Be an Important Person

Yom Kippur 2003 (5763)

Every year, a colleague of mine circulates a list of “important people” who have died during the previous year. In his shul, they read this list during the Yizkor service, and sometimes other rabbis like to do the same. It can help set the mood of remembrance.

This past year, he sent out an e-mail asking people to submit names for his list. Another colleague responded, somewhat sadly: “Just two weeks ago,” he wrote, “my father died. He wasn’t ‘important’ by any criteria that would get him on a list like that. But he was important to me!”

That last sentence rang true when I read it. Isn’t it true that when we suffer a loss, we may find ourselves grieving over a human being who may not ever have done anything worthy of a newspaper story, but was still someone we consider important?

Each of us can remember an important person in our lives.

I feel very blessed. I grew up with a “Bubby.” Many people have grandmothers, but not everybody is lucky enough to have a Bubby like my grandmother. My Bubby used to feed me—I remember that very clearly! She’d always have a bowl of nuts on her table, and it was at her house that I learned how to use a nutcracker. We would sit and play cards—casino was her favorite game—and she’d occasionally reminisce about the “Old Country.” She spoke English with a very heavy Yiddish accent. I rarely saw her without a smile on her face. I never knew how old she was, but it didn’t matter. She was always happy to see me; she was always warm and gracious; she was always generous and caring.

In those days—as some of us may remember—telephone numbers began with an alphabetical prefix: CApitol 5-3228, or ALbany 3-2243. I remember the first time I saw my Bubby’s list of phone numbers: they consisted entirely of numbers. At first I was confused. But then I realized that my Bubby had never learned how to read English. She must have been in this country for sixty years, and she never learned how to read English!

Somehow, that never mattered to me—though instinctively I knew that, outside of her home, there were people who might objectively describe her as “illiterate.”

In the grand scheme of things, was my grandmother “important?”

Was she important to me? You can bet she was.

What does it mean to be an important human being?

I’m reminded of that discussion in the Shulchan Arukh regarding the mitzvah of reclining at the Seder table. In discussing who has to recline, and who doesn’t, Yosef Karo, the Sephardic authority who was the author of the Shulchan Arukh writes, ishah einah tsrichah ha-sivah elah im ken hi hashuvah—“A woman at a seder need not recline unless she is important.” Rabbi Moses Isserles, the author of the Ashkenazi glosses on the Shulchan Arukh, responds by saying: v’khol hanashim shelanu mikarei hashuvot—“All of our women are considered important.”

Everyone around us—at least potentially—can be important in our lives. The question is, Do we always appreciate them?

Someone who is important might be someone who has taught us something or has been influential in our lives, but it may not be. It might be a relative or a friend, but it needn’t be. It can be anybody.

Not long ago, someone told me about a man in his company whom he barely knew. He worked in the same building, but other than that, their paths never crossed. He knew him by sight only. A few months ago, he realized that this man must have been undergoing chemotherapy, since he noticed that he’d begun to lose his hair. Then, suddenly, he learned that the man had died. He was surprised how much of a sense of loss he felt: after all, he hardly knew the man. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized: that man was part of his environment; he must have mattered to him more than he’d admitted to himself. That prompted a thought: maybe he himself mattered more to other people than he was aware.

Maybe that’s true of each of us as well. Maybe each of us matters more—or could matter more—to the people around us than we think. Think of all the people we come in contact with: members of our family, friends, acquaintances—we may be more important to them than we think. What an opportunity for influence, what a responsibility! Are we living up to that responsibility? Do we behave in a way that enhances the lives of those around us—or not?

We will shortly be reciting the Yizkor prayers. We will shortly be recalling to consciousness people who were, well, important to us. Let this be a reminder to us not to take for granted our interactions with the people around us: our family, our friends, our co-workers. Even the people we may happen to see on the train or on the bus. Let each one of our interactions reflect our love of humanity, our respect for other human beings.

Let’s appreciate—and let’s take the time to express our appreciation for—all the really important people in our lives—those whom we may not usually take the time to acknowledge. And let us strive to live up to our potential to be important in the lives of all those with whom we interact.

Amen.