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SERMON BY RABBI michael berk
delivered on kol nidre
september 21, 2007
Kol Nidre 5768: Memories
I would like to share a story with you that moved me deeply when I first read it. It's about an elementary teacher named Mrs. Thompson. As she stood in front of her 5th grade class on the very first day of school, she told the children a lie.
Like most teachers, she looked at her students that day and said that she loved them all the same. But that was impossible, because there in the front row, slumped in his seat, was a little boy named Teddy Stoddard. Mrs. Thompson had watched Teddy the year before and noticed that he didn't play well with the other children, that his clothes were messy and that he constantly needed a bath. And Teddy could be unpleasant.
As time went on, Mrs. Thompson began to actually take delight in marking his papers with a broad red pen, making bold X's and then putting a big "F" at the top of his papers.
The school required Mrs. Thompson to review each child's past records, and she put Teddy's off until last. However, when she finally did review his file, what she read jarred her.
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Teddy's first grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is a bright child with a ready laugh. He does his work neatly and has good manners… He is a joy to be around." Second grade teacher wrote: "Teddy is an excellent student, well liked by his classmates, but he is troubled because his mother has a terminal illness, and life at home must be a struggle. His third grade teacher wrote: "His mother's death has been hard on him. He tries to do his best, but his father doesn't show much interest and his home life will soon affect him if some steps aren't taken."
Apparently, steps were not taken. Teddy's fourth grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is withdrawn and doesn't show much interest in school. He doesn't have many friends and he sometimes sleeps in class.
By now, Mrs. Thompson realized the problem and she was ashamed of herself. She felt even worse when her students brought her Christmas presents, wrapped in beautiful ribbons and bright paper. Except for Teddy's. His present was clumsily wrapped in the heave brown paper that he got from a grocery bag.
Mrs. Thompson took pains to open it in the middle of the other presents. Some of the children started to laugh when she found a rhinestone bracelet with some of the stones missing and a bottle of perfume that was one quarter full. But she stifled the children's laughter when she exclaimed how pretty the bracelet was, putting it on, and dabbing some of the perfume on her wrist.
Teddy Stoddard stayed after school that day just long enough to say, "Mrs. Thompson, today you smelled just like my Mom used to."
When all the children were gone that day, she cried for at least an hour. On that very day, she quit teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. Instead, she began to teach children.
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Mrs. Thompson paid particular attention to Teddy. As she worked with him, his mind seemed to come alive. The more she encouraged him, the faster he responded. By the end of the year, Teddy had become one of the best students in the class and, despite her lie that she would love all the children the same, Teddy became on of her favorites.
A year later, she found a note under her door, from Teddy, telling her that she was still the best teacher he ever had. Six years went by before she got another note from Teddy. He then wrote that he had finished high school, third in his class, and she was still the best teacher he ever had.
Four years after that, she got another letter, saying that while things had been tough at times, he had stayed in school and would soon graduate from college with highest honors. He assured Mrs. Thompson that she was still the best and favorite teacher he ever had.
Then four more years passed, and yet another letter came. This time he explained that after he received his bachelor's degree, he decided to go a little further. The letter explained that she was still the best and favorite teacher he ever had. But now his name was a little longer; the letter was signed Theodore F. Stoddard, M.D.
The story doesn't end there. You see, there was yet another letter that spring. Teddy said he'd met this girl and was going to be married. He said that his father had died a couple of years ago and he was hoping Mrs. Thompson might agree to sit in the place at the wedding that was usually reserved for the mother of the groom. Of course, Mrs. Thompson did. And that day she wore the bracelet with the missing rhinestones and the perfume that Teddy remembered his mother wearing. They hugged each other and Dr. Stoddard whispered in Mrs. Thompson's year, "Thank you for believing in me. Thank you so much for making me feel important and showing me that I could make a difference.
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Mrs. Thompson, with tears in her eyes, whispered back. She said, "Teddy, you have it all wrong. You were the one who taught me that I could make a difference. I didn't know how to teach until I met you."
Tonight Yom Kippur begins. Tonight we begin the final act in our teshuvah drama: the painful, process of introspection about our lives. The story about Teddy Stoddard affects us deeply because it reminds us of the power of the relationships we are in and the opportunities we have, sometimes knowingly, sometimes not, to touch a person significantly, to change a person's entire outlook; indeed, to change their life. Yom Kippur is a time for self-assessment and serious, honest evaluation of the record of our lives.
We may not all have stories like Mrs. Thompson's which we can reflect on with great pride, gratitude, and satisfaction. Some of us, if we are really honest, might be surprised by our look inside and realize that our lives are not what we had hoped.
That's what happened once to Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. He did not acquire insight into the legacy of his life as a result of Yom Kippur, but something akin to that. One day Nobel's older brother died. A newspaper got the story wrong and printed Alfred's obituary instead. Alfred opened the newspaper the next morning and had the rare experience of reading his own obituary. And this is what he read: "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding a way to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday…"
Alfred threw his paper down and said, "NO! That's not the way I want to be remembered. That's not what is important to me!" So right then and there he made a decision: he took his entire fortune and established the Nobel prizes for people whose lives and work have made a difference for good in this world of ours.
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Today, our Mahzor, our High Holy Day prayerbook, is like the newspaper in front of Alfred Nobel that day. Like the words of that obituary, the prayerbook take us on a spiritual journey into our souls and expose us to ourselves for all that we truly are. The services make us confront our mortality, unpleasant though that may be. We are forced, like Alfred Nobel, to wonder, how will those who will someday say Kaddish for me, remember me? What will my legacy be to those whose lives I touch? As we stare at death on this day, we are forced to ask: If I were to die tomorrow, what would have been the meaning of my life? How do I want to be remembered? What is important to me?
Today, we are mindful of the permanent record of our lives. Even if you cannot believe it is open on this day before the penetrating eyes of God, you know it is indelibly recorded in the souls of those whose lives are touched by yours. Just how permanent those memories are was made clear to me during a trip to Israel a few years ago, when we went to the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem to view the famous Chagall windows.
Before you go into the synagogue that houses the stunning art of Chagall, there is a short and very inspiring film about the good work Hadassah does. We arrived about fifteen minutes before the video began. As happened in many places when there was a moment to breathe, several in our group went off to the gift shop to shop. I started wandering down some hallways, and causally walked into an office.
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Suddenly I was seized with curiosity. When my mother died in 1972, money was raised in her memory to purchase equipment for the hospital I was standing in. That was more than two decades before, and despite several trips to Jerusalem I never thought of asking if there was some way of finding out what was donated in her name. So, I asked a woman in the office I had wandered into if there was a record, a permanent record, you might say, of such donations. She said, "Not only is there a record, but you are in the office where those records are kept!"
She asked my mother's name and memories started to come back to me. Memories of my mother who died so young, at only 50 years old. The woman typed my mother's name into a computer and up came a file. My heart skipped a beat, but I was soon disappointed because it recorded a donation in honor of Helen Berk from Denver. Wrong Helen Berk. Then the woman went to the old fashioned records: 3X5 cards. She flipped through and soon asked, "Helen Berk, of San Bernardino, California?" That's it, I said. "Follow me," she said.
She took me into a library room with a wall filled with huge volumes. Holding my mother's 3 X 5 card in her hand, she looked up and down the rows, then finally pulled a volume down. She flipped through some pages, found the one she was looking for, and pointed with her finger.
There, in flawless calligraphy, were two entries of the name: Helen Cecil Berk. Suddenly my eyes flooded with tears. Standing there in that instance, how well I remember, standing in that hospital so many years after her death, I think I wept more than I recall weeping at her funeral. And it was contagious: Aliza, trying to steady me, began to cry. At that moment, the woman who shows people such entries every day she goes to work, began to cry. She told me in her broken English that she could not believe such an emotional reaction after more than 20 years had passed.
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My friends, the memories we leave behind are so powerful. To see my mother's name written in a book in a hospital in Jerusalem took my breath away. There is a permanent record. I though I could be so cool about my mother, but there I was staring at her name sobbing. What was recorded there reminded me of all that my mother stood for: her love of Israel, the tzedakah she practiced in her life, the value she placed on saving and preserving life, that she taught her three children to care and be involved in the community on behalf of righteous causes. The record of her life, I realized, was written indelibly not just on the folio of that tome in Jerusalem, but also, on my heart, in my heart. Many days pass when I don't think of her, but at that moment I learned I hadn't ever forgotten her.
Later that same day, Aliza and I inscribed our names on a scroll that is now on permanent display in Jerusalem's city hall. It records the names of all the visitors to Jerusalem during the year that Jews celebrated 3,000 years of the Capital city of our people. Now there is a permanent record in Jerusalem that Aliza and Michael Berk were there. Some day, I pray while I am still alive, Jenna and Yoni will be able to see our names on that permanent record.
Now I understand better than ever before what we Jews really mean when we say, "Zecher tzadik livracha – May the memory of the righteous be for a blessing." That day, my mother's memory came back to bless me in a tender and poignant way. It was a blessing that knows no end: my children, and their children, too, will always be able to go to Jerusalem, and they can see with their own eyes the name written there, and they will know that Helen Berk, their ancestor, lived, and something for which she stood. In the same city with a permanent record of King David and Solomon, Isaiah and Jeremiah, Golda Meir, Ben Gurion and Yitzhak Rabin, in that same city, there is recorded the name of Helen Berk. Though the equipment that bore her name is long gone, her memory is not.
Yom Kippur, this truly awesome day, helps you recall the memories of those who came before you; helps you let those memories bless and inspire you. Our inner spiritual work today is mingled with memory of how those who loved us and believed in us created in our hearts a permanent record that continues to comfort and console us. Those precious and incredible memories are inspiration to us as we realize the values our loved ones had and the confidence they had in us, the dreams they had for us.
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This is a simple sermon with a simple message: And it is this: your lives are entwined and enmeshed with lots of people. What record are you making with your love? How will those you love, those you touch, even those yet unborn who will meet you through the memories of others, how will they come to know you? What acts, what kindness, what values, what goodness will they hear about? We know what makes a lasting impression: a mitzvah, a touch, a tender glance, a kiss, a word of encouragement. A kind thought spoken with affection. The values we cherish. These are what we bequeath to the future, and there value is more lasting than any material things we leave for those who come after us.
Memory is so powerful, so sweet. A sweetness that is not without its bitterness, but a blessing nonetheless for those who taste it. What memories did you create last year? What memories would you like to create this year?
When Moses was about to die, our holy Torah, the permanent record of his life, says, "Behold, the days approach that thou must die." On this our beloved sages commented: "Days die, but the righteous do not die." There is a drop of solace in the bitter cup of tears, for it is our tradition's assurance that our loved ones never really die so long as we remember them. Only their days are cancelled. Their wisdom, their touch, their look, remain with us and in our hearts. We still hear their voices; we still imagine their look. The Talmud tells us: "ma zar'o bechayyim, af hu be'chayyim. So long as we remember them, they still live. In memory, yes, but that is a powerful, permanent record.
This is the heart of the Jewish belief in the after life: the idea of the immortality of influence. That's the immortality Yom Kippur offers you, to help you create the way in which others will remember you, will carry you with them in heart and mind. Ma zar'o bechayyim, af hu be'chayyim. So long as others remember, we will live on.
Ken yehi ratzon: may this be God's will.
Amen.
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