Our congregation has experienced death recently. A number of long-time members have passed
away in the last two months. Each one is
missed: by close family members, and by
the congregation as a whole. In each
case, these individuals were not so active in the shule in their last years as
their illnesses took their toll. Even
so, you remember fondly when they were among the most active members of
our community. You remember them the way
they were…just as you remember yourselves the way you were
10 or 15 years ago.
As you know, I am
periodically called upon to officiate at funerals for those who were not members
of our congregation. For the
unaffiliated in our community. We all
agree that there are plenty of Jews out there on the Gold Coast who belong to
neither shule, or go to Chabad. Who do
not even connect with the community through the handful of other ways that do
not include synagogue affiliation, through organisations such as the NCJW. They are simply out there; they call
themselves Jews, but that self-definition does not lead to any specific acts of
affiliation or connection. Nobody can
agree as to how many such Jews are out there.
Nobody could possibly know. But
we know they’re there. We run into
them: accidentally, or through life
events.
So Jews die, and
sometimes when they do I am called upon to perform the funeral service. I’ve mentioned these occasions to you before,
including from this bimah in my drashes.
Sometimes these encounters leave me especially sad because of the way
that the deceased isolated themselves from the community. We could have been there to comfort them in
life, and to respect them in death. But
they took that opportunity away from us.
I do hope that, when I’ve mentioned such experiences, I’ve not given the
impression of kvetching. But
rather of sadness over the tragedy of a Jew dying alone.
I did another such
funeral this week, for an unaffiliated person, and it was sad but also moving. Let me explain.
When people ask me
how the Jews of Australia compare with those of America, I usually tell them
that Jews are Jews, wherever you go. And
I mean that. Jews in an Australian congregation
have more in common with Jews in an American congregation, than not. But if you press me on the issue, I usually offer
the following observation.
The Australian
Jewish community has the largest percentage of members who are survivors of the
Sho’ah, the Nazi Holocaust, and their children than any other Jewish
community in the world except the Jews of Israel. According to statistics, 48 percent of you
either were yourselves in some way victims of the Hitler’s madness, or are
direct descendants of those who were.
That fact, the overwhelming sharing of the one experience of your
origins, really colours a lot of your attitudes about life…and Judaism. There is no way around it.
This week I buried a
survivor. A woman in her nineties. A Dutch Jew who with her husband and young
son, was rounded up after being hidden from the Nazis and their collaborators
by some kind Christians. Their story is
remarkably similar to the more famous account of Anna Franck and her
family. But the difference is that this
woman and her family were not further deported from the transit camp at
Westerbork, east to one of the death camps as the Francks were. Because she was a professional chef, and her
husband a professional baker, they were kept in the Dutch camp to work feeding
the thousands detained there. They did
not die but lived to try to transcend their experience.
Unfortunately, most
survivors are unable to transcend their experience. It’s not only that the experience remains
with them for the rest of their lives – that is a given. A select number are able to rise up above their
suffering and create lives of positive action, spurred on by the persecution
they’ve experienced to make the world just a little better for the next
generations. But most, if we’re honest,
are stuck for the rest of their lives in their prisons of memory. Prisons of madness. Prisons of unhappiness. Prisons from which there is no parole, no
release except death. Such was this
woman. In her life, she was unable to
transcend her experience. Only in her
death will she finally know that peace. The
peace she was unable to achieve in life.
What does it take a
achieve peace in life? By peace, I do
not mean quietude. Although for some,
quietude may be a prerequisite for peace. Especially if one has live through tumultuous experiences. But quietude is not, in of itself, peace. Peace is wholeness. How do we achieve wholeness?
Often, for those who
have experienced brokenness, achievement of wholeness comes from rising above
the source of their brokenness. If one
is broken from having experienced persecution, one first does not persecute. But then, one takes the further step of actively
opposing persecution when one sees it. That’s
why Holocaust survivors, and their offspring, are often seen at the forefront
of movements to raise awareness of, and stamp out, persecution of others. Why Jews have a propensity to speak out
against other peoples’ rights. About
compassion for refugees. About the
rights of GLBT people. About genocide in
Darfur or Tibet.
Most of us in this
room are not so active in causes. We
think of it as being ‘political,’ and therefore somehow distasteful. We shy away from it. I’m not sure I understand exactly why, but it’s
a fact. Logically, one who has known the
sting of persecution or exclusion should be sensitive when others are
persecuted or excluded. And they should
be more inclined to speak out about it.
How about you? I know many of you well, and I know many of
your personal stories. Holocaust
survivors or simply displaced by the Holocaust and the Second World War. Made homeless when regime change came to your
native lands. Having had to fight for
your dignity as Jews in your own lands. Having had to prove to yourselves and others,
that you are just as good as anybody else. If this describes you, then I have a question
for you this evening. Are you sensitive
to the persecution and exclusion of others? For whatever reason? If not, then let me recommend that the way to
transcend your unhappiness over your own treatment, is to go out of your way to
treat others better. Even if they are
individuals – or groups – that you don’t particularly like. That’s the way to happiness.
Euthanasia. We all know the word. When we use it, it usually means someone taking
active measures to end their own life. Or
being assisted in doing so. But the
word, which comes from Greek, simply means ‘a good death.’ The implication is that a ‘good death’ is one
that enables one to avoid, or cut short, a life of suffering.
In that sense, the
woman who I buried this week had a good death.
Her loved ones should not feel guilty if they do not mourn her passing. As long as they mourn her life itself. Which they do. It would have been far better for the woman
to have a good life, than a good death. But
she was unable to give herself that gift.
And that, not her death, is the real tragedy in all this.
If you’re listening
to this, or reading this, you’re alive. It
is not too late for you to have a good life.
Because whatever suffering you’ve experienced, goes away when you
transcend it. Not that it didn’t
happen. Of course it did, and it has
become a part of the person you are. But
if you can transcend it – if you can bring your life meaning by making your
life free of whatever spirit, whatever behaviours beset you in the past – then you
achieve victory over it. And in this
life, victories do not come often or easily.
But you can have this one.
Shabbat shalom.
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