AND HE LIVED, AND HE DIED
AND A NEW KING AROSE
WHO DIDN’T KNOW YOSEF
For the first time in 16 years, I did not send out a full newsletter last week, I was sitting shiva for my father, Robert Ruby Davis. The prior week, Parshat Vayechi, I started my dvar torah with the name of the parshah, Vayechi, AND HE LIVED!!! It had been a tough 2020, but I wasn’t ready to throw it away for posterity, because it had been a huge learning opportunity and bonding opportunity with my children, and G-d.
I had high hopes for the new year and vaccine, I was optimistic. Then on New Year’s eve, I had a foreboding feeling. My father was temporarily in the hospital and was expected out on Monday January 4th. But something was not sitting right with me. That foreboding feeling grew when I woke early the next morning.
Because of Covid, the hospital had closed to all visitors, I snuck in. I helped my father with his breakfast, Facetimed him with the family so we could all wish each other a good Shabbos, I helped him on with his tallis and tefillin with which he davened shma, and then I was asked to leave, and I did. Two hours later he passed away. Utter shock, I reviewed my morning with him in my mind, and was grateful to HKBH that I had a chance to be with him before his passing.
Ironic that Vayechi/and he lived, is actually the torah portion in which Jacob dies. But true to its name, even though Jacob physically died, he lived on through his actions while alive, his teachings role modelling to his children, and the legacy he left to his children in the form of the blessings he gave to them. We know that all which is written in Genesis is a paradigm for all generations.
But in last week’s Torah portion there is a new Pharaoh who did not know Yosef. How could that be after all Yosef, via G-d’s direction, saved the entire region from famine, how could someone as great as he be so quickly forgotten.
I got up from shiva erev Shabbos, to find American democracy threatened twice, once by Mary Miller, who stated “ Each generation has the responsibility to teach and train the next generation. You know if we win a few elections, we’re still going to be losing unless we win the heart and minds of our children. This is the battle. Hitler was right on one thing. He said, “whoever has the youth has the future, our children are being propagandized.”
I thought my friend was lying when she told me that protestors were able to scale the walls of the American Capitol with impunity, no guards were called in, and a local newspaper, a private enterprise, was taken to task for showing a prominent local dentist dancing in front of the storming Capitol, as if supporting the insurrection. I then understood the brilliance of shiva, where one sequesters herself in a home, away from the rest of the world, who moves on with their daily routine, while mourners sit in their own pod/bubble. I heard nothing of this earth shattering threat to democracy, and local politics, I heard stories of my father’s humility and ability, as Gabai Rishon for 40 years at the White shule, to avoid disputes and bad feelings.
In my last dvar torah, I pointed out that the Jewish numerical value of 2021 was a moment and in one moment, in a blink of an eye, foundations can shake. Last year at this time, the first cases of Covid were just seeping out of Wuhan, hitting Italy, and we seemed untouchable. Our democracy has been practically unshaken since its founding in the 18th century, and an old establishment newspaper is shunned for its Fifth Amendment protected free speech. If we don’t like what you say, we have a right to pull our advertising and support and that’s democracy too. It makes us unsettled and rattled.
Foundations are shaking, assumptions are challenged. G-d asks in this Torah portion that a shepherd named Moses, Moshe, go to Egypt and lead the Jewish slaves out of Egypt. Moses gives several reasons why he couldn’t be leader, but G-d insisted. The Torah legacy is handed down from Moses to Joshua, who handed it down to the Elders and so on, as a legacy of Torah to the Jews.
Jacob’s legacy, is his lifetime and children. What was Joseph’s Pharaoh’s legacy, that all that he had done with Joseph to save the region from famine was forgotten. What was Exodus’ Pharaoh’s legacy, the loss of slaves and death and destruction to his land, markedly different than Joseph’s Pharaoh who had saved the land from famine. What will President Trump’s legacy be? Will all that he has done for the country and internationally be reduced by his incitement to violence. We hope Mary Miller has no opportunity to take office, she has put herself in a situation giving credit to the world’s most heartless and evil tyrant.
The Weimar republic was voted into office. There is the second question of impeachment of President Trump for a tweet that took less than 30 seconds. Already, this year is a year of historically monumental moments.
With all that has occurred to me last year and this, as I sat shiva next to my mother, I reminded her of an exchange I had a long time ago, when I had asked her why it is that just as I thought I got life under control, it seemed to slip away again, years later as we sat shiva, she restated the answer, “that’s life, issues stop only when you die.” I processed and remembered the Talmud Yerushalmi, one of my favorites, on the story of Abraham’s commitment to follow G-d’s command and sacrifice Isaac, his son, on the altar.
At the last minute, G-d stops Abraham, and Abraham looks for a sacrifice substitute when he looks up and sees a ram with his horns stuck in thistles. The ram becomes free and is entangled a second and third time, when Abraham looks up to G-d and asks “hayihiyeh ken l’olam/will it be this way forever? Abraham foresaw the Jews going into exile into the diaspora three times, and their suffering at the hands of foreign rulers. G-d answered, that Moshiach will come and bring a final peaceful redemption. As I thought about it, after learning and teaching it over many years, I realize that G-d’s answer is built in to Abraham’s request. HAYihiyeh Ken L’olam, the acronym is Heichal, the holy temple. That when Messiah/Moshiach comes to rebuild the third temple, we will have everlasting peace with no further foreign sovereignties to suffer through.
Last year with no vaccine on the horizon, I attended few simchas/happy occasions. My father passed on New Years, January 1, for the entire year of 2021, there will be no simchas as I pay respect to my father who loved and honored humanity. Two years without happy/joyful public gatherings. It is hard on the soul to serve G-d in joy…although without the external joy, it will intensify the inner joy between the soul and G-d…stay tuned.
In one moment, security turns into bedlam, in one moment despair turns into joy. AND HE LIVED…And he died…with legacies.
Shabbat shalom.
-Suri