In my work as an attorney
I have been privileged to help families with estate planning, a process by which people plan for eventualities that will happen after they live a good, long and healthy life. In doing so, I have to raise issues and ask many questions, some more welcome than others.
These include questions that they would rather not ask
themselves, such as: What if you are not healthy as you grow
older; who will make your health care decisions for you (Health Care
Proxy)? Who will handle your financial and legal affairs
(Power of Attorney)? While unsettling, those are the relatively easy questions.
The hard questions are the
ones that force the client to consider the possibility that disaster
will strike. What if your intended beneficiaries predecease you? What if the person that you are sure will be there for you when you
need them will be no longer available? Who will take care of the
family? Who will watch over the children? Who will be authorized to make legal decisions regarding your minor children (The reason that it is very important for families with younger children to have a will)? Who will handle things if
there is a breakdown of peace in the family? Whom can you trust, no
matter what, to follow your wishes?
These are hard questions.
Invariably – even though people come having already gotten over their
natural reluctance to consider their mortality, and have given the
matter some serious thought – they have not fully considered these
eventualities. But these unfortunate possibilities are all too
real, and must be faced if they are going to be dealt with
responsibly.
It is relatively easy for
me to to think about these questions from the arms-length perspective
of an attorney. Especially so as such discussion usually takes place
well in advance of problems developing, when one can put some
distance between a potential tragedy and the present reality.
However, when facing these questions as they happen in the present –
whether as a private person or as a Rabbi expected to deliver wise
words of consolation in the face of tragedy and suffering – it is
another matter entirely.
The last two weeks have
been very rough. Against the background of all the difficulties and
tension in the world around us – the atrocious horror perpetrated
by ISIS, the tragedies in France, the ominous Iranian threat and
severe questions about the will of the US Administration to counter
it – there has been quite a bit of personal tragedy around here. A
very respected and central figure in the local Bukharian community, a
leader of the Sephardic minyan in our shul, Mr. Aharon Meirov zt”l,
died at a young age after lingering for two weeks following a
massive heart attack. This traumatic death caused enormous pain in
the community, and the outpouring of grief was palpable as close to
one thousand people attended a Motzaei Shabbat funeral held in our
shul. Speaker after speaker tried to come to grips with the
unexplainable – how could such a paragon of Torah and Chessed be
suddenly cut down in the prime of life? One grieves and mourns, and
attempts to go on, but the disquietude gnaws at the soul.
On a personal note, almost the same day, I learned that a very dear relative, close to me in age and many other ways, father of nine including six unmarried children and known for selfless devotion to many whom he effectively and exceedingly generously helped, was diagnosed with an advanced brain tumor that severely threatens his life. Tehillim are being said, offers to help are coming in, but the angst and sorrowfulness are inevitable, as yet another unforeseeable crisis descends on a frightened family. This in addition to other beloved relatives becoming frail and sick . . .it is difficult to watch.
And yet . . . I look
forward this week to – Adar. The month of Joy. Mishenichnas
Adar Marbim B’Simcha. “As Adar Enters,
we must increase our Joy”.
I have great trouble
wrapping my meager brain around all this. How can one “turn the
switch” and begin experiencing joy, in the midst of so much that
seems to call for opposite emotions? Is joy something that we can
just will upon ourselves, no matter what is happening all around us?
The answer of our
Tradition is unequivocally – Yes. Happiness and Joy are a choice,
one that we can choose to embody, no matter the circumstances. As
the acclaimed book title puts it, “Happiness is a Verb”. It is an
action, or a set of actions that we can choose to take in order to
bring it upon ourselves. There is a well-known statement by Rav Nachman of
Breslov, “Mitzvah Gedolah L’Hiyos B’Simcha
Tamid” – It is a great Mitzva
to constantly be in a state of Happiness.
Of course, this is easier
said than done. But here are some thoughts that might help us get
into the Purim spirit, no matter what we have been feeling.
First, although the law
quoted above, Mishenichnas Adar Marbim
B’Simcha, is well known, the context in
which it is stated is more obscure. The Gemara in Taanis 29a states
A striking parallel is drawn between the Joy of Adar and the devastation of Av, of the exhilaration of Purim and the agony of Tisha B’Av. As one, so the other. The same striking language is used in describing blessings on “Good News” and “Bad News”.
The Sfas Emes (Shekalim 5644) comments on this dichotomy, and says that it all goes back to Yeshayas’s penultimate words about Jerusalem
כשם שמשנכנס אב ממעטין בשמחה,כך משנכנס אדר מרבין בשמחה
“In the same way that when Av comes in we lessen our Simcha; when Adar enters we increase the Simcha”.
A striking parallel is drawn between the Joy of Adar and the devastation of Av, of the exhilaration of Purim and the agony of Tisha B’Av. As one, so the other. The same striking language is used in describing blessings on “Good News” and “Bad News”.
חיב אדם לברך על הרעה כשם שהוא מברך על הטובה
“One must offer a blessing on negative tidings in the same way as one makes a blessing on the Good” (Berachos 54a) .
The Sfas Emes (Shekalim 5644) comments on this dichotomy, and says that it all goes back to Yeshayas’s penultimate words about Jerusalem
שישו איתה משוש, כל-המתאבלים עליה
“rejoice
with her a rejoicing, all who mourn over her”
(66:10).
Many wise people have come
to realize, as M. Scott Peck famously opened his wonderful book The
Road Less Traveled, that:
“Life
is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It
is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend
it. Once we truly know that life is difficult – once we truly
understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult.
Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no
longer matters.”
Our tradition, however,
takes this one step further in saying that we must not only “accept”
that Life is difficult, but embrace that knowledge in order to
achieve Simcha. It is
not that Simcha is an
attempt to escape from pain or to hide from the suffering that
integral to the human condition. We make no attempt to forget our
troubles, which is psychologically unhealthy and ultimately futile.
Rather, Simcha comes
from a depth of experience, shaped by positively facing unpleasant
circumstances, and finding a balance between a refusal to forget;
while at the same time overcoming sadness and determining to be
joyous.
There are endless stories
from our tradition that teach this message. Famous stories about
Nahum Ish Gamzu, about Rabbi Akiva, about Rav Yehuda HaLevi, and
particularly about many great figures in the Hassidic Tradition, such
as Rav Zushe of Anipoli, who was famous for (among other things)
finding Joy in circumstances that most would consider miserable.
And then there are stories
that make one's hair stand on end. Such a story is recorded in the
Aish Kodesh, where Rav
Kalman Kalonymus Shapira, the Rebbe of Piacezna HY”D told his
followers the following in the Warsaw Ghetto of 1940.
“The Tikunei Zohar writes that Purim and Yom Kippur –
which can be read as Yom K-Purim,
a day like Purim – are related. Just as we fast and do Teshuva on
Yom Kippur because Hashem
so decreed; so too is the Joy of Purim. It is not only when a person
is full of Joy that he must have Simcha.
Rather, even if he is broken-hearted and depressed, his mind and
spirit crushed; he is obligated nonetheless to follow the law; there
must be at least a spark of Simcha
allowed to enter his heart.”
Simcha
is not optional, the Piacezna Rebbe explains. Just as on Yom Kippur
we must fast even if we have no desire or strength to so do, we must
know that on Purim Simcha
is an obligation, not an option. It is the Avoda that Hashem
desires of us in this month, ready or not.
Whether or not one
celebrates Yom HaAtzmaut, one has to admit that those who instituted
it must have been profoundly influenced by this idea. The joy that
is felt in the exhilaration of the night is greatly enhanced by the
transition from the crying, bitterness, and mourning in the afternoon
of Yom Hazikaron L'Chalelei Zahal (Memorial Day for those lost in
fighting for Israel) – wherein virtually every Israeli family has
lost a close relative who is much mourned – to the joy and singing
of Lail Yom HaAtzmaut. It must be experienced to be understood.
It is the joy that comes specifically from those who lost so much to
provide so much for the common good.
This
ethic was captured beautifully by Elie Wiesel in a famous passage
from an essay about prayer. He recalled the Mitzvah of V'samachta
b’chagecha,
“you shall rejoice on your festival” (Deut. 16:14). It sounds
like a simple, straightforward Mitzvah,
and yet, the Vilna Gaon regarded it as the most difficult commandment
in the Torah. Wiesel says:
“I
could never understand this puzzling remark. Only during the war did
I understand. Those Jews who, in the course of their journey to the
end of hope, managed to dance on Simchat
Torah,
those Jews who studied Talmud while carrying stones on their back,
those Jews who went on whispering z’mirot
shel Shabbat while
performing hard labor – they taught us how Jews should behave in
face of adversity. For my contemporaries one generation ago,
V'samachta
B’chagecha was
one commandment that was impossible to observe – yet they observed
it.
Baruch Hashem, with all the difficulties that we face, compared to many other periods of our history – let alone the Holocaust – we ought to get on our knees every day and thank Hashem for all the blessings in our lives. This is not to minimize the very real pain that we are feeling, but to appreciate all the good that we have and take great joy in it.
May Hashem soon bring the ultimate “TurnAbout” (ונהפוך הוא), and cause all those who are in worry and distress to find only true joy – the kind of joy that looks at the trouble in the past as being firmly in the past, with no need any longer to plan for any darkness in the future. (I will be happy to find another line of work!) We look forward to His return to Zion, when we will be able to enjoy
ליהודים היתה אורה ושמחה וששון ויקר
No comments:
Post a Comment