I returned to my synagogue of 38 years last night and spoke there for the first time since my retirement exactly a year ago. Because the themes are so relevant particularly today, I’m releasing it now, on Shabbat, in audio, video and print formats. I also pray for safety for everyone today, whether in the US, Israel or elsewhere.
Watch and share this sermon on YouTube.
On Borrowed Time: Me, My Dog, and America
At times like this, we are reminded not to take anything for granted. Not our future as a democracy. Not the future of Israel, for that matter, or the security of Jews in this country.
There is an intensity about being alive right now. Think about it. What might end up being one of the top ten air disasters in the history of the world happened in India yesterday and it barely makes the front pages. And so many of those existential stories are still playing themselves out. In the streets of Los Angeles and tomorrow all over the country, in the courts in California and elsewhere, in the skies over Iran and Israel, and on the ground in Gaza. And coming soon to a Home Depot near you.
A lot has happened since I last stood here exactly a year ago this coming week. And much of it has helped me to grasp the urgency of this moment – and indeed of each moment - not to take anything for granted.
So let me quickly catch you up on me. It’s been an eventful year; a year filled with surprises at every turn. We love our new house in Madison and it is just now it is beginning to feel like a finished product – though as we’ve discovered as homeowners for the first time, there is always something else to do.
The location is just spectacular – please stop by when you are in the area - and whenever I feel like I am getting too high and mighty, I take the short watch to the beach or the Hammonasset nature trail and get all humble again. My new friends are the ducks swimming in the stream in our backyard, the eagles flying majestically overhead, the osprey nursing her young in a nest on a rooftop down the street, and the woodpeckers who are having a rom-com with our windowsills.
I’ve befriended the local rabbi, who has been really hospitable. After my surgery, he offered me an Aliyah to do the special Gomel (survivor’s) prayer a Shabbat service. People all came up to me afterwards. One guy said, would you like to get involved in local politics? And I said “No thank you.” The rabbi invited me to attend on Yom Kippur – hey, I never knew you needed a ticket! What’s that all about?
I looked around at the hundreds present and knew exactly no one. Anonymity never felt so good. I could actually pray. It felt so – strange. And then the guy sitting right behind me tapped me on the shoulder – and he said, “rabbi?” It was Jeff Paseltiner, who used to be a member here and now lives up in that area with Kathy – and we hugged and schmoozed and it was great.
On Rosh Hashanah, I returned to my childhood shul in Brookline for the first time on the holidays in nearly 50 years – the last time was when I with my father a couple of months before he died. It was a mind-blowing experience. You can go home again. Sort of.
I’ve been writing - a lot. My Substack has been growing by leaps and bounds, nearly 9,000 subscribers – when I left here last June there were 600 - and over 36,000 followers. I’ve been networking with lots of folks in independent media, which is saving our country right now. You should all support some of the voices that have migrated over to Substack – incredible journalists like Jim Acosta, Katie Couric and just yesterday, Terry Moran, stupidly fired by ABC. The conversations that take place on these sites are astoundingly civil and supportive, though not one-sided. I have a whole new congregation, which includes a lot of you – and the need for community right now is so great, in person and online. If you haven’t subscribed to my Substack yet, here’s an incentive. This week I published a professionally-produced audiobook of “Mensch-Marks,” which I narrated, and I’m especially grateful to our member Rob Friedman for his assistance in engineering the production. It is my thank you gift to all paid subscribers. But you can also sign up for free.
I’ve also continued my freelance work for Religion News Service and am writing a new Ethicist column for My Jewish Learning. So that’s been my year.
And oh, yes. Then there’s the prostate.
I’ve spent most of my adult life assisting those struggling with cancer - but becoming a survivor myself has been quite a jolt - and a constant reminder to appreciate everything in life.
My diagnosis of an aggressive, stage 3 Prostate Cancer wasn’t even the first major health-related jolt we received since I last spoke with you up here.
You might recall that my dog Casey struggled with ACL surgeries on both hind legs before I left. Well, when we got home after my final Friday night service – and I never made it to the back to the social hall for those delicious desserts - well, when we got home, Casey had had accidents all over the place. Two weeks later we got the devastating news that he had in incurable, aggressive lymphoma in his stomach. When we brought him to Cornell veterinary hospital, the doctor told us that he had about two months, but with an intensive regimen of chemo we might be able to squeeze a few more months of quality life. We were so shocked and he was so young still – just 6 - that we weren’t ready to give up on him. So, we went for it. Intensive treatments week after week, month after month. He lost two thirds of his body weight, and most of his hair, which for a poodle can be pretty gruesome.
But a few months later, we noticed that not only was he holding up well under the treatment, but he was beginning to join in with Cassidy and Cobie when they played. And he didn’t just run, he skipped. His fur began to grow back – as puppy fur, jet black, like a kid again. The picture of Doggian Gray. When we brought him to Cornell, he would light up the waiting room, befriending the ailing dogs and their owners.
Casey became a service dog for the other dogs.
I knew one of my kids would become a rabbi. I just didn’t know he’d have four legs. And when they brought him to the back at Cornell to poke and prod him, they said he would break dance.
Jennifer Skiff, author of “The Divinity of Dogs,” wrote, “Dogs, for a reason that can only be described as divine, have the ability to let go of the past and live each day joyously. It is something the rest of us strive for.”
No dog we’ve had has ever embraced life more than Casey. His cancer is still officially incurable, but after another clean ultrasound a week ago, Casey will in a few days pass the one-year mark since his diagnosis. The doctor can’t explain it. She told us it’s not in the literature. She said, and I quote, “Casey should have been dead months ago.” She thought he’d be dead by now.
So, when my prostate tests kept getting more and more foreboding last winter, I was prepared – I was already living my life on Casey time. Borrowed time – but in the good sense. Borrowed time is precious time. Take nothing for granted time. Nothing. Walking, breathing, peeing – especially peeing.
Borrowed time – but in the good sense. Israel is on borrowed time – And so is America. And so is Democracy - And so is the rule of law. The time we’ve had with all of them is precious, because we know that the time we have left may be limited. It may be quite limited. We must take nothing for granted. Nothing lasts forever.
This week’s portion of Beha’alotecha chronicles the Israelites’ adventures in the Wilderness, with the running theme that carries us through the rest of the book, and indeed throughout the rest of Jewish history to this day: “They came, the kvetched, then they conquered,” or as Julius Caesar famously put it in Latin, “Veni, Vidi, Kvetchi.” For every step forward - and there were many - there were two kvetches backward. And a total disregard for how precious their newfound freedom was.
In fact, most of the kvetches had to do with a longing for those imagined bygone days in the shackles of Egyptian slavery. They were slaves - but man, the watermelon in Egypt was delicious! And the fish! Seriously. Numbers 11:5. It’s almost uncanny in its anticipation of America’s later slide into a nostalgic stupor in selective memory and racism. It’s the Song of the South. We forget the pain. We ban the trauma from our minds and our libraries. We strum and whittle on the porches of the plantations. “Frankly Miriam, I don’t give a damn!”
But nostalgia is not the only culprit at play here. There is also envy. In describing the manna, the Torah makes manna seem like the tastiest thing this side of Entenmann’s crumb doughnuts - the glazed ones. Yet even that was not good enough for the Israelites. Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschutz, a 17th century sage from Krakow, notes that the Torah is trying to make a statement about human nature here. People will not be satisfied even with a daily dozen of Entenmann’s crumb doughnuts - if their neighbors are enjoying the same thing.
In order for people to feel fulfilled, they have to have more than their neighbors. It’s sort of the opposite of Dayenu. It’s never enough, unless I have more than the guy next door.
We should be living a life of Dayenu. We should be living on Casey Time, but we are never satisfied.
“The Great Gatsby” was published 100 years ago this past April - the Great American novel, which was barely noticed while its author was alive. When F Scott Fitzgerald died in Hollywood in 1940 at the age of 44, unsold copies of the first edition were still gathering dust in Scribner’s warehouse. But this past year there were not one but two Broadway musicals of Gatsby produced. The book resonates now more than ever, because it holds up a mirror to who we are as Americans - to our obsessions with class and race, and possessions - as one main character shouts, “Things. I want lots of things!”
And just today, as if to prove the point, a movie release getting lots of hype is aptly entitled, “Materialists.”
This portion teaches us that the so-called American dream is not that different from the Jewish dream, and it’s not about having more, being better or reinventing oneself inauthentically. Those dreams are doomed to go up in flames or to be beaten back by relentless tides of disappointment. The only enduring dream is one where people come together in communities that care about one another, where individuals take nothing for granted. Sanctity is discovered in the everyday acts of eating and working and loving. Salvation is attained through commitment to something larger than ourselves, and dedicating every moment toward that end.
We cannot take any of this for granted. We’ve been given so many gifts. None of them are coming to us. We have to hold and cherish them. People fought for the rights we have as Americans. So many have died defending our democracy here, and while forging the Jewish, democratic state we cherish. We’ve been gifted so many miracles, large and small, divinely inspired and man-made. Serendipitous and earned. All of them gifts.
Casey got a day of just feeling good. And he started to breakdance and wants to be a rabbi. But there are people who want to bury their heads in Love Island or wherever the White Lotus is being filmed and pretend nothing is being lost.
And there are people who want to take it all away. Because they want things, lots of things. Because they want power. Because they are mean-spirited and blasphemous – worshipping the false idol that they are staring at in the mirror.
They don’t see the miracle of every breath, every step. They know less about being truly alive than, to paraphrase FDR “my little dog Casey.”
Tomorrow will be a very important day in the history of this country. It may be Shabbat for Jews, but for America, it’s Yom Kippur. Tanks will be rolling past our most sacred places in Washington – the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, the African American and Holocaust Museums. Korean War memorial too. And in view of the Kennedy Center, which has been desecrated like Antiochus did with the temple. Tanks will trample on Constitution Avenue, making our most sacred mile look like a Stalinist nightmare – tomorrow.
And all across this country, millions of ordinary Americans will be standing up to the bullies and turning back the tanks.
We can take nothing for granted. We must appreciate every gift that we have. And we need to do everything in our power to preserve those gifts. I don’t know if my cancer is gone. The odds suggest it will likely return. But Casey has helped me understand how to live with it.
Behaalotcha ends with the most famous healing prayer in the Bible. Moses, about to lose his beloved sister, cries out, “El Na, Refa Na La.” Please, God, Please, heal her.”
We say those same words tonight - Please God, heal American democracy, Please God, we pray for Jewish security, for a secure Israel at peace with her neighbors and with herself, and we pray for peace for our world.
I read your sermon and it lighten my very heavy heart. It’s Saturday morning and I won’t be attending the Dothan rally. Too old, too scared. If you do attend a rally, take a bike helmet and be vigilant and peaceful. Your sermon was in a very Jewish way, totally delightful. Full of hope and good news smattered with warning and apprehension. Be of good health, be safe, we all need you too much to lose you, you and Casey. Thanks. Claudia
I appreciate that, Claudia!
Beautiful sermon Rabbi. I do enjoy listening to you and now more then ever we need your encouragement, thank you for that. Stay safe stay vigilant 💕
You too!
Thanks for sharing, especially your dog stories. It was the same for my father-in-law's prostate cancer. He enjoyed all the borrowed time he had, even though he knew his prostate cancer diagnosis was incurable and fatal.
Thanks so much! Thinking of it as “borrowed time” gets us beyond the idea of “outcomes.” As Senator Ernst reminds us, the ultimate outcome for all of us is the same.
Thank you for sharing this with all of us fans! You are so blessed, as we are to know you and to able to share your experiences.
I interviewed you two decades ago for Jewish Family & Life! And you wrote a couple of great pieces for me. Your writing is moving, astonishing, and just plain fantastic. I wish you and Casey much good health. And I look forward to reading you for many years to come. All my best, Judy Bolton-Fasman
Thanks, Judy. I remember our conversations well and enjoyed writing for you - and of course have also followed your work. I really appreciate your comments.