Dayenu

I suspect I am one of many for whom it is difficult, more likely impossible, to refuse a request from someone who occupies an honored place in one's personal "hall of fame."   Such was the case when Clare Butterfield, one of the initiators of this project, invited my participation. The answer was an immediate "Yes, of course," even before the content of the enterprise was explored more fully. 

To be clear – at least I hope so – thus far and happily the challenges in my life seem short of falling into the category of grave crises. But – if not for that but-- I'd likely little to offer. However, that conclusion only rings true because of lessons learned in what qualifies as the earliest and thus far most substantial moment of trial in what I’d describe as a relatively charmed journey.     

I was about 15 when we received the news that my dad had terminal cancer. The doctors told us he had, maybe, six months to live, albeit through will and experimental procedures, he survived for 2 1/2 years. In that period, one remarkably filled with grace, Dad gave me the enduring foundations which have helped me navigate through crises, however many or few have come my way. 

I happen to be an only child whose deepest connections, at least then, were most easily and readily expressed with my father. The shadow of his death, then, was, understatement, significant, especially as in those tumultuous days, my mother and I had a more contentious relationship.  

But to address the point of this undertaking, rather than the prospect of reaching some cynical conclusion about the point and purpose of life, of our lives, my father set out for me to embrace a different response. So to speak, what's the point of loving someone if the only certainty is you lose them? Convinced that must not be the end of the matter, my father set out to share with me what to this day, some 57 years later, I consider the most important lessons for living that inform the person I am striving to become. 

The specifics are engraved on my heart as four distinct insights. 

Lesson number 1. Life is a very precious and fragile gift. Hardly a novum and certainly requiring no elaboration, it nonetheless sets the stage for what follows. Lesson number 2, were I to die today, I want more. I am so intoxicated with the gift of life that, like Edna St. Vincent Millay, "I cannot hold it close enough." But lesson number 3 also must be acknowledged, one I mean with all the integrity it may be possible to convey. Were I to die today, it would be enough to say the gift of life was/is worth it. I want more, but if this is my portion then the only appropriate and joyful response is an always insufficient thank you. Or, since my religious vocabulary is shaped in the Jewish world, you may be familiar with the Hebrew phrase Dayenu. It translates, it would be enough for us. I want more, but if this is all I get, Dayenu, which leads to the final lesson. 

I would rather have my father than have learned any of this. While I can't have that, I can hold fast to what his life continues to mean for and in me, even as I still mourn that he is apart from me. Those four teachings serve as a pathway, more precisely a guide to minimize the obstacles and challenges in my life, as it provides a sanctuary for embracing this always brief moment before eternity.  

All of the above affirms the paradoxical wisdom of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk when he insists, “There is nothing so whole as a broken heart." 

Now as you may know, rabbis love to cite biblical citations for their teachings. Consider, then, a moment of substantial challenge found in Genesis. Recall the episode as the Patriarch Jacob returns home after 20 years in flight. The setting tells us it is the night before he will meet his brother Esau. The text describes an episode that must qualify on any shortlist as among the most important wrestling matches in history. Whatever and with whomever he struggled, the penultimate moment comes when his opponent implores that Jacob let him depart "for dawn is breaking." Soon to receive the name Israel, Jacob’s response is of the moment. "I will not let you go until you bless me." 

Unpacking that reflection, my conviction runs in the direction of I did not want this to happen, but I won't simply engage in a fairytale happily-ever-after denouncement. I need to find a good, the meaning, the capacity, perhaps, for blessing in this pain. I must acknowledge the experience, and I need to investigate what is the good that I may derive from it in order to become more of the person I am meant to be. 

To recall, when Jacob cum Israel leaves the encounter, we are informed that he will limp for the rest of his life. And as metaphor, is that not the human condition? We are wounded – all of us. Shall we go forward to meet a new dawn, or shall we ever and always be stuck in why me, when the more essential query is what can I do now? I did not want this to happen, but what response may allow me to find the blessing in it, the energy to continue, to connect, perhaps, even to inspire. 

Rabbi Menachem Mendel is right. “There is nothing so whole as a broken heart.” But only those who have had that experience know how true. And that wisdom provides a vital guide to a purposeful and purpose filled life.