Eleh Ezkerah:  These I Remember
Sermon, October 1, 2006
Erev Yom Kippur 5767
Rabbi Bruce Kadden

Eleh ezkerah:  These I remember.  On Yom Kippur afternoon, we read the story of The Ten Martyrs, rabbis who were brutally murdered by the Romans, a story which begins with the words, Eleh ezkerah:  These I remember.

Remembrance is an important part of who were are as Jews.  We are commanded to remember the Sabbath day, to remember Amelek and the awful things he did to our people, and, most importantly, to remember that we were slaves in the land of Egypt. 

And, remembrance is an especially important theme of the High Holy Days.  Rosh Hashanah is called Yom HaZikaron, Day of Remembrance.  We ask God to remember the faithfulness of our ancestors, particularly Abraham’s willingness to offer his son, Isaac, on Mount Moriah.  We affirm God’s promise to remember the covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  And we remember those who lived and died as Jews.  Eleh ezkerah:  These I remember. 

Rabbi Akiva was one of the leading sages of the first century.  According to tradition, he was an simple shepherd when he fell in love with Rachel, the daughter of a wealthy landowner.  She told him that it was important to her father that she marry someone learned.  At 40 years of age he secretly went to study in the academy in Lydda.  Starting with the alephbet, within 12 years he mastered Jewish teachings.  He continued to study and began teaching.  He taught thousands of students, including many who would become the leading scholars of their generation. 

When the Romans forbid the teaching of Torah, Rabbi Akiva continued to do so.  The Romans tore his flesh from his body, yet when he noticed the first streaks of dawn in the East, he realized it was time to recite the Sh’ma, and intoned in a loud voice:  Sh’ma Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad/Hear O Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai alone!” 

His students, forced to witness the execution of their master, could not believe it.  “Even now?”  they asked.  “All my life,” he replied, “I was troubled by the passage, ‘V’ahavta et Adonai elohecha, b’chol l’vavcha uv’chol nafshecha uv’chol m’odecha.’  I have been able to love God with all my heart and with all my soul, but until now I have not been able to love God with all my being.  Now I am able to fulfill this teaching.”  Eleh ezkerah:  These I remember.

Rabbi Amnon of Mainz was a prominent leader of his Jewish community at the time of the Crusades.  The local bishop, with the full support of the king, pressured him to convert; he resisted at first, but eventually announced that he would indeed covert in three days time.  He immediately realized the folly of such an act, fasted and prayed for forgiveness.  He was brought before the bishop, sentenced to death, but first brutally tortured, including having his hands and feet cut off. 

As he lay dying, he told his students to carry him to the synagogue for the Rosh Hashanah service.  At the time of the K’dusha, he asked to be able to recite a personal prayer and, according to tradition, said “U’netaneh tokef k’dushat hayom/We proclaim the sanctity of this day…On Rosh Hashanah it is written, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed:  How many shall leave this world, and how many shall be born, who shall live and who shall die, who in fullness of years and who before?”  Rabbi Amnon died as he finished reciting this prayer.  Eleh ezkerah:  These I remember.

Hannah Senesh grew up in Budapest, in a fairly assimilated Jewish family.  In her high school years she got caught up in the Zionist movement and on Rosh Hashanah, 1939 she left her home and set out for the land of Israel.  Upon her arrival, she wrote to her mother:  “I am home…. The entire country’s atmosphere, the people—all of them so friendly—one feels as if one had always lived here.” 

Early in 1943, a member of the Palmach, an underground military group, visited Kibbutz Ma’agan where Hannah lived and told her about an opportunity to help the war effort.  She wrote, “I see the hand of destiny in this just as I did at the time of my aliyah.”  By the end of 1943, she had been accepted and trained to parachute behind enemy lines.

She wrote in her diary, “Day after tomorrow I am starting something new.  Perhaps it’s madness.  Perhaps it’s fantastic.  Perhaps it is dangerous.  Perhaps one in a hundred—or one in a thousand—pays with his life.  Perhaps with less than his life, perhaps with more…. There are events without which one’s life becomes unimportant, a worthless toy; and there are times when one is commanded to do something, even at the price of one’s life.”

In March, 1944 she was among a group dropped into Yugoslavia on a mission to liberate allied pilots shot down behind Nazi lines and to organize resistance in all occupied countries.  Two months later, having made her way to her native Hungary, she was captured and imprisoned.  With allied forces quickly closing in, she was executed.  Though she was killed more than 60 years ago, her spirit lives on through her diary and her poetry, including Eili, Eili. Eleh ezkerah:  These I remember.

Major Roi Klein, a father of two young sons from the settlement of Eli, was the Deputy-Battalion Commander of the 51^st Battalion of the Golani Infantry Brigade, one of the most prestigious units in the Israeli military.  He was educated on the ideals and values of love and commitment to Torah, the Jewish people and the State of Israel. 

A day before his 31^st birthday, he led his unit in the fierce fighting in the Hezbollah stronghold of Bint Jabil.  As they cleaned out terrorist gun nests in house to house combat, a grenade was thrown at the group of soldiers, threatening all of them.  Without hesitation, Major Klein shouted the words of the Shema and dived on the live grenade.  He died in the explosion one of 166 Israelis –114 soldiers and 52 civilians—who were killed in the war with Hezbollah, but saved the lives of the many soldiers with him.  Eleh Ezkerah, these I remember.

Pamela Waechter was the Campaign Director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle.  She chose Judaism as a young adult when she married, and embraced it fully.  She served on the board of Temple B’nai Torah in Bellevue, including one term as Temple president.  She also served as president of the Pacific Northwest Council of the Union for Reform Judaism. 

Pam gave her heart and soul to the Jewish community professionally as well, first with Jewish Family Service and for the last eight years at the Federation, where she was brutally murdered on July 28.  Eleh ezkerah:  These I remember.

Five men and women.  Five Jewish martyrs.

The Hebrew term for martyrdom is kiddush hashem, sanctification of God’s name.  The first word has the same root as k’dosha, as in k’hilla k’dosha, a holy community.  At times in our people’s history it has been necessary for Jews to offer their lives al kiddush hashem, to sanctify God’s name.  Such an act demonstrated for all to see that there were, indeed, some things worth dying for.

But while kiddush hashem usually refers to martyrdom, it can also be used to describe living one’s life to sanctify God’s name.  Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Amnon, Hannah Senesh, Roi Klein and Pam Waechter all died al kiddush hashem, sanctifying God’s name.  But more importantly, each of them lived al kiddush hashem, sanctifying God’s name.

And, we remember them not because they died al kiddush hashem; rather, we remember them because they lived al kiddush hashem, sanctifying God’s name.  Each had a profound and deep commitment to Judaism and the Jewish people.  Each lived Judaism which every breath.  What makes them so extraordinary is not how they died; what makes them extraordinary is how they lived.  Eleh Ezkerah:  These I remember.

Rabbi Yitz Greenberg explains that though Judaism normally gives life the highest priority and fights back against death, the High Holy Days are an exception; on the High Holy Days our “tradition deliberately concentrates the individual’s attention on death.

 “Human beings cannot be mature until they encompass a sense of their own mortality,” he writes, “To recognize the brevity of human existence gives urgency and significance to the totality of life.  To confront death without being overwhelmed, driven to evasions or dulling the senses, is to be given life again as a daily gift.”

Confronting death gives a renewed sense of purpose to our lives, compelling us to face up to our own mortality so that we come away from this experience ready to live our lives to their fullest, to make every day count, and to be ever more grateful for the gift of life we receive each and every day.

At Pam Waechter’s funeral, Rabbi Jim Mirel said, “You have to ask yourself: If Pam could have known, because of all the things she did and was, that she’d be taken violently and tragically … would she have continued to do and to be the kind of person and the kind of Jew she was?  She would not have changed one thing about the way she lived her life… ,” he said. “Pam lived the way she died — without regrets and without hesitation.” 

The same could be said about the others of whom I have spoken of this evening.  If they would have lived their lives over again, they would not have done it any differently. 

Can we say the same thing?  If, God forbid, our lives ended right now, would we be able to say that we lived the way we wanted to live and had no regrets?  That we are proud of who we are and what we have accomplished as human beings and as Jews? 

These stories should make us sit up and take note of just how fragile life is.  They should motivate us to ask ourselves if we are doing what we want to do with our lives, if we are living each day to the fullest, if we are truly alive.

Commenting on the story of Rabbi Amnon, Rabbi Cheryl Peretz writes, “I believe that Rabbi Amnon intended for each of us to experience Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as if it was indeed the last day of our life –to step for a moment into his shoes, feel the pain and regret of a life ending and out of that to accept the responsibility for writing our own fate in the Book of Life, to awaken ourselves to the possibility of change, and to immerse ourselves in a life filled with goodness.”

This is the season for t’shuvah, which is usually translated as repentance, but literally means turning.  We need to look inside ourselves and ask if we are the person we want to be, if we are doing what we want to do.  We need to begin the process of t’shuvah of turning who we are into who we would like to be, in turning what we are doing into what we would like to be doing.  That is what this season is all about:  serious self-examination and reflection about who we are and who we want to be. 

We should not put off something as important as this.  We shouldn’t say, “It can wait until tomorrow” or “I’m too busy to deal with it now.”  Tomorrow may never come and we may always be too busy.  The time to begin is now.

A couple of weeks ago, I shared the Non Sequitur cartoon which perfectly sums up the High Holy Days.  Two street-corner prophets are facing each other holding signs.  One says:  “Repent!  This could be your last day.”  The other one says:  “Rejoice!  Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

The stories of these individuals challenge us to recognize what it might mean if this indeed were the last day of our lives; when we have done that, when we have searched our soul, comparing who we are with who we would like to be, then today truly is the first day of the rest of our lives, the beginning of our road to becoming who we really want to be. 

Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, in his essay “Repentance,” wrote, “The Jew who believes in Kenesset Yisrael [the community of Israel] is the Jew who lives with Kenesset Yisrael where she may be and is prepared to die for her, who hurts with her pain and rejoices in her joy, who fights her wars, suffers in her defeats, and celebrates her victories.  The Jew who believes in Kenesset Yisrael is the Jew who joins himself as an indestructible link not only to the Jewish people of this generation but to Kenesset Yisrael of all generations.”

Eleh Ezkerah.  On this most holy of days, we remember men and women who lived as Jews and who died as Jews, who truly embodied the teachings of Torah.  We remember Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Amnon, Hannah Senesh, Roi Klein, and Pam Waechter.  Although their stories are sad and tragic, they would not want us to cry for them or seek vengeance; rather, what they would want, what their lives demand, is that we use their examples as inspiration for self-examination, for t’shuvah, for honestly looking at who we are, and beginning along the road of who we want to be.  Their stories teach us that when all is said in done what is most important is to be able to say that our lives had meaning and that if we had to do it over again, we would do it the same way.  Eleh Ezkerah.  These I remember.

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