The 9th of Adar was the yartzeit of Uzi Fisher z'l. Uzi was a friend of ours who was learning here three years ago when, through the decision of the Powers that be, he left this world. It was shocking, intense, and astonishing as it happened, and as it has unfolded. It was a miracle in a certain sense-meaning, it was clearly an act of God. It was extremely unusual, and it changed the world forever. The only seeming difference is that Hashem's classic miracles for the Jewish people generally tend to be granting us life-like in Purim or Chanuka or splitting the sea-not taking it. But even from that note-what has got to be the deepest lesson from the 9th of Adar-from the actual day of Uzi's passing on, there have always been such LIFE events around that day. For example, just after Uzi died, his roommate Shimon married with Shira. And on the yartzeit this year, I found myself dancing in a circle around the bimah, where sat a picture of Uzi and a yartzeit candle, while singing "siman tov u'mazel tov" to Moshe Chayim, a bocher who got engaged that day. The morning after the yartzeit was the bris of the second child of yeshiva alum and close friend Raz and his wife Leah. And then, at the bris, I found out that Leibush Hundert, another Bat Ayin alum, got engaged (Mazel TOV!!). And then I came back to yeshiva and everybody was heading to a l'chaim, for Arieh Zehavi, another bocher who just got engaged. This yartzeit has turned into the focal point of so many Bat Ayin simcha. Each year, it seems, we make the trip from the grave back to the yeshiva and then to the wedding hall with Purim somehow worked into the mix. A simchah on a yartzeit is not a simple thing… It's powered by an elastic band principle, one of the world's basic principles-from the lowest points, we gather the strength for the highest joys.
If we were to cut away the life-story around a death, it wouldn't be so sad, since there would be no memory of the deceased to make us miss anything. It would be a cold unknown body in a box. That, in itself, may be sad, but most don't cry about it. But when I have laughed, argued, fought and made up with that friend, then the death is excruciatingly sad. The same is true with weddings. How much do you dance with an unknown chatan? To really know the joy of a friend's wedding-generally, to really share with a partner in growth-we must involve ourselves in a real way with the life before us each day. The deepest experiences of life are born from deep engagement with their contexts, the bigger pictures that our memories allow us to hold. To merit that kind of life, a life of depth, we must be remembering the past and relating it to the present. Otherwise, the Truth suffers. If there were no truth to what I lived, I would feel pretty worthless. To have my life stripped of the meaning in experience-this makes my blood curdle as I write, and that is my Jewish blood that curdles, because as a Jew, you know how important Memory must be. It is the driving force behind holydays and always just a sentence away in our daily religious life. This attachment to our context gives our present its power. It's what entitles us to make a distinction between establishing the Jewish homeland in Israel and setting up a Jewish nation-state in Uganda. Without cleaving to our contexts, our people dissolves.
Shabbat Zachor, the Sabbath of "Remember!", treats the importance of attachment to context through memory. It is a remedy given before the sickness, as remedies often are in our tradition. By steeping ourselves in our past, we can be confidently present in the here and now. If I know all the laws of Shabbat observance, I can act confidently in a new challenging situation on Shabbat; if I don't, my day of rest may become a day of doubt. If I have learned about the preciousness of life through loss, then the deep joy of two people finding their life-partners is much clearer. This pattern occurs in Shabbat Zachor, a Shabbat focused on remembering who is the Jewish people's enemy and what he did to us. If we know, then the next day we can go decisively battle Amalek-without tripping over questions of our dedication to ourselves, our people, and our vision. Rav Erez described the greatest evil of Haman the Wicked this way: he could make you question yourself. I can't be happy with myself if my very connection to my being is in doubt. To be happy with ourselves is the most vital weapon for the Jewish people's struggle against sickness, assimilation and hardship. To be able to find joy in our tradition and see a direct connection between my particular reality and the web of historical past or spiritual structure surrounding it, gives me a sense of import and unity that can destroy Amalek. Sometimes our minds, after eating from the fruit of consciousness, can double-think every action. To fix that, I think, we drink to the place of not knowing, going beyond our intellects into a simple awareness of our sinews. At the core of Jewish faith, are simple truths that are held by memory. If our spiritual edifice gets too big, we risk forgetting and masking that which is out most basic core. This Shabbos, we expand our muscle memory, and on Purim we will flex. Uzi z'l was very good at that-thinking with the gut, that is. May we too merit to be on a level-like Uzi z"l said-of "Jewish men who put on tefillin and daven in a minyan," acting from our deepest soul, in simplicity and purity. Gut shabbes, Great purim.
Shaul David Judelman
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Shaul David Judelman currently resides in Jerusalem. After growing up amongst the Douglas Firs of Seattle, Washington, he came to Israel on a quest for Judaism alive in its land. He spent six years in the Bat Ayin Yeshiva Rabbinical program and now teaches at Yeshivat Simchat Shlomo while working on several different environmental initiatives in Jerusalem. He is the founder and coordinator of Simchat Shlomo’s Eco-Activist Beit Midrash, a program offering holistic in-depth Torah study around issues of ecology. |