I want to pick up this morning where I
left off the last time. Any one remember? My last
message when we were together in such large numbers was at
the Yizkor service last Yom Kippur when I spoke about
Mitch Album’s new book entitled One More Day. If we could
have one more day with someone we loved and lost - one
more day to be together, hold each other, laugh together,
cry together, who would it be. What would we say - what
would we do. One More Day!
Since that day, I’ve read Mitch Album’s
book in its Hebrew translation entitled עוד יום אחד (I’m
happy to lend it to any one interested) and I am a
different person today than I was last year at this time.
I am a different person though not because of the book as
much as because of what I have lived and learned these
past twelve months and it is just that, what I have
learned that I would like to share with you today, perhaps
even teach you today.
I also want to entitle my talk today
One More Day but I mean it in a far different way than
Mitch Album does in his book and I am deeply grateful for
that. I have never dedicated a sermon to anyone in over
thirty years, but I dedicate this sermon to Janie because
she is the inspiration of what I hope to convey today.
Janie is the inspiration of much more than what I can
convey to you. It is with Janie that I have One More Day
and with that I begin the New Year grateful and fortunate.
One More Day. You’ve got it but you may
not be aware of it because you don’t see life this way
yet. The Baal Shem Tov once taught that there are wonders
and miracles right before us but we go about with our
hands covering our eyes and so we are unaware of them. I
would like to help you take your hands away from your eyes
today so you can see before you the miracle of One More
Day. You’re here. You have One More Day ... with the
person you came with, with the person you’re going home
with. I hope that’s the same person. Have you ever thought
that it is possible that this person with whom you share
life could possibly not be here and I don’t mean couldn’t
make it to the synagogue today but really that this person
in your life could possibly not be here any more. But
they are here and you are here and you have One More Day.
I hope we have one more year and I hope we have one more
decade and more and more. I hope but we don’t know. We
have One More Day and how precious this day is.
It could be different. For too many of
you sitting here, you know what it means to have lost that
One More Day. On that sunny, seemingly beautiful Tuesday
morning six years ago, September 11, thousands of families
lost ever having one more day with their loved one. In an
instant the future dissolved. Today is Thursday September
13 six years later. We have the gift of One More Day. How
do we live better knowing this?
You know Janie and I and our family have had quite a
summer. In the deepest way, I feel that we have One More
Day. We are living in a new phase of our lives. It is a
great phase. The name of this phase is One More Day. We
recently celebrated Janie’s birthday. We will not sing
Happy Birthday today if I know what’s good for me but I
can tell you Janie spent the day feeling it was the best
birthday ever. We celebrated One More Day.
We were hesitant to send an e-mail to
the congregation this summer during the weeks we were in
Israel and in the hospital in part because we have had not
only quite a summer but quite a year. Our story started to
sound to me like a tale of our ongoing woes and instead
of being a source of inspiration as your Rabbi, I was
afraid we became a story of trials and tribulations
instead.
Our story began right after the
holidays last year with my own medical issue in the fall
that drained 2/3 of our planned sabbatical in Israel. I
was having symptoms from a congenital condition I never
knew I had. All of a sudden, I was told that if untreated
immediately, I could lose function here and more function
there and my greatest concern was I would no longer be
able to function as a Rabbi. Because this congenital
condition is now diagnosed in infants I had to find a
pediatric neurosurgeon to operate and it was a challenge
at my age to be admitted into a Childrens’ Hospital where
these great surgeons operate. We were led to a marvelous
surgeon at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. He couldn’t
promise I would regain much movement I was losing but I
regained it all totally. I’m better than new. I have One
More Day and I know it. I have said many times I enjoy
being a rabbi today more than at any other time in my
rabbinate but even more so now that I have been given the
gift of One More Day. I don’t often quote our neighbors
next door with the Golden Arches but its fair to say “I’m
lovin it.”
And then this summer - within 36 hours
of landing at Ben Gurion Airport and walking through the
entire expansive terminal together, I was sitting by
Janie’s side at the emergency room of Hadassah hospital
and 8 hours later doing the same in the intensive care
unit. That was our first Shabbat in Jerusalem. The next
day, Professor Weitzman, in charge of the ICU told me
with a somber expression, we’ll know better in 24 hours.
I called the girls and told them to come to Israel. Thank
G-d in those 24 hours, we turned the corner if we weren’t
yet out of the woods. Some days later, when we did get out
of the woods, I first thought I wanted to forget those
days, the tubes and monitors, fears and uncertainties of
the ICU but oddly enough, I came to find myself not
wanting to forget but wanting to revisit them. I returned
to and continue to return to that image in the ICU at
Hadassah. It was so scary then but has become my guide
and my friend because each time I return to that place in
my mind and I return often, I am a different person than I
was before. That image instructs me that I was given the
gift of One More Day with Janie. We turned the corner, we
got out of the woods and I ask myself each day O.K.
Eliott, what do you do with that One More Day now? today?
Mitch Album’s book One More Day may be
autobiographical but he writes it about a character by the
name of Chic Bento. As the book opens Chic tries to take
his own life but he survives his attempt.
Chic’s story conveyed in alternating
chapters is how good, giving, loving and sacrificing was
his mother and how unappreciative and indifferent he was
as a son. As he was a son, he became the same as a
husband and as a father and he found himself all alone.
His life was so terribly empty and meaningless. It is
clearly out of his guilt and remorse that he wishes he had
but one more day to live with his mother. He is given
that gift and in that one more day, he tries to make up
for a lifetime of neglect when he took his mother for
granted.
It is crystal clear to me that if we
understand that we have the gift of One More Day now, we
can live that day fully and lovingly and so without any
guilt and without any remorse. Near the end of the book,
after spending this One More Day with his mother,
realizing how wonderful she was and how much he had
squandered, Chic Bento says “It’s a shame we haven’t done
this before.” It’s a shame we haven’t done this before.
So do it now.
The pinnacle of the High Holy Day liturgy is the Unetanek
Tokef prayer when we recite those chilling words מי יחיה
ומי ימות Who shall live and who shall die this coming
year. On Rosh Hasnahan it is written and on Yom Kippur it
is sealed. You can decide how literally or figuratively
you want to take this but the rest of the prayer is
literally true. If you count them it is the top ten list
of the ways that death could occur. This prayer is enough
to shake you up and realize it could be different but we
are here and we have One More Day to live in a way so we
will never say “It’s a shame we haven’t done this
before.”
I’ll ask you to do something now I’ve
asked you to do before. Take in a deep breath. Take in a
deep full breath.... Don’t take for granted you can do
this. Don’t take for granted your loved one can do this. I
don’t take this for granted any more. For much of my life,
I have taken little for granted. Now, I don’t take
anything for granted. I am grateful for every big and
little thing. Knowing that we will read of the double
digit ways it could end, celebrate that breath of life
that is yours and your loved one’s. Celebrate that you
have One More Day together and do something to celebrate
it. Think about one day saying “Its a shame we haven’t
done this before” and then do it now so you won’t ever
say it.
Who will live and who will die.
And then the prayer continues....
But repentance, prayer and charity can avert the severity
of the decree. The most severe decree may not be death
itself but living as if you were dying more than living.
That means living without loving enough. That means living
without appreciating the preciousness of each day. It
means living as if you have forever to attend to the
person who needs you and seeks your attention now. If you
are walking on the path marked “not really living” you
can do תשובה repentance. This means making a dramatic
change which I urge you to make before some dramatic event
comes to prompt your change.
Repentance Prayer and Charity...
Prayer, with your One More Day make time for a spiritual
dimension to your life. Deut. לא על לחם לבדו יחיה אדם
not by bread alone does one live. There’s more to life
than being a bread winner or having the largest loaf of
bread. Take time just to be, to be with, to be with G-d,
to be with those in whom you can see G-d’s reflection.
Repentance, Prayer and Charity...
Charity - share your bread with others. Bill and Melinda
Gates and Warren Buffet and Oprah and others are teaching
us that its not the one who has the most who comes out the
winner, its one who gives the most. The richest person in
America is not the one who owns the most but the one who
shares the most or maybe the richest person is the one who
lives in this new phase of life I recommend to you - live
with the appreciation that we have One More Day.
If you can remember back to the
beginning of this Sermon, I dedicated it to Janie and said
that Janie is the inspiration for this message. Janie is
the inspiration not because she was sick. Any of us can
get sick. Janie is an inspiration in how I see her live
each One More Day.
It’s almost two months now since we
returned from Israel. I am still in this new phase of One
More Day. It is the memory of those days in early July
that keep me in this phase. Rosh Hashanah is known as Yom
Hazikaron, the day of remembrance. Some memories though
not easy are most important because they have the greatest
lessons to teach us. And I hope that my memory can teach
you something about living as well. We have One More Day.
Never take it for granted
It could have been different. Every
time I visit that thought or it visits me I feel a burst
of love, of gratitude, of opportunity of realization that
I have One More Day. We have One More Day.
I hope for an easier year ahead but
this past year has been an important one. It has had much
to teach and I hope I have been a good student and learned
much from it. I hope I never forget that we have One More
Day. I hope I will never have to say “Isn’t it a shame
that...”
And I hope that what I have learned I
have shared with you so you can take your hand from in
front of your eyes and see the miracle that is before you
that you have One More Day to live with. Live it with
love, with joy with patience and with passion.
Who Will Live and Who Will Die? We are
here and we have One More Day. As Hillel said to his
student זיל גמר Now go forth. All the rest is Commentary!
