In Israel, the seventh day is the last day of Pesach. Its Torah reading is the last holiday portion. As the day closes the holiday, so, too, the Torah portion closes the story of the Exodus from Egypt with the crossing of the Reed Sea – Yam Suf. While its exact location is impossible to determine, it made an indelible impact upon the Israelites, for here, like the plagues, by however parting the waters, God directly intervened to save us. Yet, in reading this passage from the Torah, we see that the story is more complicated. The Rabbis learn from this many lessons, one which is directly appropriate for us to consider, before we recite Yizkor. I always find particularly difficult the transition from family festivity at the outset of this holiday to the recitation of Yizkor at its close but hope that this lesson will ease our personal passages.
In the Torah we read that as they arrive at Yam Suf, the Israelites see behind them, in full pursuit, the hosts of the Egyptian army. Directly ahead surge the angry and treacherous waters of the sea. What are they to do? Where are they to turn? At this precise moment, with the Egyptians to one side and the waters on the other, the sages of the Talmud record that four different opinions were expressed by the people. One group exclaimed: "Let us plunge into the sea! There is no hope! Let us drown ourselves." A second group counseled flight: "Let us run away; let us hide." Still others advised: "Let us face the Egyptians and make war against them." A fourth opinion was: "Let us return to the slavery of Egypt."
This Rabbinic picture of the Israelites caught in the greatest crisis of their lives is a precise model for us at Yizkor. Each of us, sooner or later, must face crossing the Red Seas of our lives. We must face the greatest crisis in life, the death of a dear one, and we are challenged to answer the question: "How will we live afterwards?" Saying Yizkor evokes tears and a remembered sense of loss. Yet it also provides us with the opportunity to decide how to carry ourselves. There are other times in life when we might feel that we have reached the -point –of-no-return, just as had the Israelites by Yam Suf. We know not what to do, where to turn, how to react. We may face ill health, business reverses, family problems, loneliness, rejection, danger. Each one is its own "Red Sea", and like the Rabbis viewed the Israelites, there are four ways to go. And I suppose that we have all sampled most of them, one time or another.
The first is agony and despair. As the Israelites said, "Let us plunge into the sea!" We, too, say, "There is no hope!" We feel hopeless and hapless before that which confronts us, and so we say, "Life is not worth living. Life is meaningless, senseless and futile. We are better off dead." I could not imagine life without my uncle and then without my father. Other accomplishments meant little, and going forward felt pointless. Carried to an extreme a person may cut themselves off from friends, may abstain from deriving any enjoyment from the pleasures of life, from their children. Parenthetically, this is why shiva comes to a specific close, followed by sheloshim, the thirty-day period, and the year of kaddish is likewise marked. Some people can't stop mourning, and Judaism comes to say "shayn, genug." [Don't ask me how I transliterated that.] While perhaps not physical suicide, it is certainly spiritual suicide. This is not a resolution but an evasion. An anonymous quote: "The test of courage is not to die, but to live." The Israelites' first response does not lead to wholesome and productive living.
The second is flight. "Let us run away and hide!" We wonder how we can face others after what has happened to us. Wrongfully, we might feel ashamed or embarrassed. We might force upon ourselves the delusion that "we failed" and so we want to hide from others and perhaps from ourselves. I was happy when the shiva ended and people no longer streamed to the door. The best sound I ever heard was the closing bang. The hardest part was going out again. The custom of walking around the block at the end of shiva is so important. I remember having to cajole mourners to come out and walk with me. Left to themselves, they might not have come out to the light of day, to the light of life. The popular quotation is: "No place to run; no place to hide." Hiding is not resolving. It only postpones it. And the dread of facing it is the worst fear of all. Quoting Franklin D. Roosevelt, "The only fear we have is fear itself."
The third is: "Let's fight." But this is not the positive fight, but a striking back in bitterness, with anger on our tongue and malice on our lips. We will protest too much that life is unfair to us, not noticing it happening to others. Perhaps we will refuse to accept that which has come to pas and go about life with a chip on our shoulder. The word "If" will be repeated unceasingly about others, about ourselves. If I had done this…if the doctor had done that…if he/she had/had not said this/that…if I did/didn't go here or there…if I had listened as a child. My father was greater than me for I confess to playing the game of "if" while the last counsel my father ever shared was that that was a game that shouldn't be played. "If" is a two-letter word that stands for futility, for we can never go down that other road. I have tried to refrain from that game and heed my father's lesson. It only leads to bitterness and not to peace.
The fourth is: "Let's go back to Egypt." Its application is to retreat to the hidden recesses of the past, to act in denial of reality, to pretend it didn't happen, to live in a dream world of our own obsessions and of our own making. For quite some time after my father died I didn't want to touch anything. It wasn't because I was making a museum. While I knew better about reality, there was something within me that said "no," "leave it alone", perhaps in the childlike wish that if I wake up it will only be a bad dream, and that it will go away. The Israelites were only deluding themselves that they could go back to Egypt. Our denials are only delusions and this is only a temporary barrier, not a safe refuge.
These are the four Rabbinic interpretations of the Israelites' responses to the dilemma posed by the greatest crisis: Plunge into the sea; run away; make war; and, back to Egypt. I presume that we have all tasted from some, most, or all of the options. Yet when we read the Torah, we find that God rebuked the Children of Israel and said: "Why do you cry out to Me," urging Moses, "Tell the Israelites to go forward." In the face of crisis, even the greatest crisis, our faith teaches us: Go forward, even with the pain, even with the doubt. Go forward. One hand, we must accept reality, such as it might be. Nothing was going to change the fact that in one direction was the Egyptian army and in the other, the Sea. On the other hand, from each and every moment of crisis can be gleaned some wisdom, can be extracted some knowledge. We can become maturer, wiser, more sympathetic, and more supportive. I have always admired my mother that after my father's death from cancer, she goes and volunteers for hospice.
I conclude these thoughts by citing a poem by Helen Deutsch entitled "The White Magnolia Tree". It expresses my feelings in lyric form.
The year when I was twenty-one
(John that year was twenty-three)
That was the year, that was the spring,
We planted the white magnolia tree."This tree," said John, "shall grow with us,
And every year it will bloom anew.
This is our life. This is our love."
And the white magnolia grew and grew—Oh, valiant and untamed were we,
When we planted the white magnolia tree!
And the white magnolia grew and grew,
Holding our love within its core.And every year it bloomed anew,
And we were twenty-two no more.
No more untamed, no more so free
Nor so young, nor so wild and aflame were we.Dearer to us then grew other things:
Easy sleep, books, a day's quiet holiday,
Good talk besides a fire, the beauty of old faces….
There is so little the serious heart requires;
Friends, faith, a window open to the world,
Pride in work well done, and strength to live
In a world at war and still maintain the heart's own private peace….Dear Heaven, I give thanks to thee
For the things I did not know before,
For the wisdom of maturity,
For bread, and a roof, and for one thing more….
Thanks because I still can see
The bloom on the white magnolia tree!
In the Bible it says, "Though I am fallen, I shall rise again. Though I dwell in darkness, God is my light." It applies has much to this world and to us, as it does to our departed and the world to come. The Psalmist declares: "I shall not die but live, and tell of the glory of the Lord." As we say Yizkor, that is our resolve and our resolution.
Amen.
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