When Rabbi Stahl wrote to me approximately six weeks ago to invite me to speak this afternoon, I was very honored. MY Temple! On Yom Kippur! I accepted with alacrity. It sounded terrific... at the time. "Oh, yes, Rabbi, count me in!"
Like many things that have happened to me in my life (and perhaps yours also) I wanted the prize, but as time grew near, I wondered if it would be worth the pain. As this week dawned, I thought of running to Dallas to avoid it all. I had an overwhelming feeling that I had made a month-ahead appointment for a bungee jump that couldn't be canceled.
I couldn't tell Rabbi that my dog ate my speech because my grandson Jacob is here today and knows I don't have a dog.
The whole idea of speaking about such highly personal things... memories... feelings... joys... sorrows... began to weigh heavily on me.
But here I am - here we are, and as the woman says - and so it goes.
The fragrance of a Madelyn reminded Marcel Proust of his childhood and took a world of readers into his own in A Remembrance of Things Past.
Memory, like music and fragrance, haunts us all when we take the time to turn it over. This speech has taken me down the path and into the garden of my childhood.
The poet Sarah Teasdale wrote:
"Places I know come back to me like music.
Hush me and heal me when I am very tired."
The emotional connection to one's childhood is one that is never forgotten - never. I have personally interviewed for oral histories 90 and 100-year olds who happily talked to me of their childhoods in vivid terms as if the years were yesterday.
The High Holy Days take me back into my childhood, happily but bruised, sad but triumphant, and lead me into my theme: The Impact of Judaism on the Passages of My Life. My subtitle would be I Call You Avience.
A few years ago, a funny parlor game was making it's way around some parlors and it went like this - name four words which define YOU. Put the words into descending order, the first being the most important.
Everyone's list, of course, was different - naturally - my first choice was easy for me.
A Jew
I've always been pleased that I am a Jew. It is such a wonderful connection to link me with times past.
You know, don't you, that there aren't enough Jews in America. According to William Sofire in the New York Times in July 1995, the percentage of Jews in America has declined from almost 4 percent to 2.3 percent, while the general population has doubled from 130 million to 260 million. There just aren't enough of us!
Being a Jew, to me, satisfies an inescapable spiritual longing, unlike the woman in the personal column that Rabbi Stahl told us about in his first sermon of his series.
My Judaism is truly the woven fabric of my childhood that binds me to my parents, long dead, who always rejoiced in their Judaism and were the only Jews in our town, Webb City, Missouri.
The cycles of my life and the close association with my Temples have made a wonderful minuet - like dancing on a grand stage - and never needing to be alone or lonely.
From early religious school - we started at three years old through Confirmation (there were a total of three in my class) -
Through a total and abrupt change in my early life due to the death of my parents -
To University, where I first met many Jews of my own age -
To Marriage -
The blessings of children -
Divorce -
Grandchildren -
Bittersweet times -
Death/Loss -
-all the Passages have been aided, softened and heightened by the association with Temple life. The guidance and friendship of my Rabbis has been beyond value. I want to publicly thank you, Rabbi Stahl, for all your help. Everyone who knows me, knows how I feel about Rabbi Block. One need only to look at my face when I hear about Rabbi Block to know how I feel about him. He is wise beyond his years and shares his wisdom with me. And his humor.
It is impossible for me to write or speak about Judaism and it's teachings - our Torah - without thinking about Rabbis I have known though The Passages.
The impact of Rabbis on my life has been one of the best parts of being Jewish for me.
In my childhood in Joplin, Rabbi Lotz was my Father's dear friend. We lived in a little town 10 miles away, but were frequent guests in one another's homes.
Every Friday night we were at services - meeting with friends from small towns around Joplin.
I literally learned to read through the act of my Father putting his finger on the syllable of a word in our Prayer book and having Rabbi Lotz pronounce it. The fact that I read no Hebrew tells you that the Temple was a classic Reform one.
At age 7, I begged my Father for a little Christmas tree - one only to be displayed in my room - my father quickly explained that a Christian symbol in our home would offend our Christian friends, meaning everyone else in town - and hurt the feelings of Rabbi Lotz. The very mention of bringing disappointment in me to my Rabbi was enough of a lesson in Basic Judaism to me. Upon reflection of this lesson, I never know how the neighbors would have known what was in my bedroom, but I knew that Rabbi Lotz was omniscient even then.
Teacher/friend is the connection between Torah and everyday life, for me. Only my Rabbi can interpret the beautiful passages. Rabbi Jacobson, Rev. Bendiner, Rabbi Stahl, Morley, Mark and Barry have been my loving teachers.
The precepts of Judaism are simple - we're told this every Sabbath evening and morning - but not easy. I need my Rabbis to help me bridge the teachings of Torah into daily life.
The fragrance of the Madelyn, the nostalgia of High Holidays past - memories that flood into me of love remembered - these are the feelings I hold most dear. Shelley wrote,
"Music, when soft voices die
Vibrates in the memory."
The many soft voices from my past vibrate in the secret chambers of my mind.
All this brings me to tell you that my concept of God as Avience, loving Father is my favorite one.
We are Your people (our Prayer book tells me)
You are our King
We are Your children
You are our Father
We are Your possession
You are our Portion
We are Your flock
You are our Shepherd
We are Your vineyard
You are our Keeper
We are Your beloved
You are our Friend.
Rabbi Stahl knows this is my favorite approach to God, my Aleph and my Ta.
This afternoon during Memorial Services, I will read to myself the beautiful prayer written by Rabbi Joshua Loth Liebman - I love this prayer - it has brought me consolation:
"We are like children privileged to spend a day in a great park, a park filled with many gardens and playgrounds and azure-tinted lakes with white boats sailing upon the tranquil waves. Then for each of us the moment comes when the great muse, death, takes us by the hand and quietly says, 'It is time to go home. Night is coming. It is your bedtime, child of earth. Come, you're tired, Lie down at last in the quiet nursery of nature and sleep. Sleep well. The day is gone. Stars shine in the canopy of eternity.'"
My prayer is that these words bring you consolation. No better words can describe God as Father. We call You Avience. Remember, friends, the soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.
As we are taught from the Midrash, "God has compassion like a Father and comforts like a Mother," what more can a Jew ask for in life?
I close by reading from one last essay by Rabbi Liebman seldom seen and perhaps missed by some.
"The glory of life consists in our very ability to feel deeply and experience widely: it is the part of wisdom to taste of the cup of joy and sorrow without inner rebelliousness, to accept with equanimity the inevitable fact that we and all we possess are transient just because we are such creatures; that the marvel of our make-up, the superb intricacy of our chemical, physical, spiritual organization gives us our supreme blessings and makes our little day on earth infinitely more significant than all of the rocks and stones which last unchanged but also untouched by the winds of the centuries..."
Thank you, Rabbi Stahl, for forcing me, always with kindness, to look into myself - to take out my Jewishness from the private part of my heart and to hope that some of my fellow congregants have had some similar experiences with the impact of Judaism on their lives. After all, shared experience makes the experience greater. Thank you.
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