Teshuvah—return, restoration,
reconciliation, whether with ourselves, other people, or God—does not happen
all at once. It happens in a progression of insights and encounters. Like the
Long War, it may take decades. Perhaps something will stir you this Yom Kippur
that will affect you long after this day.
Last year, I spoke to you about difficult decisions regarding end-of-life medical treatment, emphasizing compassionate care and pain management, rather than intentional termination of life. In other years, I have pointed to the desirability of organ donation.
Tonight, I want to discuss difficult conversations. They include asking for a raise, ending a relationship, saying no to someone, confronting hurtful behavior, disagreeing with others, discussing a bequest and apologizing. “Difficult conversations are attempted or avoided every day.”
Much of Yom Kippur is about words. So many of the al ẖet declarations deal with flaws and sins of speech (11/44). Others focus on attitude, desire and impulse. We may be talking to God, but we are focused on our relationships.
Joe is overweight. His doctor puts him on a diet. “I want you to eat regularly for two days, then skip a day, and repeat this procedure for two weeks. The next time I see you, you’ll have lost at least five pounds.” Joe returned after two weeks, having lost nearly twenty pounds. “Amazing!” the doctor said, “Did you follow my instructions?”
Joe nodded, “Yes. But, I’ll tell you, I thought I was going to drop dead that third day.”
“From hunger?” “No, from all that skipping.”
We all have conversations that we dread or find unpleasant, that we avoid or face. We fear the consequences of the conversation and so go round and round—should I raise this or keep it to myself? If we avoid, we’ll feel taken advantage of. But if we bring up the issue, it may make things worse.
How might we manage those challenging conversations? Sometimes they come at us, seemingly without anticipation. But other times, we can prepare for them. In the book, Difficult Conversations, the authors suggest having when we have our inner monologue, we ask ourselves three questions: What actually happened? What was I feeling? What is truly upsetting me?
After the inner conversation, find an opportune time to engage your spouse or sibling, parent or child, supervisor or subordinate, colleague or client. Recognize that an important part of the conversation is listening patiently to the perceptions of the other person.
“Keep my mouth from speaking falsehood”. Honestly bring your narrative, perception or decision forward. After you have heard the other’s description of what happened, you can always add “I recognize that you did what you thought was correct, AND - not BUT- and I still want.…
Keep in mind what your long-term goal is, so that you don’t become reactive or sidetracked. Remember: not all situations can be salvaged or resolved. Ending employment or marriage or life still hurts. Whether in business or family life, not all conversations end with apologies or forgiveness.
By now, you know that David Bezmozgis and Chancellor Arnold Eisen of JTS will be in dialogue here on Monday evening. In David’s new novel, The Betrayers, he telescopes into one day an encounter between Baruch Kotler, a former refusenik who had been imprisoned in the gulag, and Chaim, the KGB informer. After heroic adulation in Israel, Kotler is now disgraced. He has fled to Crimea where he meets Chaim. The book is an account of their difficult conversation. At one point, Kotler says, “There is no fault; there is no blame and no praise either, but we are all held accountable.”
Last spring, on the Path of Abraham, we again brought Jews, Muslims and Christians to spend an evening with an Israeli and a Palestinian who has each lost a loved one. I find the pain they express to be unbearable. I initially felt the Israeli loss was tragic and the Palestinian loss was merely regrettable. But as I listened to the stories, national identity becomes less significant than the loss itself. Each of these individuals has made a choice for life, to transcend grief and avoid vengeance. U’vaharta ba’hayyim.
The fasting and self-denial of Yom Kippur is supposed to detach us from our bodies. We need to detach from more than our bodies. In the 13 attributes of mercy, there is a theological hope expressed in metaphor: we ask God to move from the Rosh Hashanah throne of justice to the Yom Kippur throne of mercy, to relate to us with compassion, not judgment. Forgiveness is possible only when we detach from the need to be in the throne of justice and judgment, to be proven right, and are able to move to a place of compassion and mercy.
Rami Elhanan, almost 60, is a graphic designer and a 7th generation Jerusalemite. His story begins and ends on Yom Kippur:
In October 1973, I was a young reserve soldier in the midst of a terrible war. We [began] with 11 tanks and ended with only 3. On Yom Kippur evening, 1983, Smadar, smiling, full of life, joined Nurit and my three sons. On the 4th September 1997, a few days before Yom Kippur, Smadar and two friends went to Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem. There, they [were] killed by Palestinian suicide bombers. It was Thursday at three in the afternoon.
[After] the Shivah, you must face yourself in the mirror and decide: Where do you direct this new and terrible pain? [After] the first madness of anger, you begin to ask: if I kill someone in revenge, will that bring my baby back to me? If I cause someone pain, will that ease my own pain? [This inner conversation starts] a long and slow, difficult and painful process. You gradually reach [a different path].
I met Yitzhak Frankenthal who told me about his son Arik, kidnapped and murdered by Hamas in 1994. He invited me to attend this group. I stood aloof when [I went]. I never dreamt that one day I would be among [these people]. I remember seeing Yaakov, a holocaust survivor who lost his son, Raz, in the first Lebanon War. I saw Roni, a friend, [who] lost both his sons, Amir and Elad.
And then I saw something new. Arabs getting off the buses, bereaved Palestinian families: men, women and children, coming towards me, greeting me … and crying with me... And I distinctly remember, a respectable elderly woman dressed in black from tip to toe and on her breast a locket with a picture of a kid, about six years old...
We, the bereaved, from both sides of the cancerous conflict, say: Our blood is the same red, our suffering identical. If we can carry on a [conversation], then everyone can!
Why do I tell you Rami’s story tonight? You all know that tomorrow I will ask you to support the continued building and development of Israel. But tonight I want to tell you about building souls and reconstructing lives. The faces and souls of those who have suffered losses, who tell us not to give up hope, model for us a path of teshuvah, of restoration and return.
How do they go beyond their grief? How do they forge a positive direction from the searing abyss of their pain?
* they find a community to share their loss.
* they have difficult conversations that express their anger and pain.
* they gradually replace a desire for justice with a yearning for compassion
Each of us has been scarred by pain. For some it is more submerged and for others it is on the surface. For some it is the grief of death, for others it is debilitating illness or the loss of a relationship.
When facing a child or a parent, a spouse or sibling who has done terrible things to you or to your family, I say: you are right. You are justified in your rage and anger. You can distance yourself from the person who has done this damage. Sometimes, this is the only way to maintain your sanity or your safety.
AND there may be another way. A H̱asidic story: A man is lost in the forest. He finds another person and asks, “Can you show me the way out”. The other person responds, “I too am lost, but I know one thing. The way you are going is not the way out.”
I cannot tell you which path will lead you out of your thicket. I can only say that it often starts with a difficult conversation. It may not lead to love. It may require tremendous effort and great will. It may elicit deep personal anguish and necessitate professional assistance.
In her poignant book, Happier Endings, Erica Brown discusses paths to ease the pain of death. It is still not a happy end, just happier. She considers hospice care, funeral rituals and personal beliefs. She reflects on assisted suicide and pain control, on denial of death and inspiration from the dying. She examines bucket lists, final words and ethical wills.
She writes: “When it comes to saying ‘sorry’ or hearing it, there is a significant time-lag between the act and the acceptance. The problem with deathbed forgiveness is that we don’t always have the time, or the one who needs to grant forgiveness is not there to offer it.” (260)
What about at work or at home, with colleagues or with friends? Difficult conversations are necessary, but deeply disturbing.
Last summer, after three Israeli teens were kidnapped, we heard the words “Bring back our boys.” After 18 days of darkness, Gilad Shaer, Naftali Frenkel, and Eyal Yifrah were found. Dead.
During this period and after, Rahel Frenkel, the English speaking mother of Naftali, became a model of courage and hope, realism and principled faith. Her actions were an example of a difficult conversation—with God and with people—often carried out in public.
Facing the situation, she was hopeful but realistic. She asked that other nations and people intervene. She prayed, but added, “We work for God; God doesn’t work for us.”
In her eulogy, she provided a cautionary note: “Prayer is worthy, both before one’s fate is decreed and after. But, you cannot always change a decree.” “Each prayer has its own work to do. There is no senseless act of love and charity. A good act stands on its own.”
And at the burial she provided an example of a deed that stands on its own. She recited kaddish. This is still unusual in Israel. Her act was empowering. Even the two Chief Rabbis responded amen to her words.
She spoke of finding hesed in a cruel world, gratitude for finding her son’s body. “This is an act of kindness, it was not clear that this would happen.” She spoke about the support she and the families had received from family, friends, Israelis and Jews around world.
Rahel Frenkel and her family did not allow their pain to deflect their values. Muhammad Abu Khdeir, a 16 year Arab boy, was kidnapped and killed in revenge for the three boys. After the shivah, Rahel refused to allow personal tragedy to transgress her principles. “Even in the abyss of mourning for Gilad, Eyal and Naftali, it is difficult for me to describe how distressed we are by the outrage committed in Jerusalem – the shedding of innocent blood is against morality, is against the Torah and Judaism, and is against the foundation of the lives of our boys and of all of us in this country.”
She pointed forward on a personal path, saying that the family Shabbat table would no longer be the same: “We will have to learn to sing without you, but your harmony will accompany us always.” And she reminded people who felt that the army discovery of Hamas cells, plans and weapons made the boys into heroic figures that Naftali was a child. A teenager. That’s all. We want to hold onto his memory as a real person.
Difficult conversations engage ourselves, others and God. Yom Kippur is a time to begin. I don’t know where your inner conversation will lead you, or how long it will take, but tonight can be a start.
In each of these difficult conversations, we also come to understand who we are. As Rahel Frenkel put it, “we searched for the boys and discovered ourselves.”
Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most, Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen (Penguin, 2010)
The Betrayers, David Bezmozgis (Little Brown, 2014)
Happier Endings, Erica Brown (Simon & Schuster, 2014)
Throne of Mercy and 13 Qualities of Divine Compassion
http://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/379274/jewish/The-Ramban-on-the-Shofar.htm
http://vbm-torah.org/archive/13/01middot.htm
http://hitzeiyehonatan.blogspot.ca/2013/09/rosh-hashanah-ramban.html
http://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/379274/jewish/The-Ramban-on-the-Shofar.htm
Parents Circle-Family Forum
http://www.theparentscircle.org/Story.aspx?ID=415#.VDHD8CldWwE
Rahel Frenkel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5WQ3RhFJs4 (in Hebrew)
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.602639
