Yom Kippur Yizkor Sermon, 2009

YOM KIPPUR—2009  Yizkor Sermon

 

 

PRAYER, REPENTENCE, AND CHARITY: THREE STORIES

 

 

By now most of us are familiar with the three part statement which indicates that prayer, repentance and charity avert the severity of the decree.  Today, I want to share with you three amazing stories to illustrate each of these three factors, and attempt to relate them to the meaning of the Yizkor Hour.

 

The first story was shared by a colleague of mine who found himself in the difficult and challenging situation of working closely with the Cantor in his synagogue, who in one particular year found himself facing a serious illness right before the High Holidays, such that the Cantor would not be able to conduct the Holiday services that year.   It was too late to find a substitute replacement and it became clear that the Rabbi would have to perform double-duty that year, both conducting as well as doing the chanting of all the prayers.  The Rabbi felt somewhat okay with it and confident in his own knowledge of most of the melodies primarily because of the excellent training he had received as a child by the Cantor he had growing up.  The Rabbi's only concern was whether he would be able to master the Hineni prayer, the one that Cantor's chant to introduce the Musaf.  As the Rabbi sat in his office trying to recapture the melody, his eyes glanced up at one of his bookshelves on which was a small wooden box with the name of his old Cantor on it. He went over to it, opened the box and lo and behold inside were cassette tapes that his old Cantor had recorded of all the High Holiday prayers.  He placed one into his tape recorder and heard his old Cantor's voice narrating: "This is the prayer for the Cantor to sing right before the Musaf," and that was followed by the Cantor's voice singing the Hineni.  When the prayer was over, the Cantor had finished his recording with the following message, "This is your Cantor, Ben—I know you are only 15 years old now, but I have a feeling that some day you will probably be a Rabbi, and you might need to learn these melodies.  Use them well, I know you will do a good job." 

 

The Rabbi who shared this story went on to say that he started crying when he heard this message.  He never discussed with his Cantor growing up that he thought about becoming a Rabbi some day.  Apparently that cantor could penetrate the soul of this young man and was caring enough and loving enough to leave such a message for him, knowing that some day, the teenager would discover the tapes and listen to them.  The Rabbi concluded his reporting of this story with the following words:  "I knew at that moment, that my teacher, who was gone already at least ten years when I listened to those tapes, was still teaching me.  All of a sudden my panic and concern were gone.  Everything will be all right, because he had the confidence in me.  I would not be alone this Rosh Hashana.  My old Cantor would be with me on the bima.  And after all, what does the word Hineni mean?  It means "Here I am."  And there he was."

 

Yizkor is a Hineni moment, when those special people who influenced us in so many ways are with us.  Their spirit, their soul, their personality, their impact is so real and so very much surrounding us in the here and now.  Just by saying the word, Yizkor, we think of them and summon those special memories.  For these few moments we might laugh and cry and re-live conversations, and experiences, and arguments, and make-ups, and suddenly feel their presence much more than we feel their absence.  It is painful and sad and yet it is also wonderful and joyous at the same time to imagine them being with us and continuing to influence us in some way.

 

Hineni is a prayer and that first story, therefore reflects the prayer part of our three-fold High Holiday statement.  Repentence is the next one, and it is a word that suggests the possibility to change our reality, certainly a small change, but even a drastic one.  This story illustrates that point.

 

When the Old and New Cities of Jerusalem were reunited as a result of the Six-Day War in June, 1967, a recently widowed Arab woman, who had been living in Old Jerusalem since 1948, wanted to visit the home she used to live in before 1948.  Now that the city was one, she searched for and found her old home.  She knocked on the door of the apartment and a Jewish widow came to the door and greeted her.  The Arab woman explained that she had lived there until 1948 and just wanted to look around.  The Jewish widow invited her in, gave her some coffee and they spent a very pleasant afternoon together sharing memories of earlier times.  As she was preparing to leave and return to her current home, the Arab woman said to the Jewish woman, "When I lived here I hid some valuables. If they are still here I will share them with you half and half."

 

The Jewish woman absolutely refused and said, "If they belonged to you and they are still here, then they are yours."  After a friendly debate back and forth the Arab woman led her new friend into one of the bathrooms, loosened some of the wooden boards on the floor and, sure enough, they found a hoard of gold coins.

 

The two widows visited each other again and again, and then the story really gets more and more amazing.  One day, the Arab woman recounted the day in 1948 when she left her home.  She said that she and her husband were so frightened from the fighting that they decided to run away to escape.  They grabbed their belongings, took the children, and each fled separately.  She said they had a three-month old son.  She thought the husband took him, the husband was sure that his wife had taken him, and it was only when they reunited in Old Jerusalem that they discovered that neither of them had taken the child.  At that very moment as she told this story, a 20-year-old Israeli soldier in uniform walked into the apartment, hugged the Jewish widow and said, "Hi, Ema."  She turned to her new friend, and with tears pouring out of her eyes, said, "This is you son."  What had happened was that the Jewish woman's husband was an Israeli soldier in the War of Independence.  He came into this very house and found the baby on the floor, and when the original family that lived there could not be found, the authorities gave the soldier permission to keep the baby, which they did.

 

As unlikely as this story is, it doesn't quite end there. The two women had grown close and found that they liked each other, leading the Jewish widow to eventually say to the Arab widow, "Look, we are both widows living alone.  Our children are grown up.  This house has brought you luck.  You have found you son, or our son.  Why don't we live together?"  And they did just that.

 

If repentance means change, than the two women in this story epitomize the reality that change is possible.  Is this story likely?  No.  Is it common?  No.  But whenever any of us find ourselves believing we are in situations that we cannot get out of, that we can't put into motion a complete change from what we are used to, remember this story and think again. 

 

The third category, charity, is reflected in this story. It is not about charity in the normal sense of the word—it does not talk about money or coins or pushkes or appeals or pledges.  It talks about the charity of the soul and of the spirit that all of us can reach in and pull out of ourselves to share with another person.  Here is the story:

 

 

I was sitting on a beach one summer day, watching two children, a boy and a girl, playing in the sand.  They were hard at work building an elaborate sandcastle by the water's edge, with gates and towers and moats and internal passages.  Just when they had nearly finished their project, a big wave came along and knocked it down, reducing it to a heap of wet sand.  I expected the children to burst into tears, devastated by what had happened to all their hard work.  But they surprised me.  Instead, they ran up the shore away from the water, laughing and holding hands, and sat down to build another castle.  I realized that they had taught me an important lesson.  All the things in our lives, all the complicated structures we spend so much time and energy creating, are built on sand.  Only our relationships to other people endure.  Sooner or later, the wave will come along and knock down what we have worked so hard to build up.  When that happens, only the person who has somebody's hand to hold will be able to laugh.

 

Three stories.  Three principles to guide our lives.  The Hineni Prayer—the Prayer that says, "Here I am."  The prayer that reminds us that even those who are no longer with us, are still with us, through the miracle of memory.  The story of the Jewish and Arab widows who found themselves able to drastically change their perceptions, their convictions, their reality and create a new reality upon which to rebuild their lives. And the third story of a girl and a boy holding hands to laugh away life's tragedies making them considerably less tragic reminds us that extending our hand in love and in order to laugh may very well be the most dramatic effective, and generous form of charity that we can give to another person.  Prayer, Repentence, Charity—can avert the severity of the decree.  Yizkor.  Remember the neshames, the souls of those who taught us about life.  Help us to remember our own neshames, to use the power, wisdom, and compassion contained within all of our souls to be good and to do good.  May memory be a tool we can use to recognize and appreciate the blessings that surround us.  And may our Yizkor prayers bring us comfort, strength, and peace now and always.