Gathered Unto His People
Friday, Sept 12, 2014
Congregation B’nai B’rith, Santa Barbara CA
Shabbat shalom everyone.
I need to share with you what is on my mind this evening, even though it is intensely personal. As many of you know, my parents live in Rochester NY, the city where I grew up. In fact, my parents also grew up in Rochester. They have lived there almost their entire lives. And as some of you know, my father has suffered a series of medical crises in the past year. Kidney failure, a spinal infection, inability to walk….after a lifetime of good health, this year has seen one of his physical systems failing after another.
For my Dad, it has been heartbreaking. For eighty years, he was a golden boy—handsome, smart, athletic, admired and loved. And now he is stuck at home, in a wheelchair, with mounting problems and few remaining sources of pleasure. For our entire family, it has been difficult, both emotionally and logistically. None of us, their three children, live in Rochester, and so we have had to work long distance to try to give my parents practical and emotional support. I have been flying to Rochester once a month, three flights in each direction. There have been 24-hour aides living in their apartment, to help my father get in and out of bed, and dressed, and to the bathroom and shower. Thank goodness they could afford that. But it has been a huge invasion of their privacy. And on top of everything, a couple of months ago, one of those aides quietly took my parents’ credit card and began using it for her own purchases! She was caught making the purchase on the store’s security camera, and to be honest, the investigation has brought a little TV style drama into their lives and given us all something to talk about other than Dad’s medical condition.
Tonight, it seems possible that my father is dying. On Wednesday he was taken to the hospital, yet again, this time with huge blood clots in his legs and irregular heartbeat. I spoke with him yesterday morning, in the pulmonary ICU, and he sounded confused and hard to understand. My brother David in Princeton NJ got in his car and drove up to Rochester. This morning Dave emailed saying “here is the morning report. Dad is out of it. Fever. Pulmonary embolism. Infection. Two life-threatening conditions. They are very concerned.” My sister Sharon in Boston let us know that she was coming in, just because she wanted to be there. And I emailed saying “I’m struggling with where I should be.”
This is not the first time that my father has been teetering on the brink of life and death this year, but who knows how many more of these crises he can survive.
Naturally, we have been discussing his wishes regarding end of life medical care. Over the years, any time that I or any of my family raised the question of what heroic measures he would like taken, or under what circumstances he wanted to be allowed to die, he would declare cheerfully and emphatically: “it’s very simple. I am going to live forever!” One had to admire his positive attitude, but it did feel slightly unrealistic….especially for a physician who has over his fifty-year career borne witness many times to the truth that none of us lives forever.
I wrote to my brother and sister early this morning: “Despite his protestations, Dad is not going to live forever. He is very unlikely to ever walk again. He has had an immensely productive, generous and influential life up until about a year ago. If this is the end of his struggle that is not an entirely bad thing.” And my siblings each concurred, but my brother pointed out that my father’s advanced care directive fixed to the front of their refrigerator states “full code,” meaning “do everything you can to keep me alive.” And my sister added that according to my mother the doctor had asked my father recently whether he wanted to change that and he had said “no.” So we know my father’s wishes, which are to stay alive, as long as possible, no matter what.
There is an ancient legend about Moses, at the very end of his life. Our greatest prophet, at age one hundred and twenty had outlived his entire generation, and according to the legend, Moses still did not want to die. He drew a circle and stepped inside of it and declared to the Almighty: “I will not budge from this circle until You change Your mind and allow me to live…and to enter the Promised Land!” In response to Moses’ surprising refusal to accept his own mortality, God replies gently: “Moses. Each generation has its own leader. You have fulfilled your task; now it is Joshua’s turn.” To which Moses responds: “I will make room for Joshua. Let him become the teacher; and I will become the student. Just let me live.” God says “If you like.” And in a twinkling Moses finds himself sitting as a student in Joshua’s classroom.
When Joshua sees Moses sitting there, he cries out “My teacher, you teach us!” A student asks a question and Moses stands up and tries to answer, but the world suddenly grows dark and Moses cannot think of how to answer the question. And in that moment Moses accepts God’s decree.
I think it is important that in this legend, Moses is not afraid to die. He just wants more life. I honestly do not think that my father is afraid to die; I think he just wants more….another chapter of the book he has been reading with my mother. One more evening watching that blond newscaster on the BBC news. One more chicken dinner or dish of chocolate ice cream.
I have spent a lot of time in recent years wondering whether I should be speaking more openly about death. A thoughtful colleague in Orange County, Rabbi Elie Spitz, has written a new book entitled “Does the Soul Survive: A Jewish Journey to Belief in Afterlife, Past Lives and Living with a Purpose.” I’ve read that book, and discussed it with some of you. I have mixed feelings about it.
I would hope that Judaism has some wise words of comfort that might help us all be a bit more ready when our time comes. Something I could offer my dad, or to any of you who ask me…and I do get asked…”what does Judaism say about what happens to us when we die?”
The fact is, our Torah simply does not provide a description of the afterlife. But it offers a beautiful phrase to express that a person has died: “He was gathered unto his people.” I do not need or want a doctrine of the afterlife. I will never be ready to pledge allegiance to a belief about where my father is going. But I will be happy to allow my imagination to run free, and to imagine him reunited with his friend Earl, his best friend from childhood, whom he lost so long ago, and Nick and Stan and Jerry and his mentors Paul and John and George and his mother Dora, his father Samuel whom he never met, after whom I am named, and his many aunts and uncles Ida and Alice and Bertha and Ben and Itch and Louie and Charlie…
When he is good and ready, and not before, he will be gathered unto his people; all of those who raised him on Vienna Street, in the old Jewish neighborhood of Rochester, New York.
Shabbat Shalom.