​Rosh Hashanah 2021 5782
First Day September 7, 2021
Rabbi Harold J. Kravitz
Adath Jeshurun Congregation
Minnetonka, MN

         We are so not where I thought we would be this Rosh Hashanah. Earlier this summer, I was hopeful that by the time we got to these High Holidays my sermon would be a chance to look at the pandemic from the rear-view mirror and to reflect on lessons learned. The reality of the past month or so has been truly disappointing. We had tasted and were starting to enjoy our growing freedom now that so many of us have been vaccinated, but with the sudden onset of the Delta variant things have sadly taken a turn for the worse. We are seeing hospitalization and even death rates in our country paralleling last year, because not enough of us have been vaccinated, and not enough of us have taken seriously the need to mask, especially indoors and when in the midst of large groups of people. 

         I am grateful that here at Adath Jeshurun, we have showed so much good sense in the face of the pandemic and that our people have taken the needed precautions so seriously. People at Adath Jeshurun have really lived up to our Hebrew name, which means “the gathering of the righteous” by being so supportive of our decisions to prioritize people’s health and safety above all, as we have adjusted to these challenges. It has required an extraordinary effort of shuls, schools, medical centers, really anyone with responsibilities for keeping people safe and has surely tested everyone’s resilience. 

         We can be proud that our Jewish community nationally has been highly responsible in the face of this pandemic. You may have heard of a survey done by the Public Religion Research Institute in late July indicating that Jews have, “the lowest levels of vaccine “hesitancy” of any religious group in the country…with 85% vaccinated or planning to get the shot — compared to 71% of all Americans. https://forward.com/news/473643/jews-accept-covid-vaccine-religious-groups-survey/
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         The Jewish approach to the matter is captured beautifully in an article published in January by my rabbinic colleague Micah Peltz, who serves as Senior Rabbi of a prominent Conservative shul in New Jersey. Micah grew up here at Adath and is still closely connected to our congregation. Rabbi Peltz wrote a teshuvah (a rabbinic response), unanimously approved by the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards. He concludes definitively that, “vaccination is a Jewish imperative when recommended by medical professionals.” He further observes that this conclusion is shared by all mainstream Jewish religious movements. https://www.jewishexponent.com/2021/01/28/getting-a-covid-19-vaccine-is-a-jewish-imperative/

         This is not something we can take for granted. Despite the willingness of the majority of Americans to follow necessary public health practices, we are still in a difficult place because too many people have chosen to ignore medical evidence by resisting mask mandates and refusing to be vaccinated, which they see as an infringement on their individual rights. I understand that my speaking about this issue touches on politics, which makes some people uncomfortable. The reality is that it is quite impossible to separate moral issues from the realm of politics. To suggest we should not touch on politics is to assert that clergy should be silenced on the great moral issues of our day. To be silent, or avoid speaking about tough issues, would leave us “standing idly by the blood of your neighbor, lo ta’amod al dam re’echa,” which our Torah explicitly forbids. To do so would be a betrayal of Jewish tradition in which religious figures, whether it was the Biblical prophets, or our ancient sages, did not shirk the heavy responsibility of speaking to the real-life situations faced by people, which invariably have a political dimension. Certainly, we are obligated to be respectful of differences of opinions and conflicting values. Certainly, we must stay above partisanship, because no party has the corner on truth. Still, we have a moral and Jewish obligation to address issues even when they touch on politics where people may disagree.  

         It pains me to say it, but the truth is that the extreme assertion of individual rights and liberty in the political and social life of our country have had deadly consequences for this country and for the world this past year and a half. Literally hundreds of thousands of people in this country have died needlessly because of the denial of developing scientific understandings and recommendations for best health practices related to COVID-19. 

        The extreme assertion of individual rights and liberties is very much at odds with how Judaism views the place of individuals and community. My teacher Rabbi Elliot Dorff, a leading thinker of our Conservative Movement, illuminates this issue in his outstanding book To Do the Right and the Good- Fundamental Principles that Guide Jewish Social Ethics writing that, “Jewish tradition places strong emphasis on the worth of the individual. Human worth derives first from being created in God's image.  Dorff, p. 5.     
                       
         While affirming the sacred value of each individual, Rabbi Dorff goes on to explain that Judaism is fundamentality communitarian in its approach. He cites the legal philosopher Milton Konvitz who captures the normative Jewish view, which I quote, without adapting to our normally egalitarian approach: 

         “The traditional Jew is no detached, rugged individual…He is an individual but one whose essence is determined by the fact that he is a brother, a fellow Jew. His prayers are, therefore, communal and not private, integrative and not isolative, holistic and not separative....  [Konvitz goes on to write]
This consciousness does not reduce but rather enhances and accentuates the dignity and power of the individual. Although an integral part of an organic whole, from which he cannot be separated, except at the cost of his moral and spiritual life, let each man say, with Hillel (Sukkot 53a), "If I am here, then everyone is here."   (Dorff, p.20-21) 

         What a powerful point Konvitz makes based on a less well-known teaching of our ancient sage Hillel: 
"If I am here, then everyone is here."  אִם אֲנִי כָּאן — הַכֹּל כָּאן
that on one hand when I am here, I am here on behalf of everyone.
In the Talmud Sukkot, Hillel goes on to say 
“And if I am not here who is here? וְאִם אֵינִי כָּאן — מִי כָּאן”
, which can be understood to be teaching that no one is expendable to a community. As Hillel conveys in this and his other teaching I introduced earlier, the community and the individual in Judaism are inextricably linked. 

        This view of the world is consistent with an approach to American Democracy called Communitarianism developed in the 1990s to push back against excessive individualism and narcissism in asserting that citizens have a responsibility to uphold the common good. 
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/1996/07/the-abcs-of-communitarianism.html
https://www.britannica.com/topic/communitarianism

         It should come as no surprise that many of the scholars who advanced this concept of communitarianism have deep Jewish roots, such as the respected political thinkers Amitai Etzioni and Michael Walzer. Another is Michael Sandel, the distinguished Prof of Law at Harvard University. Forgive me for expressing some Adath pride in noting that Sandel spent his early years in Minneapolis and celebrated his Bar Mitzvah at Adath in 1966, before his family left Minnesota. 

         I want us to consider the work of yet another champion of the concept of communitarianism, the American social thinker Robert Putnam. Putnam did not celebrate his Bar Mitzvah at Adath. Still, his is an important voice for us to hear. His now classic book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000), published more than twenty years ago documented the significant decline in America of communal organizations and activities, as the title suggests, people were becoming less inclined to join bowling leagues and instead did things alone, or with a small circle of family and friends. Putnam provided us with an early warning about the consequences of this trend. This past year he finished a new book, co-authored with his student Shaylyn Romney Garrett, The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again.

         Here Putnam and Garret carefully review the economic, political and social data of the last 100 years to support their claim that we are living in a time that is the most radically individualistic since the period that extended from the 1870s to the end of the 19th century known as the Gilded Age. That was the age of the robber barons, when great fortunes were amassed by those who led the way on the latest technologies at a time of mass industrialization. The Gilded Age was a time of unbridled individualism in which the few benefited at the expense of the many, in which there was rampant inequalities of wealth. Putnam and Garret powerfully make the case that this country has returned to a state where similar conditions exist doing enormous harm to the fabric of our country and to the wellbeing of so many. Like that of the Gilded Age our time is also marked by:

Dramatic economic inequality
Lack of compromise in politics
Less cohesion in social life
Less altruism in cultural values.       Does all of that sound familiar?

         So what is the upswing to which the title of Putnam and Garret’s book refer? Charting diverse economic and social trends, they illustrate how the excesses of the Gilded Age began to be reversed from about 1895 until the 1960s when a spirit of progressive reform took hold in this country. In every area of American life, from bottom to top, there emerged a sense of revulsion for the rugged individualism that did so much harm to this democracy and replaced it with an ethos of people committed to working for the common good. During that period- about 65 years long- greater economic equality was achieved, there was more cooperation in the public square, a stronger social fabric developed, and there was a growing culture of solidarity. Putnam and Garret reveal that beginning in the 1960s, that progress started to be dismantled, a downswing began and we have now sunk back to low points, by all kinds of measures, equaling the worst excesses of the Gilded age.
         Thankfully, Putnam and Garret do not leave us with just a lament about what has transpired. They also offer a message of hope. At the start of the 20th century Americans of all kinds and from every quarter pushed back against the focus on the “I,” rampant individualism and selfishness of the Gilded Age that had corroded the country. People across lines of party began to commit instead to the “We,” the widespread adoption of communal norms and values that resulted in the upswing they ably document. Their book is a call for Americans to once more stand up for each other and for the common good. They reject radical solutions, calling instead for a different kind of politics that once again allows for compromise to achieve the greatest good. Putnam and Garret assert the need to champion the rights of all over the rights of some, in keeping with the principles of communitarianism championed by thinkers such as Sandel, Etzioni and Walzer.  

         This communitarian ethos is very much in the spirit of how Judaism views the world in which we honor the value of every individual, created in the image of God, while joining together in a communal covenant for the sake of the common good. This view grounded in the teaching of our ancient sage  Hillel has always been at the heart of Conservative Judaism, which is respectful of individual difference and individual conscience, while urging us to join together as a community and as a Jewish people to work for the perpetuation of Jewish values and practices and the betterment of the world. 

         Putnam and Garret’s book, published last year, may have come at just the right time when the devastating pandemic has shown us how damaging the assertion of individual liberties can be when promoted at the expense of the greater good. Perhaps his pandemic will provide the needed wakeup call to the dangers of radical individualism, which has done enormous damage to the fabric of our society and literally cost the lives of so many.  

​         Only time will tell whether we will embrace a commitment to community and the wellbeing of all and witness a new upswing as the decades unfold. We stand ready as an Adath Jeshurun Congregation to realize that hope and to support that vision. It is the vision taught so powerfully by the ancient sage Hillel-
If I am here, then everyone is here."  אִם אֲנִי כָּאן — הַכֹּל כָּאן. And if I am not here who is here וְאִם אֵינִי כָּאן — מִי כָּאן?”  teaching us that the community and the individual are inextricably linked and that we are each responsible one for the other. Let us stand together and see to it that this necessary shift happens soon and in our times. And let us say Amen.

​         One of the best-known teachers of the rabbinic period is the sage Hillel.              His teachings continue to be invoked. One of his best-known teachings is found in the collection of rabbinic sayings- Pirkei Avot- The Wisdom of the Sages where in chapter 1:14 we find his often-quoted aphorism: 
If I am not for myself who will be for me?
אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִי.
But if I am only for myself, what am I?
וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי, מָה אֲנִי. 
And if not now when?
וְאִם לֹא עַכְשָׁיו, אֵימָתָי ?  
         In the Hebrew you can hear the cleverness of the language and the rhyme. 
As we prepare for our Rosh Hashanah Musaf, Amidah I ask that we consider what this teaching means to us at this time and why it has held up so well all these hundreds of years? In our times, when looking out for oneself is such a preoccupation, we might think that Hillel is supportive of that stance, while putting limits on it, which is a reasonable interpretation. 

       Dr. Joshua Kulp of the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem offers an alternative explanation (Kulp’s Mishneh Commentary Sefaria) to unlock another possible meaning of Hillel’s enduring words. He writes: 
         
         This first statement of Hillel’s [If I am not for myself who will be for me?]
is not a statement lauding selfishness, but rather a statement which places a person’s character and qualities squarely on [their] own two shoulders. A person must work in this world to acquire [their] own merits, for no one else can do this on [their] behalf. 

         The second statement [But if I am only for myself, what am I?] balances out the first. Although a person must be concerned for [themselves], these responsibilities do not end there. One who does only for [themselves] does not contribute to [our] people and to the world. [A person] is not important, for when [they pass] away, no one else will be affected. 

         Kulp concludes: Finally, [explaining the third clause- And if not now when?] if a person puts off their responsibilities, when will [they] find time to carry them out? As we say in English, “now is as good a time as ever.”

         It seems to me that Hillel here is echoing other similar teachings of his. 
I will explore one of those from the Talmud Sukkot later in my sermon.  Another well-known teaching of Hillel’s is found in the second chapter of Pirkei Avot 2:5 where he states: 

Do not separate yourself from the community
אַל תִּפְרֹשׁ מִן הַצִּבּוּר
Do not trust in yourself until the day of your death. 
וְאַל תַּאֲמִין בְּעַצְמְךָ עַד יוֹם מוֹתְךָ

         In this teaching Hillel observes how easy it is for an individual to go it alone, being a community of one and convincing themselves of the rightness of their position. So, Hillel here tells us be careful about that. Adopt a position of humility, rather than assuming with confidence that you are right. 

         As we begin the repetition of the Amidah, consider where you are in light of this teaching. If we understand Hillel as commonly interpreted- are we looking out for ourselves within the appropriate limits of not being overly focused by taking responsibilities for the needs of others? Or as Josh Kulp asks: Are we working to improve ourselves, as no one else can do it for us and also working to improve the world? And as we find in his second text- are we separating ourselves from our community? Are we overly confident in the rightness of our position, or do we carry ourselves with necessary humility? 

        Let us take this time of reflection of the Musaf Amidah to consider these challenges and to seize this moment to correct course in the New Year. 

     Reflecting on the devastating impact last week of Hurricane Ida, when so many people succumbed to the horrible storms and had to be saved from their cars and homes, reminded me of a favorite story that makes a powerful point. I heard this parable long ago and delighted when I saw it used as the key lesson of an entire episode of the West Wing called “Take this Sabbath Day.”

          In this episode, President Bartlett is asked by his senior staff to consider commuting the death sentence of a convicted drug dealer whose appeal was dismissed by the Supreme Court. The advisors seek their own advice from various sources including a rabbi, and a Quaker campaign adviser.  President Bartlett, a devout Catholic, requests his parish priest, Father Tom Cavanaugh [played by the marvelous actor Karl Malden], come to the White House for his guidance on the matter.

       President Bartlett had his advisers look for a way the public would find palatable to commute the sentence.  But in the end, he tells the Priest “I’m the leader of a democracy, Tom. 71% of the people support capital punishment. The people have spoken. The courts have spoken.”
Father Cavanaugh asks if President Bartlett has prayed about the issue, and the President replies that he had prayed for wisdom.  “And none came?” Father Cavanaugh asks to which the President replies “It never has. And I’m a little PO’d about that.”

        Father Cavanaugh then tells the President the following parable: 

      You remind me of the man that lived by the river. He heard a radio report that the river was going to rush up and flood the town, and that all the residents should evacuate their homes. But the man said, "I'm religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me." The waters rose up. A guy in a rowboat came along and he shouted, "Hey, hey you, you in there. The town is flooding. Let me take you to safety." But the man shouted back, "I'm religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me." A helicopter was hovering overhead and a guy with a megaphone shouted, "Hey you, you down there. The town is flooding. Let me drop this ladder and I'll take you to safety." But the man shouted back that he was religious, that he prayed, that God loved him and that God will take him to safety. Well... the man drowned. And standing at the gates of St. Peter he demanded an audience with God. "Lord," he said, "I'm a religious man, I pray, I thought you loved me. Why did this happen?" God said, "I sent you a radio report, a helicopter and a guy in a rowboat. What the hell are you doing here?"

       I love that story that teaches a very Jewish lesson that prayer can only take us so far. Our prayers can give us clarity about values to strive for and provide an opportunity to reflect on our circumstances and express gratitude even in the most difficult of situations. But prayer in Judaism is never a replacement for taking action. Waiting on God to act is no replacement for the responsibility we each have to reach out to others in need and for those in difficult circumstance to have the wisdom to accept that divinely inspired assistance when it is offered. 

       Sadly, it requires no stretching of that story to write a new ending that applies to our times in which God replies, “I sent you public health warnings about appropriate distancing, I sent you masks, I sent you vaccines. What are we doing here?

        As we turn to the Malchuyot section of the Musaf, let us have an appropriate sense of God’s role in the world and our individual and communal responsibilities.

     ​Several weeks ago, when we were reading Parashat Ki Tavo toward the end of the book of Deuteronomy, I came across a wonderful D’var Torah by Ilana Kurshan of the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem that I knew immediately I would want to share with you today. In that Torah portion, Moses describes the kinds of blessings the people of Israel will experience if they are loyal to God’s covenant and the kind of curses they will experience if they fail to uphold it. The list of curses are very rough, culminating in God’s threat to return the people to Egypt to endure a fate even worse than the original experience of Egyptian bondage. Kurshan points out that the curses seem to be based on the plagues that struck Egypt before the Israelites were liberated. 

       One of the most vividly described curses echoes the plague of darkness: “The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness and dismay. You shall grope at noon as a blind man gropes in the dark” (28:28-29). The rabbis often comment when they notice Biblical language that seems to be repetitive or superfluous. In the Talmud tractate Megillah (24b), one of the sages Rabbi Yose raises a question on this verse from Ki Tavo, “Why must the Torah specify that the blind man is surrounded by darkness? If he is blind, won’t he have to grope around regardless? What difference does it make to a blind man whether there is light or not, since the blind man cannot see it anyway? 

     Rabbi Yose’s question about this curse comes up in the context of the rabbinic discussion of communal prayer where the rabbis pose a question about whether a blind person may lead the congregation in the Shema, which is preceded by a blessing about the creation of the sun, moon, and the stars. Rabbi Yehuda argues there that since a blind person has never benefited from the light of these heavenly bodies, he may not recite this blessing. The other rabbis challenge Rabbi Yehuda observing, “Who says you’re not allowed to speak about something just because you haven’t experienced it first hand? People often expound on matters with which they have no direct experience.” As an example, they point to the many rabbinic comments on the divine chariot from the prophetic book of Ezekiel that none of them had actually ever seen. 

       At this point Rabbi Yose chimes with his question to justify the blind person reciting the Shema and the blessing before it referencing the heavenly lights by telling the following story: 

      Once Rabbi Yose recalls he was walking around in the darkness of night when he saw a blind man pass by holding a torch. Rabbi Yose asked the blind man why he was carrying a torch given that he is blind and could not see its light. The blind man responded, “As long as I have a torch in my hand, people see me and save me from the pits and thorns and thistles.” 

    Rabbi Yose explains that throughout his entire life, he was troubled by the verse from Deuteronomy 28 about the blind man groping around in darkness, but after this encounter with this blind man, he realized that even a blind person can benefit from light because it enables others around him or her to come to their aid. He thus came to understand that the curse in Ki Tavo is so severe because the blind person described there did not even have the benefit of a torch to alert others; and instead, gropes around in darkness, and no one can help. 

       Ilana Kurshan offers us a lesson based on this parable of Rabbi Yose’s encounter with the blind person as a reminder to all of us to allow others to help us in our own journeys through darkness. We all go through periods in life when we feel like we are groping around, unsure how to move forwards and terrified of all the stumbling blocks in our path. In such moments, we should not be afraid to shine light on our own distress and allow others to alleviate our suffering. 

      Indeed, as Rabbi Yose learned, it was not just the case that he was in the position to help the blind man; the blind man was also able to help Rabbi Yose by illuminating a puzzling text. The blind man’s torch thus cast light not just on the pits and brambles, but also on a thorny verse from our parashah that had previously tripped up and blinded Rabbi Yose. 

       We should never think that we are in things alone. As we begin the section of the Zichronot, let us not forget that we are blessed to have people whether it be family, friends, or community to help us illumine the path and to remember that we have a responsibility to carry that torch for others as well even at a time when we are stumbling in the darkness. 
 
      Based on the teaching of Ilana Kurshan of the Conservative Yeshiva. Torah Sparks Parashat Ki Tavo
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/WhctKKWxcMhTlNrvtNRvjfHwDsTDzhLjPZSdXlCmclpnWKrllhrHgkztRJFmVrwCqfLZLng

I would like to tell you a story about a remarkable man I had the privilege to meet. What brought us together was unfortunate, but the meeting was a blessing, indeed a lifesaving thing. His name was Fred Epstein. Fred was a pediatric neurosurgeon who invented revolutionary surgical procedures to deal with brain and spine cancers that were previously considered “inoperable.” He also pioneered a delicate procedure to detangle the nerves of the spinal chord from scar tissue, a common problem for children born with spina-bifida. It was this procedure that brought me to Dr. Epstein’s office.

My first son, Elazar, was born with spina-bifida. Immediately after he was born, a surgeon closed a lesion on his back. That surgery healed well on the surface, but over the next six years, scar tissue from that surgery became entangled with Elazar’s spinal column. It became apparent when Elazar developed a progressive scoliosis. If left untreated, the tethered chord and scoliosis would have compromised our son’s ability to stand, sit, and possibly even to breath, or eat food. Elazar’s doctor referred us to Dr. Epstein, and we were fortunate enough to get an appointment very quickly, to see him at the Rusk Institute of New York University Hospital.

This was back in 1988 when we lived in Central New Jersey. We drove to Manhattan, and pulled into the hospital parking lot to park. A sign said parking would be $23. Welcome to New York. But we needed that appointment. When I got a closer look at the sign, I saw that is read: $23 per half hour… That was the easiest part of the day to deal with.

We met Dr. Epstein, and found him to be a very friendly man. He greeted us warmly. He gave us his undivided attention, and spoke sympathetically to us. He kibitzed with then six-year old Elazar, and spoke directly to him, as he explained the surgery to us. Elazar, no stranger to doctors and hospitals, held his own, and the two of them hit it off. Dr. Epstein gently warned us of four serious considerations. First, the tethering could be so severe there would be no way to untangle the chord. Second, the procedure could leave Elazar more impaired than he started, and he was already paraplegic, unable to walk without braces and crutches. Third, the tethering could come back in the future, but Dr. Epstein told us there were ways to try to prevent that. Fourth, the usual risks of surgery and anesthesia; which are never to be underestimated. But, he added, if the surgery worked, Elazar would have a decent chance of avoiding the complications of the scoliosis.

Dr. Epstein let us ask our questions, and then told us we should think it over for awhile. He shook Elazar’s hand and gave him a wink. Then he insisted we get a second opinion. And I tried for the next two weeks, to no avail. I called every neurosurgeon in New Jersey, and could not even get an appointment. When they heard we had already seen Dr. Epstein, they all said the same thing- “Why are you calling me? You already saw Epstein. He’s the one who does this.” Frustrated, I called Dr. Epstein’s office back, expecting to get his assistant or a nurse, but instead, I found he had given me his personal number, and he came on the line himself. He listened to my tale of frustration, and barked. “Whattaya mean they won’t give you a second opinion?” He was annoyed, but it also made him chuckle, and he put me at ease. I asked him - “Let me ask you this. Who disagrees with you? Who is your rival? Who is the Shammai to your Hillel?

”That really made him laugh. He totally got the Talmud reference. He asked if I could
make my way to Philadelphia. No problem - we lived about halfway between Philadelphia and New York City. So he gave me the phone number of his “rival” at the Children’sHospital of Philadelphia. I recognized the doctor’s name, but couldn’t remember why, just then. Years later, I discovered that the Philadelphia doctor had invented a shunt that had been implanted in Elazar’s body a week after he was born. The box the shunt came in, along with a set of instructions for installation, actually came back with Elazar after surgery, caught in the folds of his blankets. The Philadelphia doctor’s name was on the box. We held on to that box for years, not knowing if it was something important we needed to keep - and then I wondered - do surgeons read those instructions on the job, the way I read instructions to put together furniture from IKEA?

Anyway, a few days later, we drove down to Philadelphia for our second opinion. It was a very different experience. Parking was a lot cheaper. But the doctor in Philadelphia was gruff and impatient. We had gingerly carried x-rays and MRI’s with us, and he gave them a quick look and tossed them onto his desk. He read Dr. Epstein’s report, and he shook his head and tossed that on the pile of scans. Then, with very little sympathy, he gave us the same somber warnings about the potential risks of the surgery. He painted a very bleak picture. Then he kind of dismissed us; and we packed up our scans and prepared to go. I don’t remember him saying anything to Elazar. But, as we got the door to leave, the doctor said, “One more thing! If you choose to do this surgery - don’t let anyone but Epstein touch your kid.”

It was all we needed to hear. A few weeks Elazar was admitted to NYU Hospital for the surgery. The morning of the surgery, Dr. Epstein came to speak with us, smiling, gentle, reassuring, but he also came with an apology. He said he had a speaking engagement in Cleveland that night, and if the surgery ran too long, he would have to call in a favor, and another doctor would close Elazar’s back. He felt awful about it. But he assured us that he alone would do the untethering.

It was a very long surgery - about five hours. He did need to leave before finishing. But, it turned out, he called in a top micro-surgeon to do the closing, who did a brilliant job, leaving almost no scar. After the surgery, we stayed in Elazar’s room, camping out on chairs, watching him sleep. To our surprise, the phone rang late that night. It was Dr. Epstein, calling from Cleveland. He finished his lecture, and he called to see how things were going. I proceeded to give him a detailed update on Elazar’s condition, and he laughed. “I know all that stuff. I already spoke to the nurses. But how are you doing?” From Cleveland.

That phone call was a true act of hesed. The biblical term hesed is difficult to translate into English, because it really has no precise equivalent. We usually try to translate it with words like “loving-kindness,” or “mercy,” or “steadfast love,” but those words always seem to fall short. Hesed is a broader value. Hesed is something you could possibly do with money, like tzedakkah, but it is more precisely done with one’s person - with one’s neshama. It can be given to the rich and the poor, the living and even the dead. It is measured by the tirchah involved - by how much a person puts himself or herself out, to do some act of kindness. 

I’ve thought about that phone call for many years. It makes me think about how hard or easy it is to be nice, to be a mensch. How much energy does it really take? A simple phone call, a gesture of kindness…can make such a profound difference in someone’s life. Ironically, it was Shammai who taught this lesson in Pirke Avot (1:15)

“Shammai said: Make your Torah fixed, say little but do much, and receive every person with
a cheerful countenance.” It makes such a remarkable difference when a person makes that
extra effort. There is even a little lesson about hesed in this week’s Haftarah:

In all of Israel’s tzurris, God was too troubled, the angel of his presence delivered them. (Is.63:9)

The verse speaks about God’s compassion for Israel during their exile in Babylonia, and how that loving presence helped them through that ordeal. It is a paradigm for empathy and compassion. As God watched us suffer in our ordeal of exile, it hurt God’s heart, too. God identified with Israel’s pain.

Acts of hesed are built from empathy; the active representation of the covenant between Israel and God, and when we do acts of hesed for each other, it defines our social contract as a people. It brings a little God into our relationships, into the world. We can be a presence of caring for each other, when we help each other face the inevitable ordeals of life.

The Talmud establishes hesed as one of the core pillars of human behavior. “The world rests upon three things,” it says in Pirke Avot, on Torah, on avodah, and gemilut hasadim.” (Pirkei Avot 1:2) No matter how learned we are, or how devout and observant, without hesed, the world falters, like a three-legged stool that can’t stand without one of its feet. Fred Epstein showed us hesed when we truly needed it; and it helped us enormously.

Over the next few years after we met him, Dr. Epstein went on to build a unique pediatric neurosurgery center where the patients, all children of course, many of them cancer patients, were given a comfortable, child-friendly place to live as they healed. He encouraged his patients to be playful during their stays in the hospital. There were stories of stolen surgical gloves that turned into water-balloons, with occasional ambushes of the doctors and nurses in the ward. And Dr. Epstein loved it. He built a place of hesed.
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Thirteen years after Elazar’s surgery, in September of 2001, soon after the devastation of 9/11, Dr. Epstein went for his daily 20-mile bike ride near his home in suburban Connecticut. His front tire hit a depression in the pavement. He pitched forward, over the handlebars, landing on the pavement, helmet first. The impact knocked his brain against the back of his skull, tearing a blood vessel, causing a bleed over the surface of his brain. He was rushed to a trauma center, emergency surgery was performed, and he lay in a coma for 26 days.

He was weaned from his ventilator, and when he was well enough, he went to the rehab center at NYU hospital. After six months, he was able to return to his practice, but, for the rest of his life, he was unable to perform the life-saving procedures that he had developed. Thankfully, he had trained other surgeons who could carry on his work, and they do so, to this day.

Becoming a patient in his own hospital, Fred struggled, physically and emotionally, to reclaim his career. He attended surgeries, but had to stand on the sidelines, offering advice and assistance, but from a distance. But he never stopped trying or learning. He visited the children’s ward often, to interact with the children, and found he gained insight and courage from the resilience of those little patients, who, like my son, came to his office seeking miracles.

One of those inspirations came a patient named Naomi, who Dr. Epstein had treated before his accident. When Naomi was only four years old, she came to his attention in grave condition. She had a complicated brain tumor that was wrapped around two arteries, one of which had already bled, putting her in a coma. This was long before today’s sophisticated imaging capabilities, and before there was a lot of surgical experience to draw upon for reference. Fred knew that Naomi’s chances were poor, but if he did nothing, she would surely die.

He planned two surgeries. In the first, he reduced the swelling from the bleed, hoping to address the tumor after she gained some strength. A few days after her first surgery, she came out of her coma. With her head wrapped in bandages, he found her standing up in bed, announcing defiantly, “If I get to five, I’m going to learn to ride a twowheeler!” 

If I get to five. Already at age four, she had surmised that getting to five was more of an if than a when. That reality calls to mind the haunting liturgy we will soon recite on Rosh Hashanah, the Unetaneh Tokef, where the Mahzor intones: On Rosh Hashanah it is written, and the Day of Atonement it is sealed:

How many will pass on, and how many will be born, who will live and who will die, who will live a long life and who will come to an untimely end, who by fire and who by water, Who shall live to four, and who will get to five… Life can be so precarious, and life is always precious, and this is all the more apparent when the life is at the tender age of four years old…

Each day, on his rounds, Fred would check on Naomi, only to find her bouncing on her bed with more declarations. “If I get to five, I’m going to beat my brother at tic-tac-toe!” Another day: “If I get to five, I’m going to learn to tie my shoes with a double knot!” Naomi never asked if Dr. Epstein thought she was getting to five. She had more conviction about that, than he did.

Naomi declared her intention to learn to jump rope - backwards - and to learn how to read. Her determination inspired him then, and the memory of it, after his bike accident, continued to inspire him even more.

Naomi survived her second surgery. She got to five…and to six, and seven, and then some. But she suffered some brain damage when the tumor was removed. At age 33, she was able to hold down a job as a grocery clerk. She wrote letters to Dr. Epstein faithfully over the years, and he, ever the mensch, wrote back. Now, the job of a grocery clerk might not seem impressive compared to the careers other young women attain these days, but for Naomi, it was like climbing Mt. Everest. Backward.

During his own recovery, Dr. Epstein thought about how Naomi continually raised the bar in her life; going from challenge to challenge, with determination and a smile, if not joy. He reflected on her resilience, and wrote the following about it:

“Naomi taught me that the child’s determination to embrace the next stage of life, to become more powerful and master new skills, can be a lifetime asset. She reminded me that whenever I ran up against a tumor that had “inoperable” stamped across it, I had to focus on the child whose life was on the line. That was a crucial lesson for me at a formative stage of my career. It strengthened my resolve never to give up on a child, no matter how daunting the course appeared.

Children are geniuses at raising the bar for themselves, clearing it, and then setting it one notch higher. Working with children raises the bar for me, (he wrote) and for everyone else whose lives they touch. They inspire us to dig deeper for the strength to do what feels hardest, what’s scariest. And to do that, we have to again become young at heart.

Much has been written about how important it is for adults to model behavior for children. What I’ve discovered again and again, (he wrote) is that children can model courage and character for adults…”Dr. Epstein, alav ha-shalom, passed away from melanoma in 2006. I guess all that time he spent riding his bike in the sun, took its toll. Or, it could have been the many summers he spent on the beach of Fire Island, where he, while on vacation, volunteered to help fellow vacationers, many of them physicians (those who paid attention in Hebrew School) run a pop-up Conservative Synagogue, so they could daven while spending time on the beach.

Elazar and I were blessed to have met him, and to have enjoyed the benefit of his genius and his hesed. I will never forget his menschlich-keit, his optimism, his kindness to us, and his determination. I still think of Dr. Epstein from time to time, especially at this season of the year, when Rosh Hashanah approaches. It’s at this season that we think back and think forward - to the year that passed and the year that we pray we will be granted. We think about the challenges we faced last year, and about those we might encounter next year. How should we face a new year, especially after this last one - with all of the uncertainty and loss, and fear? How do we find the spirit of optimism we need to grab hold of the new year, and use it for all it is worth?

I like to think that Rosh Hashanah is our wake-up call to remember never to take a day of life for granted. We are, even with the tzurris of life, lucky to be alive. The future is always uncertain. We fool ourselves into thinking we know that the future holds. Who predicted 2020 was going to be such a disaster? In reality, none of us knows what pain or pleasure will come tomorrow. But what a gift it is, to recapture that child-like optimism, that imagines that the future can be brilliant, that we can learn to jump-rope backwards, or conquer a pandemic, or have some other, life-enhancing breakthrough. It takes courage to think that way. After the past year and half of pandemic, and the violence in our streets, and for many, the economic hardship, we’ve been through a lot. It will take courage to move forward.

In the Torah, when Moses passed the torch of authority to Joshua, he imparted a message about courage. Moses blessed Joshua, saying chazak ve’ematz “be strong and courageous.” You will lead the Israelite people into the Promised Land: chazak ve’ematz. We find a similar charge at the end of every Jewish year. For the month of Elul and a few weeks beyond, we have been reciting Psalm 27, daily. It ends with these very words of encouragement: chazak veya’ametz libecha, “be strong, and strengthen your heart.” The Psalm encourages us all to cultivate the inner strength we need to meet whatever challenges emerge in the new year.

The New Year begins Monday night. It is time to raise the bar another notch. If there is one imperative for the Jewish people this coming year, it should be to bring more hesed into the world. We have seen such rancor between opposing political sides, such terrible things said on Twitter and horrible words spoken in Congress. We need more words of kindness and deeds of hesed in the world. And we can all do that! We may not be world class neurosurgeons, but we can all be purveyors of hesed.

Acts of hesed redeem the world, say the Rabbis. So this Rosh Hashanah, let’s push ourselves to do better with the time God has granted us, and to bring a little more hesed into the world.

So let’s plan to learn new things, or plan to study really old things from our tradition; let’s pledge to embrace new challenges, and face the uninvited challenges of life with courage. We can remind ourselves to be more of a mensch than a grouch. We can challenge ourselves to go forward in the face of uncertainty; a willful act of human optimism we once knew so well, when we were children.

It’s far easier to list the many ways, or many outcomes that could be disappointing and frustrating in the year to come. We can’t let that stop us from dreaming. After the past year and a half, we deserve a happier, kinder new year. May it be a year of achievement and learning and joy, and discovery, and hesed.

“If I get to five…” That is the name of the book Dr. Epstein wrote about his recovery from his bicycle accident. It is subtitled, “What Children can Teach us About Courage and Character.” It’s a tear-jerker, but it’s a good read.

If I get to five.
If I get to tomorrow.
If I get the chance.
Take that chance.
Make those plans.
Raise that bar.
Never lose hope.
God willing, we will all get there, in health and in happiness, this coming year.