Three Hidden Truths: Living with Uncertainty

Yom Kippur 5761 (2000)

We live in an age of increasing knowledge. We are constantly being bombarded with facts. Yet there are certain facts – perhaps "truths" is a better word -- that have always eluded us, and always will.

There is a passage in the Talmud [Pesachim 54b] that speaks of “matters that are hidden from humanity,” “dvarim mechusim mi-bnei adam.” Two thousand years later, they’re just as mysterious.

The first is, "Ein adam yodea bimah mistaker" – "No one knows how he or she will earn a living." Isn't that the truth? If someone had told you ten years ago to quit your job and go to work for a company that hadn't made a profit, that had no inventory, that had a silly name like Yahoo, would you have done it? Some of us wish we had! As we know, entire industries that hadn't even existed years ago have sprung up and our economy has become much more complex. And in the wake of all this change, there's a lot of uncertainty.

Many older workers – that is, those of us who are over 22! –wonder: "Will I become obsolete in this new economy?" Will I be discarded?

Money matters a lot. For some of us, economic uncertainty is the ultimate source of vulnerability. The great comedian Jack Benny had a well-known routine in which a robber pulls a gun on him and tells him to hand over his wallet. "Your money or your life," the robber cries out. "Wait a minute, I'm thinking," says Jack Benny.

How serious are people about money? A few weeks ago, an emergency room physician was a contestant on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" At one point, Regis Philbin asked her, "How would you compare the stress of your job with the stress of sitting in this chair?" "Oh, this is much worse," she replied, immediately. "On my job I deal with life and death, but this is about money."

It may sound a bit alarmist to talk about job security during such strong economic times, but for as long as economists have been studying the economy – and this goes back to Joseph in the Bible, who predicted accurately that seven lean years would follow the seven fat ones – expansions have been followed by downturns. What will happen then? Who will be left behind? As we wonder out loud in the Unetaneh Tokef, "Mi yaani u'mi yaashir?" "Who will become poor? Who will grow rich?" One of the things we pray for in the Avinu Malkenu is that we will be inscribed in the sefer parnassah v'khalkalah, the Book of Livelihood and Sustenance. This book is as important as any other.

In the Talmud’s list, there is a second hidden truth that will not surprise any of us: Yom HaMittah, the Day of Death. It's a truism, but it bears repeating: none of us knows when we are going to die. None of us knows when our loved ones will die. We all know of situations when an untimely illness has claimed the life of a healthy, robust person, or when a sudden, unexpected death has occurred.

The opposite can also happen. I remember once, when I was working as a chaplain at New York Hospital, I entered the room of an elderly patient who was sleeping. Her daughter was sitting in the room reading a newspaper. As soon as she saw me, she hurriedly motioned me to step out into the hallway. "Please, rabbi, don't go back in there," she begged. "If my mother sees you, it’ll push her over the edge. Please, can we sit and talk? I have a lot of questions about what is coming." Her mother was critically ill and was not expected to live more than a day or so. Since she and her mom were from out of town, she had a host of questions.

We sat and talked for a while. It was a Friday, and since I wasn't going to be back until the following week, it was with a heavy heart that we bade farewell to each other.

When I returned to the hospital, I was wondering whether the patient would still be there. As I stepped off the elevator, I stopped. There striding purposefully and confidently toward me was the patient herself, carrying a suitcase. Behind her hurried her daughter, who could barely keep up with her. "Bye, bye, rabbi, it was great talking with you the other day!" She shrugged her shoulders, rolled her eyes and followed her mom into the elevator. It happens! Yom Ha-Mittah is still a mystery.

The third hidden truth is Yom Ha-Nechamah, the Day of Consolation. When will the pain go away after a loss? When will the sun come out? You know, we are obsessed with the weather in this country. We are always trying to figure out whether tomorrow is going to be a sunny day. But in life you can’t predict when the weather will clear.

This is a question that torments us when we mourn: When will I stop feeling this way? When will I feel better?

It would be nice to give a simple answer, but there is no simple answer. Sometimes people assume that since the Jewish tradition sets up a series of landmarks for mourners -- a week, a month, a year -- as they reach these milestones, they will feel better. Sometimes they do, but sometimes they don't.

Moses Maimonides, the great medieval Jewish scholar and physician, had a beloved brother who was a very successful international trader. This man, who supported the entire extended family, died in a shipwreck. Here is how Maimonides described the aftermath of that loss:

The greatest misfortune that has befallen me during my entire life – worse than anything else – was the demise of my brother, who drowned in the Indian sea, carrying much money belonging to me, to him, and to others, and left with me a little daughter and a widow. On the day I received that terrible news I fell ill. I remained in bed for about a year, suffering from numerous ailments, including depression, and was almost given up.

About eight years have since passed, but I am still mourning and unable to accept consolation. And how should I console myself? He grew up on my knees, he was my brother, he was my student; … my joy in life was to look at him. Now, all joy has gone. He has passed away and left me disturbed in my mind in a foreign country. Whenever I see his handwriting on one of his letters, my heart turns upside down and my grief awakens again.

Clearly, Yom Ha-Nechamah, the Day of Consolation, is not a date on any of our the calendars.

These three uncertainties are at the core of our faith. In the Amidah, we describe God as michalkel hayyim b'hesed, the ultimate provider, and as meimit u'mikhayeh, the One who gives life and death. When we greet a mourner, we say, “Ha-Makom yinachem etchem...” “May God console you,” for we believe that God is the true source of consolation.

Just a few weeks ago we read, “ha-nistarot la-Adonai Eloheinu,” “The mysteries belong to God.” We don't believe that we can ever truly know God's nature, that we can ever be certain what God has in store for us. After all, when Moses begs God to show him his essence, God's response is, "You cannot see my face. No human being can see me and live!"

Given that, what can we do? How can we cope with these hidden mysteries, with these natural uncertainties of life? How shall we address them? If certainty will always be out of our grasp, is there another approach?

The answer is all around us. That’s exactly why we’re here. We don’t know what will happen to us; we’re staring into the dark. Yet we cope with the unknown by being with one another and by being there for one another. "Kol Yisrael areivim zeh ba-zeh" -- All of us are responsible for one another. At its best, being a Jew means being a part of a community in which everyone supports one another. And that support can go a long way.

(1) It can help us with anxiety over our parnassah, our economic stability. As we all know, one of the most basic of all mitzvot is giving tzedakah. The last thing we do before we light Shabbat candles in the intimacy of our homes is to put something away for the needy. Each of us has a role to play in easing another's economic uncertainty.

(2) The community is there as well on Yom Ha-Mavet, when a death occurs. Most Jewish communities support a Hevrah Kadisha, a group of devoted, caring individuals to prepare our bodies for burial after death. When we are part of a community, uncertainly over our mortality is diminished.

(3) The same is true after a death has occurred, as the shock of a loss begins to sink in. When the time for grieving has come, the community is there to offer support. Our tradition nudges us – sometimes, it practically forces us -- to interact with the community after suffering a loss. In the days of the second Temple in Jerusalem, mourners would have to walk against the flow of traffic, and thereby be forced to receive condolence greetings.

Today, beginning with those two lines that well-wishers form to usher mourners from the cemetery, and continuing through the experience of shiva, and beyond, the community deliberately, compassionately intrudes.

Why does our tradition bring us face to face with comforters after a loss? After all, no matter how many people offer you condolences, it doesn't take away the pain!

Rabbi Harold Kushner tells of a classic psychology experiment in which a researcher was trying to determine how long someone could keep his foot in a bucket of ice water under different conditions. ("From this," Rabbi Kushner is fond of saying, "you get a PhD!") To his surprise, the researcher determined that when there was another person in the room, it was possible for someone to keep his foot in the bucket approximately twice as long. There is a Hebrew expression that describes this phenomenon, and even gets the arithmetic right: tsarat rabim hatzi nechama – "Troubles shared are troubles halved."

I’m occasionally asked by a mourner who has suffered a loss, “Do I really have to go to the minyan to say Kaddish? Can’t I say it at home?” It’s hard to know how to respond to that question. On the one hand, this is a free country. Anybody can say whatever they want wherever they want. And I certainly sympathize with the sentiment of the question.

Yet if you look at the text of the Mourners’ Kaddish, you see that it is, by its nature, a responsive text. Mourners and comforters each have a role to play. It is meant to be spoken by those who, in the wake of their loss, affirm faith in life, in goodness and in peace, and the hope that they will one day prevail. It is then the role of the community to acknowledge and respond to what they have asserted.

Emile Durkheim, the great French Jewish sociologist, wrote that the primary purpose of religion is not to put people in touch with God, but to put them in touch with one another. I would put it differently. In a Kehillah Kedoshah, a Jewish community devoted to yirat shamayim, respect for the sacred, when people are in touch with one another, they can come to sense the presence of God.

Gerald Wolpe, a retired rabbi originally from New England, was once asked who influenced him to become a rabbi. He told a story about a certain Mr. Einstein who lived in his community. Gerald Wolpe’s father died when he was a young boy, and during the year that followed, his day began at 5:30 am each morning. As a tribute to his father, he walked to the morning minyan at his synagogue, and then headed off to school.

After the first week, something unusual happened. Mr. Einstein, who was not a young man, appeared at his front door just as he left his house for his trek to the synagogue. The man explained, “Your home is on the way to the synagogue. I have to go this way and I thought it might be fun to have some company. That way, I don’t have to walk alone.” Each morning, he was there. They trekked through snow, pelting rain, through all the seasons of the year. Mr. Einstein held his hand as they crossed busy intersections and, after some weeks, he held his hand throughout the journey. They sat together in the synagogue and Mr. Einstein listened and taught and hugged and moved into a void in Gerald Wolpe’s heart and soul.

Years went by. Mr. Einstein was in his 90s when Rabbi Wolpe came back for a visit to Boston with his wife and six-month-old child. He wanted Mr. Einstein to see his baby so he phoned and asked him to come to the home he had passed so often. He agreed but said that it was impossible now for him to walk; would Rabbi Wolpe please come to get him by car. Rabbi Wolpe realized that he had never known where Mr. Einstein lived so he asked for directions and set out to meet him.

Here are Rabbi Wolpe’s own words: “The journey was long and complicated. Mr. Einstein’s home, by car, was fully twenty minutes away. I drove in tears as I realized what he had done. He had walked for an hour to my home so that I would not have to be alone each morning. My home was not on the path to the synagogue; it was completely out of his way. He had made me feel that I was helping him with companionship; the opposite was true. He knew my loneliness and he did not want my day to begin without him. ... [Ever since then, wherever I have gone,] Mr. Einstein has been holding my hand. By the simplest of gestures, the act of caring, he took a frightened child by the hand and he led him with confidence and with faith back into life.”

In the words of Les Mis, "To love another … is to see the face of God."

Conclusion
One day we may go bankrupt. Or we may strike it rich. One day we will die. Before we do, we may lose a loved one. Being in a community makes it possible for us to bear these terrible uncertainties. We can never know what sadness we will be called upon to endure, or how long we will grieve, but being in a community helps us carry the burden. Let us never hesitate to offer our personal, physical presence: the look in the eye, the listening ear, the supportive hug. Let us help one another and let us thereby catch a glimpse of the face of God. Whatever may be hidden, let’s us reveal whatever we can.

Amen.