Yom Kippur Yizkor Sermon
September 30, 2017 | 10 Tishrei 5778
Delivered by Rabbi Neil Sandler
Early morning Sunday, July 16th, Don Damond gladly grasped his phone to answer the call.
He thought it was his financé Justine calling to let him know that the disturbance she had heard outside their Minneapolis home, just a few blocks away from where I grew up, had settled down.
Everything was OK now.
Only … it wasn't OK.
It wasn't Don's financé on the phone; it was a police officer.
A shooting had taken place, and a woman had died.
"We can't give a positive ID," the officer said, "but we think it's Justine."
Suddenly and unexpectedly, Don Damond's world was shattered.
Hyperventilation gave way to uncontrollable sobbing.
Perhaps you recognize this story because it remained a national news story for several days this summer.
Here is another somewhat similar story that never made it into the news.
But you can still read about it whenever you want to do so.
It appears in the Torah in the Book of Leviticus, chapter 10.
Two of Aaron's sons, Nadav and Avihu, offered what the text calls "aysh zarah", "alien fire," and in response presumably as punishment for this uninvited offering, God caused fire to consume these men.
"Vayeedom Aharon" – "Aaron was silent."
The Torah makes no other explicit reference linking Aaron to what he had just witnessed.
Within three verses of Aaron's stunned, likely overcome, dumbfoundedness, Moses is giving Kohen – related instructions to him.
Two verses later God is giving Aaron more instructions.
Only three verses later, Moses is speaking to Aaron as if the entire episode never even occurred!
All the while, we never hear Aaron's voice; we only hear his silence.
Did Aaron simply suppress his reactions so that he could continue his task of spiritual leadership? – Maybe.
Did he mourn in a healthy manner so that he could emerge from this shattering moment in a way that let him continue his life? – Perhaps.
The Torah is sparse regarding such details.
Aaron somehow managed to move forward.
It's too early to know about Don Damond. We certainly pray for his well-being and for the well-being of Justine's loved ones.
But we do know about Sheryl Sandberg whose life was shattered in 2015, and who has now been able to share what she has learned with us.
Some of you know this story.
Sheryl and her husband, Dave Goldberg, went on a vacation to Mexico in May 2015. While working out in a gym, Dave collapsed and died almost instantly. He was 47 years old.
In addition to his wife, Sheryl, Dave left two young children.
Dave's sudden death gained prominent mention in the media at the time because he was the Chief Executive Officer of Survey Monkey, and his wife was and still is the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook.
But we did not feel the utter devastation that Dave's death caused until Sheryl posted a long letter thirty days after his funeral.
In fact, Sheryl's letter began with these words – "Today is the end of sheloshim for my beloved husband."
She went on to describe both shiva and sheloshim.
And then she described the devastation … the same devastation that Don Damond and Aaron undoubtedly felt.
"I have lived thirty years in these thirty days," Sheryl wrote. "I am thirty years sadder."
Yet, only a month after her beloved husband had died and Sheryl Sandberg was still enveloped by grief, she was learning how to move forward.
And she began to teach us.
Listen to what she wrote:
I was talking to one of those friends about a father-child activity that Dave is not here to do. We came up with a plan to fill in for Dave. I cried to him, "But I want Dave. I want Option A." He put his arm around me and said, "Option A is not available. So let's just kick the s**t out of Option B."
That's when the seeds of this book, Option B – Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Finding Joy published earlier this year, were planted.
While Sheryl views things from the perspective of one whose world has been shattered by sudden and unexpected loss, her experience may not necessarily be all that different from one whose pain could have been anticipated.
I have seen how to some loved ones, the death of an elderly parent or spouse after a lengthy illness is just as devastating as if the person had died with absolutely no warning.
No matter what the circumstances, for all of us following a sudden death and for some of us, even after an expected death, the road to recovery may be difficult.
It is a road founded on human resilence and a belief in our capacity to recover, change and eventually flourish again.
Resilience is the incredible, God-given ability that helps us to move forward at difficult moments.
It gives us the capacity to persevere when it seems utterly impossible to do so.
Sheryl Sandberg recognized that resilience was the soil in which the possibility of a future that had been unalterably changed could take root.
When Dave Goldberg died, Sheryl Sandberg had absolutely no idea what to do.
She was completely overwhelmed.
She didn't know how she was going to make it from one day to the next!
She had little sense of how she could provide a secure presence for her son and daughter.
But the renewing potential of resilience began to take hold, and Sheryl managed.
Option B contains a number of thoughts about how to move forward after a devastating loss and how to help others do so.
One of the cornerstones is to be found in the incident I already shared with you.
When Sheryl was overwhelmed by the thought of her husband's absence from a father-child activity, a friend was there to put an arm around her and say, "We can't do it that way, but we can do it this way."
That is what a friend does.
That is what a community does.
It wraps its arms around that person and says, "I am with you, and I will help you to do it."
Then it acts in reassuring ways to reinforce that message.
In a single sentence, Sheryl Sandberg captures the meaning and redemptive power of community for one who has been devastated by loss.
She writes, "We find our humanity – our will to live and our ability to love – in our connections to one another." (p. 141)
That is the potential power, again a renewing power, of community, whether that community is a circle of friends, neighbors or a kehillah kedoshah, a genuinely caring congregation.
One of the most important traits that Sheryl writes about, one I have spoken about previously, is the potential for what she calls "post-traumatic growth." (p. 78)
Sheryl tells the story of a physician, Joe Kasper, whose world was upended when his teenage son was diagnosed with an incurable disease.
Dr. Kasper was devastated, but he was determined to persevere.
He learned about how people recover from such trauma based on the studies of two university professors, Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun.
He came across what he found to be a transformative quote as he read their research findings – "I am more vulnerable than I thought, but much stronger than I ever imagined." (p. 79)
Again – "I am more vulnerable than I thought, but much stronger than I ever imagined."
Those words could describe many of us here.
The death of a loved one, especially when unanticipated, has already or will utterly devastate many of us.
But we are stronger and more capable of recovery than many of us think.
If we have yet to learn that through personal experience, a time will likely come when we will do so.
Near the end of her book, Sheryl writes:
When we marry, we promise to love 'till death do us part.' Our images of love are active – we love by being there for a friend, taking care of a child, waking up next to someone – all of which depend upon the person being alive. One of the most important things I've learned is how deeply you can keep loving someone after they die. You may not be able to hold them or talk to them, and you may even date or love someone else, but you can still love them every bit as much. (Sheryl concludes) – Playwright Robert Woodruff Anderson captured it perfectly: "Death ends a life, but it does not end a relationship." (p. 168)
The deaths of those who mean the most to us – whether their deaths occurred unexpectedly in an instant or after a long life and over the course of sometime – may shatter our world.
I'm sure that Don Damond is still devastated today.
But as both our ancestor Aaron and much later, Sheryl Sandberg, learned, the limitless divine gift of resilience provides us with a means to begin to live again.
Loved ones, friends and a caring community can give us strength to move forward so that we can be stronger than we ever imagined.
When such a moment arises in our lives, may we be blessed with all these gifts and with the reassuring sense that God grieves with us and strengthens us.
"Death ends a life, but it does not end a relationship."
May we come to recognize the enduring and reassuring truth of Robert Woodruff Anderson's realization and be comforted by it.
Amen
