SHAVUOT YIZKOR 5782

When You Thought I wasn't Looking

You may not know her name, but you most certainly know what she did because she has changed the world. 17-year-old Darnella Frazier, who under the most trying and challenging circumstances, stood for 10 minutes as Derek Chauvin had his knee on the neck of George Floyd, lying on the pavement. Bystanders begged Chauvin to let up and let Floyd live…while Darnella Frazier kept her focus and videoed what was happening. She let the world see what she had seen…leading to Chauvin’s conviction and causing our country to confront issues that we can no longer turn our heads from. Because of Darnella, we saw it right before our eyes and it could no longer be denied!

You have to wonder if Derek Chauvin would have acted differently if he had known that his actions would go public. According to our Sages, he most certainly would have! Our Sages expressed this thought in commenting on an incident in The Book of Ruth we read on Shavuot.

The story of Ruth is beautiful, moving and touching—a story of goodness and devotion. Ruth, a Moabite widow, was a devoted daughter-in-law and righteous convert of our people.

One day while searching for food in a time of famine, Ruth met a true gentleman named Boaz who generously gave of his own food to her. The Book of Ruth (2:14) describes it with the touching words: Vayitzbat la kali, vatochal vatisba vatotar (And he handed her parched corn, and she ate and was satisfied, and had some left over). On these words our Sages in the Midrash, recognizing the generosity of Boaz, still go on to say, “Had Boaz known that the Bible would record that he handed her some parched grain, he would have given her fatted calves [a royal banquet].”

Yes, Boaz, you didn’t realize it, but your actions were being recorded. If you had known it was being recorded till the end of time, you would have acted differently. And that’s what the Torah means where it says in the beginning: Zeh seyfer toldot ha-Adam (This is the book of the story of man). Our Sages took this to mean that there is a book with Gd of the Story of Mankind, and all our actions are being recorded. Just as the story of Adam and Abraham and Moses and Boaz are recorded in this book, so too all our lives are being recorded.

               As we are told in Rabbeinu Yonah on Pirkei Avot (2:1:6): V’chol maasecha b’seyfer nichtavim (All of your deeds are being recorded in a book). It’s not just Derek Chauvin…it’s all of us in our day-to-day existence, our words and actions are being recorded.

A few years ago, someone sent me an email with a beautiful poem that makes the same point—although in a completely different context. It’s called: “When You Thought I Wasn’t Looking”:

When you thought I wasn’t looking,

you hung my 1^st painting on the refrigerator, and I wanted to paint another.

When you thought I wasn’t looking,

you fed a stray cat, and I thought it was good to be kind to animals.

When you thought I wasn’t looking,

you baked a birthday cake just for me, and I knew

that little things were special things.

When you thought I wasn’t looking,

you said a prayer and I believed there was

a Gd that I could always talk to.

When you thought I wasn’t looking,

you kissed me good-night and I felt loved.

When you thought I wasn’t looking,

I saw tears come from your eyes and I learned

that sometimes things hurt—but that it’s alright to cry.

When you thought I wasn’t looking,

you smiled and it made me want to look that pretty too.

When you thought I wasn’t looking,

you cared and I wanted to be everything I could be.

When you thought I wasn’t looking,

I looked…and wanted to say thanks for all those

things you did…when you thought I wasn’t looking.

The poem makes a very important point. Whether we know it or not, we’re no different than Derek Chauvin in this sense. Everything we say and do is being recorded by our children: the amount of charity we give, the excuses we offer for not giving, the comments we make behind the back of friends, our business ethics, our moral behavior, what we eat, drink and watch on TV…all of these and so much more are being recorded. Yes, everything we do is being recorded by countless people, and we don’t need a Darnella Frazier to make them known—they’re known by people all around us. And we don’t even realize it!

And when you think about this Yizkor memorial service… what is it, if not a recognition on our part that so many of the significant passages in our lives can be traced back to our parents and those who preceded us. We are the product of all those lives which have touched and entered our own—parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters, teachers and friends; those who have bruised us and betrayed us, those who have sustained and strengthened us, those who added to our burdens and those who were to us a blessing. It was all recorded and remembered by us—if not in our conscious, then in our subconscious.

         And It’s not just the “big” things. Let me give you a personal example. What is it that I will remember about my mother as I recite Yizkor today? I was blessed with 64 years of beautiful memories—family dinners every single night, family get-togethers, simchas, summers in the Catskills. There are also the “small” things—one of which was something she did that I don’t even know if she realized that her children noticed what she was doing, and what an impact it made. Winter mornings in Brooklyn are really cold. Every winter morning when she thought we weren’t looking, when she woke up to make us breakfast, she 1^st would put our underwear on the radiator so it would be warm toasty when we got dressed! No big deal? Gd Almighty, what a big deal it was! What it said to us; how it made us feel; what it meant to us…can never—and will never—be forgotten!

I exaggerate not. A portion of our parents is implanted within us. Unbeknownst to them, they made indelible impressions on us that have been permanently recorded into our very beings. Their obituaries do not lie buried in some old newspaper. They are recorded and forever live in our hearts and souls!

         In these moments before Yizkor when we remember the entries of those who preceded us, let us ask: “What entries are we making; what actions are being recorded in the lives of those that who follow us? What will our children and grandchildren remember? What are they seeing when we think they aren’t looking?”

My friends, Yizkor beckons. We pause to remember and to pray: T’hi nishmatam tz’rurot bitzror hachayim (May the souls of our dearly departed be bound up in the bonds of Eternal Life). And let us add the prayer: T’hi nishmati, “Gd, allow my soul, my life to be bound up in the lives of others who are living so that after the fullness of my days, others will gather to bless my name for having lived and shared and given and cared.” Amen.