Life and Death

Rabbi Melanie Aron

Kol Nidre 5763 -- September 15, 2002

When I think of death, I can't help but think of Woody Allen.

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work," he wrote, "I want to achieve it through not dying."

"It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens."

"It is impossible to experience one's death objectively, and still carry a tune."

Judaism is often identified as a religion of life. We turned away from ancient Egypt and its cult of the dead. We affirm "Choose Life". We affirm that the saving of a life, pikuach nefesh, takes precedence over other religious obligations. The imagery of the High Holidays, is full of praise for life. We call God, melech chafetz bachayim, the God who wishes life, and focus on the book of life and the prayer that we be there inscribed and sealed. We praise those who save lives, and some say for that reason there are so many Jewish doctors and medical personnel. We hold up as heroes the righteous gentiles who preserved Jewish lives during the Nazi era. In our prayers we remind God "lo hametim yehaleluchah, those who are dead cannot praise you" and bargain for the extension of our own lives. Unlike Christianity, where traditionally the focus of religion has been on eternal life after death, Judaism has remained primarily focused on this life and the good we can do while alive.

This focus on life is part of the "standing on one foot" version of Judaism, part of the generalizations we use to make communication easier. It has entered into popular culture, as the song "To Life" from Fiddler on the Roof, is known to so many millions around the world. The Jewish love of life has even become politicized, as we contrast this stress on life with the current cult of shaheed, of suicide bombers in the Arab community.

Yet, as with every generalization, we have to wonder whether it expresses the whole truth.

Does Judaism teach that life is the greatest of all goods? Does one never sacrifice one's life?

Thinking about it, we recognize that Judaism also has martyrs, ancient martyrs like Rabbi Akivah burned alive by the Romans, and more recent martyrs, like Hannah Senesh, who returned to Hungary to try and help her people. These martyrs are not forgotten, but have entered into our history and even our worship. Tomorrow afternoon in the additional service we read about the asarah harugay malchut, the Ten Great Matrys of the Roman era, including, Rabbi Yehudah ben Baba, old and slow of foot, who allowed the Roman lances to pierce his body so that his students might escape to live on after him. This reading is followed by memorials to those Jews martyred by the Crusaders and to all the victims of the Holocaust.

Our stress on life is challenged also by the difficult Torah reading of Rosh Hashanah morning, where Abraham is willing to sacrifice his son Isaac, upon God's command and the strange story of Jepthah who does sacrifice his daughter, though tradition believes it was out of ignorance and stubbornness, and not true faith.

Before turning to classical Jewish texts, let's think for a moment about the police officers and fire fighters killed on 9-11. Their willingness to put their lives at risk for the sake of other people has been recognized as heroic. Their example has made us realize, that, though in everyday life we try and minimize as much as possible to risks to the lives of those who serve our communities, that risk is still very real. Our society depends on a group of people being willing to take that risk for the common good, and serve not only as police officers and fire fighters but also in the national guard and armed services. Without some members of the community being willing to take on some degree of risk, the security of each one of us would be imperiled.

Must we put ourselves in harms way? Must we volunteer to serve? Jewish tradition requires an individual to put their life on the line only in order to save another's life in a very direct way, or to avoid being the perpetrator of a sexual crime such as rape. You are not required to risk your life for less directs threats, unless you are an identified leader of the community and by not sacrificing your life, you would be leading others astray. You may save your own life by killing your attacker, but not by killing an innocent bystander or other third party even if you are put to death as a result.

What about volunteering? If for example the call comes out: who will fight Goliath for us? You are not required to go. It would be different if this were a service required of everyone, as for example guard duty for a certain number of hours in order to maintain the city gates. In the case of a citizens militia, the rabbis drew a distinction between serving in the army for a defensive war, in which case everyone has to go, and serving in other battles, for expansion or to protect a country's interests less directly. In those cases bridegrooms, owners of new homes and fields, and those whose heart melts, sometimes explained as those with a guilty conscience or fear of battle, or perhaps conscientious objectors (depending on how you read the Hebrew) are required by Biblical statue to be released from service.

Let's look at another group who sacrificed their lives this year, those civilian victims of terror who were either visitors to Israel or who had the option of going elsewhere. From the point a view of Jewish law, must an individual endanger their lives by going to Israel or by living there under the current circumstances? There are a variety of answers to this question, depending on what analogies you draw.

In the Middle Ages when it was difficult and dangerous to live in Israel, a man could not compel his wife to leave her home and move to Israel. If he decided he wanted to fulfill the mitzvah of making aliyah, going to live in Israel, then she had the option of traveling with him, or of being divorced and handed the monetary value of her ketubah before he left. Does that mean that one is not obligated to fulfill this mitzvah of going up to Israel, or merely that another person, even a spouse, cannot make that decision for you?

There are other places in our tradition where those who chose to live in safety while others of their people are in danger, were sharply criticized.

When the tribes of Ephraim, Menashe and Gad chose to take as their ancestral portions, the land east of the Jordan, rather than entering the Holy Land itself, Moses is enraged at them. What is the problem? Why should they, Moses asks, live in security outside the land of Canaan, while the rest of the Israelites struggle. Similarly in the time of the judges, Deborah and Gideon are both critical of tribes who refuse to come to the aid of their fellow Israelites. Another example is Moses during the time the Israelites were fighting the Amalekites, who had attacked the elderly and the children, the stragglers in the Israelite camp. Moses was too old to join in the battle, but he refused to sit down and be comfortable as long as the Israelites were in danger.

My reading of the tradition compels me as a member of the Jewish people today to go to Israel. I cannot sit comfortably in my home. After much soul searching I went to Israel this past winter with my husband and two younger children. During the two months we spent in Jerusalem, there was more than one morning when we woke up at 4:30 A.M. to the crash of sonic booms, or drove Shifrah to school past a bombed out coffee house, and were frightened by what we were doing. But sometimes you have to do things that are difficult, and I plan to go back this coming winter again, though it will have to be for a shorter period of time.

I recognize that not everyone will be able to join me in this decision. But I hope you will give it real consideration. Right now the only American Jews going to Israel in any number are the college students going with Birthright Israel. I think there is a great irony in sending our young people where we ourselves are unwilling to go. Their trips are paid for by American benefactors, and they are of an age to believe they are invincible, but still I hope that for some of us the expense and the risk, small but real, will be overcome by our commitment.

Living in a free, secure and democratic society in America, we have had the luxury of being very focused on our own personal lives. Communal needs have not demanded much of us-- even our taxes are lower than in most countries. And in some ways it is a very good thing that we can be so self-involved.

Current political thinking about democracies not going to war against each other rests upon this self-centeredness of their citizenry. Individuals in democracies don't want to die and so it is thought that they will try and avoid war, at almost all costs.

But this can also be a weakness. Hamas believes this weakness is Israel's Achilles heel, that being democratic and life loving, Israel will not be able to take too many deaths. Hamas has explicitly stated that this is the reason they chose guerilla warfare and terrorism.

There are those who would make a similar calculation about the United States. I am glad that President Bush has turned to the United Nations to insist on compliance of its own resolutions on Iraq, and I prayer for our own country and for Israel that we don't go to war, but it would not be good for the world in the long run, if other nations were too sure that nothing would prompt the United States into battle.

It is interesting to me that in Israel, while many of the people whom we met through the University and in the Reform congregations we visited opposed Sharon's government, and some even opposed the military campaign which followed the intense period of suicide bombings, their enthusiasm for the refusenik's, those reservists who are currently refusing to serve in the West Bank and in Gaza, waned after an initial flare of interest. These men may be heroes on the Liberal Church circuit here in the United States, but in Israel, even among the doves, there is recognition that army service is something one does for the benefit of the whole community, and that if you don't do your share, someone else will need to do more. My Israeli friends believe that there are other more moral ways to express one's political viewpoints; they understand what it means to hold up their share of a communal obligation.

Here in America our adopting a community consciousness will not bring most of us into the army reserves, but I hope it will make us more willing to do something besides shopping - for our country and its welfare. I hope our willingness to put the good of all before our own personal benefit here in the United States will make us think twice about environmental issues, when we buy a car, fix up our homes, or purchase a new appliance. I hope it will give us the courage to speak out about our convictions even when they are unpopular, or not conducive to the warm feelings of the group. Perhaps some of us are in positions to promote job sharing rather than reductions in force as a more communally minded solution to current economic problems. With elections coming up this fall, we can investigate which candidates favor investing more in social services, in the public health apparatus and the safety net, which are important to our society. If we won't take on the inconvenience of not having that SUV or energy guzzling new gadget, risk the momentary disapproval of friends, or diminish our pay check to a small extent to see that all members of our society are better cared for, how can we see ourselves as the descendents of greater generations, who made significant sacrifices in the cause of freedom, their country or their nation.

Yom Kippur, according to Rabbi Larry Kushner, is a rehearsal for death. We act like dead people on Yom Kippur, neither eating nor drinking, nor procreating; traditionally even wearing a shroud, the garment in which an Orthodox Jew is buried. But at the end of the day when the Shofar sounds, we discover, hey we are still alive, renewed for another year. While our life, as it were, hangs in the balance for that one day, we have the potential to see things in that special way that we do when our lives are really at risk. I remember reading the memoir of a rabbi who had a heart attack at a young age, but after a period of time was able to return to his home and resume his work at the Temple. He wrote about how wonderful that first day back was, how magnificent even to be outside and feel the sunshine, to kiss his wife goodbye as he set off to purposeful work, to come into his office and pick up the phone and speak to people he respected and felt close to, to do the many things he had taken for granted for years--and how difficult it was to preserve that special feeling, as he returned to his regular routine. Some of us have had that experience, even if we have thankfully not been seriously ill. Sometimes when we are victims of a false positive result, we are temporarily made more aware of the ephemeral nature of life and its preciousness. As we remember those times, we consider the words of the meditation before the Kaddish found in the old blue prayerbook: "All things which seem foolish in the light of death, are really foolish in themselves", and conversely, as Yitz Miller pointed out so beautifully last Friday night, as we learned from those last phone calls made from the World Trade Center towers, all that we recognize as precious to us when it seems at risk, is truly at the heart of our being. Lo Hametim yehallelchah, the dead cannot praise God, but we who are still alive, can live up to our potential as creatures made in God's image.