamonds are in our hands.”   So my question is: What other country besides Israel does this? What other country thinks this way? Wasn’t this hostage rescue absurd?   Yes it was.   But Israel, a country named after an underdog who wrestled an angel, is willing to leap into the absurd. Because that’s what true heroes do.   The third, and most important lesson of Biblical heroism is: Everybody can be a hero.   The way the Tanakh depicts heroes offers two important insights. First, great heroes like David and Solomon are human beings, with flaws and failures.   Second, that ordinary, humble people, like Ruth and Esther, can overnight become great heroes. Heroism is a gift of the soul, and every one of us can step up and be a hero too.   And that is what Rami Davidian did.   On October 7th, many Israelis rushed to the Gaza border to help. One of the most extraordinary stories is about Rami Davidian, 59, a soft-spoken father of four and a fuel distributor from Moshav Patish near Gaza.   To make a long story short, he got a call from a friend to save the friend’s son from the nearby Nova site. He took his truck to the boy’s location. And there he saw hundreds of young people running in every direction.   So Rami began to rescue them. He called his son and others to help. After 18 hours of non-stop rescue work, ducking bullets and facing down terrorists, Rami saved 700 people.   700 people!!   When Rami Davidian got out of bed on October 7th, he was an ordinary person. When he finally went to sleep, he was an extraordinary hero.   Now, there is one final point.   We are all obligated to be heroes.   Maimonides writes that the shofar is meant to rouse us from our spiritual sleep and recognize our responsibilities.   But this lesson goes far beyond Rosh Hashanah. In the next paragraph, he explains that we need to stay spiritually awake for the entire year, and take our responsibilities seriously instead of daydreaming.   This is what he writes:   Therefore, every person should see themselves throughout the entire year as half righteous and half guilty. And so too, that the entire world is half righteous and half guilty. If one sins a single sin, they have tilted themselves and the entire world to the side of guilt and brought about destruction. If one performs a single commandment, they have tilted themselves and the entire world to the side of merit and brought salvation for themselves and for others.   In other words, the fate of the world depends on you. What you do next can change everything; it is up to you to be a hero.   I know this congregation.   You have done so much. You have volunteered, donated, advocated, and marched for Israel.   But in the coming year, we will need you to do more; because the fate of the world is still in your hands.   And I know you will step up, because you are the children of Jacob who wrestled into the night, you are the children of generations of Jews who never lost hope.   You are the children of Israel, the first unlikely Jewish hero.   And undoubtedly you will be heroes too.   Shanah Tovah!!