Shaarei Shamayim
1600 Mount Mariah
Atlanta, GA 30329
(404) 417-0472
PESACH YIZKOR 5783
PESACH YIZKOR 5783
JUST IN CASE …
I was looking for something in our Pesach closet the other day and I noticed how many things we bought before Pesach and didn’t use. Why did we buy them? JUST IN CASE! Last year we bought 6 Temptee Cream Cheese tubs. We used 2. So this year we bought 2 and ran out! We should have bought 6 JUST IN CASE. Last year we bought 2 Kosher for Passover mayonnaise jars. We used only half a jar. This year we bought one and ran out and neither Kroger’s nor Publix had any left. We should have bought more JUST IN CASE.
My colleague Rabbi Jack Riemer writes how his wife packs when they go on vacation: As I put the 10th or 11th suitcase into the car, I say to my wife: “Do you know that my parents came to America from Europe with less luggage than we are taking with us for this weekend?” By now, my wife is smart enough not to answer… And then, when we get to the airport, she gets her revenge. When security asks her, “Did anyone else help you pack these things?” she says, “Are you kidding? I did it all myself. He didn’t even lift a finger!
My wife takes summer clothes and winter clothes with her too—JUST IN CASE the weather changes.
For weeks before a trip she lies awake wrestling with these questions: Should I take a sweater JUST IN CASE it gets cold, and should I take a 2nd sweater in addition JUST IN CASE the 1st sweater is not enough…Should I take sandals with me too, in addition to my flats and heels JUST IN CASE we go for a walk on the beach? (Sometimes we go to places that are hundreds of miles from the nearest beach, but you never can tell.)
Does any of this sound familiar? For many, JUST IN CASE is the motto by which they travel.
I can tell you from our recent travels that Cheryl is simply brilliant at packing JUST IN CASE—taking the right snacks for the plane, the right hats and clothes and meds, etc. JUST IN CASE. Cheryl makes the case that this is a good thing. It’s such a good thing that we commemorate it these last days of Pesach.
On the 1st days of Pesach we remember the Exodus from Egypt. Picture that last night in Egypt. Everyone is packing. What should they pack? Winter or summer? Pants or shorts? Along with the matzah, what else should they take JUST IN CASE?
You know what happened? As I explained on the 1st day of Pesach, while packing, the women came across their tambourines and thought: What if there’s something to celebrate? Let’s pack it JUST IN CASE!
Their husbands must have thought to themselves: There’s so much to schlep, why take along another chachka?
You know what happened? When the Jews crossed the Red Sea, the men sang a song of praise to Gd, but the women did them one better. They sang and danced and played their tambourines.
The husbands probably said: “I’m sure glad they listened to us and took along their tambourines like we told them to!” And the women? Well, we’re in shul. I can’t tell you what they may have said to that. But I can tell you that this is what happens when you do things JUST IN CASE.
But I would point out that most of us are not like Miriam and the women of old. Like Rabbi Riemer’s wife, we take things along with us just in case something goes WRONG—if we get sick, if it rains, if we get sunburn. What we really have to do is learn to be like Miriam and the Jewish women of old and take our tambourines along JUST IN CASE things work out … JUST IN CASE we have something to celebrate.
We have to think JUST IN CASE in the positive. I experienced this a few weeks ago when I called one of my doctors to make an appointment. The woman who answered the phone responded, “Good morning, this is the office of doctor so and so … what can I do to put a smile on your face?”
“Oh my Gd!” I thought, I never heard anybody answer the phone like that. I was taken aback and said, “Do you mind if I put you on speakerphone for a moment?”
She said, “Go right ahead.” I called out to Cheryl to come into the room, and I said, “Listen to how this woman greeted me.”
Then I asked the woman to repeat it and she said, “What can I do to put a smile on your face today?”
I said, “Do you hear that?”
Cheryl called out: “You don’t know what she’s really like!”
Well, maybe not. But wasn’t that a nice way to greet someone, JUST IN CASE? JUST IN CASE someone needs a pick-me-up? JUST IN CASE you help make someone realize that there is someone who cares about them? And you know what? There are a lot of people out there who could use it.
I once shared with you a story I read in the Christian magazine First Things, titled, “Death of Despair…” It concluded with this paragraph: A few years ago, a man in his 30s took his own life by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge (as more than 1500 other people have done since the bridge was built). After his death, his psychiatrist went with the medical examiner to the man’s apartment, where they found his diary. The last entry, written just hours before he died, said, “I’m going to walk to the bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump.”
Yes, one simple smile, one kind, positive word, can make all the difference in the world. One simple smile, one kind, positive word can make a life worth living, can make your home one filled with love!
You know something else positive you can do JUST IN CASE? Believe in Gd! Gd has been getting a lot a bad press lately. The most recent survey revealed that 1/3 of Americans do not believe in Gd! And it is definitely having a dramatic effect on the Jewish community with headlines (Pew Research Center 5/13/21) like: “Jews in the United States are far less religious than Christians and Americans overall.” Can you imagine that nearly 40% of Jews who live in America don’t attend a Pesach Seder? Is that really possible?
According to one survey, 10% of American Protestants don’t believe in Gd, 21% of Roman Catholics and 52% of Jews do not believe in Gd! That’s unbelievable!
Some have trouble believing in a Gd sitting in Heaven on a thrown with a long white beard ready to strike us down with lightening for our sins. The Berditchever Rebbe, Levi Yitzchak (18th century), was speaking to a self-proclaimed atheist and told him regarding such a belief, “The Gd you don’t believe in, I also don’t believe in.”
Those who have doubts would b much better off taking to heart the famous Pascal Wager. Blaise Pascal was a 17th century mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and philosopher. The book of his Thoughts is still considered a masterpiece. Pascal begins with the premise that, the human mind cannot prove or disprove the existence of Gd. All we can do is guess, or gamble. So what we ought to do is WAGER on what would make us happier—believing in Gd or not believing in Gd. He writes: Let us weigh the gain and loss in wagering that Gd is … let us estimate these 2 chances. If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then without hesitation that He is.
So, I would say to all the atheists what I say to all of you: Pray to Gd; believe in Gd. What do you have to lose? If there is no Gd, all that a belief in Gd does is to make you a better person. But if there IS a Gd, then He’s watching over you, loving you even in the darkest of times. He’s got your back!
Belief in Gd is no guarantee that tragedy won’t strike. What belief in Gd can do is give you the faith and strength to overcome a tragedy when it hits you.
Belief in Gd gives a person a moral compass. It gives a person a sense of what’s right and wrong. It inspires a person to be a better human being and to fulfill their Gd-given destiny.
Besides, a recent study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science found that on average, people whose obituary mentioned they were religious lived an extra 5.64 years. Good to know—JUST IN CASE.
My friends, in these moments before Yizkor, I understand that many of you came today for different reasons. But for some of you, without even realizing it, you came for the sake of your parents—JUST IN CASE.
The Chabad website gives 2 reasons for Yizkor: The reason for this prayer is that once a soul has departed from this physical world, it no longer has the ability to do any mitzvahs or acquire more merits. However, those that are still alive in this world, especially their descendants, have the ability through prayer, Torah study and mitzvahs to not only bring merit and elevate the souls of the departed but, if need be, even take them out of Gehinnom (“purgatory”).
Yes, we can’t be 100% sure, and so we come to say Yizkor JUST IN CASE there is a Gd and JUST IN CASE there is an afterlife, so our parents’ souls may be uplifted by our being here.
And it’s not just our parents. The Chabad website continues: An additional component is that by mentioning our ancestors, we invoke the memory of any merits and good deeds that they have, so that their merit may stand on our behalf and that they [in Heaven] pray for us as well. Yes, we are wise to say Yizkor for our own sake—JUST IN CASE.
My friends, let’s learn from the example of the Jewish women who carried their tambourines as they left Egypt. Have faith in Gd and in yourselves—JUST IN CASE. What do we have to lose? MAY WE all be bound up in the bonds of eternal life along with our departed loved ones. Amen!
