Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you for joining me. I'm Rabbi David Lyon from
Congregation Beth Israel in Texas. Last week, last time I
reflected on the meaning of the fourth of July. Little
did I know, or any of us know what that
wee can would mean for many hundreds of people in Texas,
where major floods came roaring down and took so many
(00:23):
lives with it. When I woke up and began to
learn about what was happening, my phone began to ring.
Because what happens in one area of Texas very often
impacts many people around the state. Because children and families
travel vacation and go to summer camp far from home,
as we often do in the summer to spend time
(00:44):
with family and friends in special places that we returned
to year after year as we build special memories and
special bonds. Of course, people travel from out of state
to be in these places too. But in the middle
of the night, as the Guadalupe River was roaring with
increasing feet of water that no one expected, at least
(01:06):
not in time, so many of those plans and dreams
and memories came crashing to an end. We know from
the news that Camp Mystic was horribly affected, and many
dozens of girls were swept away by the waters, some
rescued and some not. We also know that upriver from
the camp, many families, including other campers, were also caught
(01:28):
in the horrific storm, and some lost their lives. When
my phone rang, it came from two different places. One
a family whose loved ones were celebrating a reunion were
woken up at about three in the morning to evacuate.
To make a long story short, they were caught up
in the waters. One survived and the other didn't. And
(01:50):
the horrifying storytells not only the end of a terrible night,
but also the end of a beautiful marriage and friendship
and memories for a family. Woman who wasn't able to
cling to a branch or a pole as the rivers
came storming through was swept away. Her funeral will be
in a few days. But also the little girls whose
(02:11):
lives were lost leave parents and families aching with extraordinary
pain that is very difficult to deal with or to extinguish.
When I received calls from parents whose children were not lost,
but whose friends were lost to the floods, very dear
and close friends. Not only some were friends, but daily
(02:32):
friends from school. Though they went to separate camps, they
were friends in the neighborhood and around town. So what
kind of council would I, a rabbi offer them. Most important,
as any social worker, psychologist, or pastor would offer, is
to be sure that our children know that in the
company of their parents they are safe. At home, they
(02:56):
are safe. Yes, you and I know that not a
hundred percent of the time can we always make sure
even home is perfectly safe. But we need to encourage
them to know that our love, our concern, and the
safety that we've placed around them is enough. They are
safe with us. Second, we have to explain in terms
(03:17):
that they understand what happened and how it will affect us.
That is, your dear friend is gone from life and
we will not see her again. It brings us sadness
for what will never be again and for what we
held so dear. But also we have opportunities to retrieve
from the tragedy what will never be taken away from us,
(03:41):
which are very special memories and ways to think about
her and talk about her. And third, it comes from
a specifically Jewish place. Is very often we're led to
by instinct to ask why why did it happen? I've
talked before, and it's time to teach again that why
(04:02):
is not a very good question because it can lead
to completely unanswerable questions that lead us astray and sometimes
making up magical thinking that tells us that she's in
a better place God needed her more than we did.
But in fact, we want to know in our hearts
and souls that the best place for our children is
(04:24):
always right next to us. And what reason could God
have a loving compassion of God to rip a child
away from her parents in such a horrific manner? So
why is not a good question, although some people will
point fingers to be sure that blame is assessed, opportunities
to correct a terrible problem will be fixed, and so forth.
(04:47):
But the Jewish question comes from the Book of Lamentations
in the Hebrew Bible, our book of sorrows, so to speak.
In Hebrew, it's called aha, and ahra is a Hebrew
word that means how. It's the beginning of the questions
we need to ask. How will we remember those who
are lost in the storm? How will we pick up
(05:10):
our lives to continue to choose to live among the living,
and how will we honor the memory of those who
are lost, so that their memory is not also taken
away from us, but as a source of life, honor, duty,
and sacred living in the future, when we ask a
(05:31):
myriad number of how questions will come up with answers
that meet our need today and in the future too. Yes,
the pain is very deep, and the Talmud also teaches
that there are tears of fruit and tears of smoke.
The tears of fruit are the ones that we shed
when we do find moments of joy to remember them,
(05:54):
to recollect the times that they made a smile and laugh.
Those are tears of joy, we call them. And then
there are tears of smoke, the tears that sting our eyes,
because there will be lingering death memories, lingering thoughts of
our loved ones that will continue to cause us pain
and heartache every single day. How could it not when
(06:16):
a child is taken from us? When we invest and
love and adore our children with not only what they
need to day, but our hopes and dreams for them
in the future. And so our tears of smoke are
truly tears that sting our eyes, and we need to
allow ourselves the time to grieve. In Judaism, there's really
a prescription for grief. We call the first seven days,
(06:39):
including the day of the funeral shiva. We sit for
seven days, disallowing social times, work time, other interruptions and distractions,
to focus on our grief, to be comforted by family
and friends. And after a week, as we slowly emerge
from that seven day intensive, the next twenty three days
(07:01):
which bring us to the end of thirty we call
shloh sheen. We slowly emerge a little bit to return
to a little bit of our routine, some work, perhaps
not a social occasion, and begin to emerge as we
can after thirty days, a little bit more, and through
the full year slowly to get back into what we can.
(07:23):
What also happens is, and I've observed it many times,
is that there are family and friends who come close
to comfort, to give us strength, to let us know
that the future will be okay for us and with us.
There are others who are incapable of doing it. They
don't feel instinctively or otherwise trained to find the words
(07:43):
or the ways to help, and they fall away. And
sometimes we stand in the middle of it and say
what happened to so and so? I thought we were
such good friends. And I would urge anybody who finds
themselves in that place to know it isn't you, it's them.
And there are life changing events such as this that
causes people to come and go from our circle of
(08:06):
family and friends. New people will come into our life
and will say, what took you so long? You have
been such a source of support to me And the
others who have been part of our lives for so
long who disappear and fall away. That's part of the
heartache and part of the pain too. But these life
changing events change life, but it doesn't end life. And
(08:30):
so in the book of Deuteronomy and Torah, we are
reminded God gives us life and death, prosperity and adversity.
And then it says uvaharta beerhim choose life. We choose
life because it's only in life where we can serve God.
We say in Judaism, with a mitzvah, a good deed,
(08:51):
a commandment, a moral obligation, a sacred duty. To deprive
ourselves of life is to fail to serve God. And
while we can be angry with God because of such
tragedy and a horrific outcome. We also acknowledge that God
is like an unconditionally loving parent. Even as we mourn
the loss of our loved ones, our friends, loved ones,
(09:14):
God mourns too. These are God's precious children who would
have grown up or continue to live, to laugh and play,
to learn, to work, and to make a positive difference.
So when we fall out of life, we fall out
of the opportunity and privilege to serve life, to do good.
That's part of the reason we mourn too. Imagine these
(09:36):
young children who could not grow up to fulfill the
gifts that God had implanted within them. We will ultimately
forgive the waters that came roaring through because we are
inextricably linked to nature and can't avoid the rhythm of
the seasons that come and go, the storms, the rains,
the snow, the winds, the falling leaves. We are part
(09:59):
of of the rhythm of nature that all things obey,
including us. And so we often say that as the
flowers bloom and the sun shines, will remember them, And
when autumn comes and the leaves change and the winds
change course, will remember them. And in the winter, when
the snow falls and the air turns chilly, and we
(10:22):
bundle up with those who are close to us, will
remember them. And when the spring comes around again, when
there are joys who know and sorrows to feel, will
remember them. But as the familiar reading tells us, and
I'm only paraphrasing today, as long as we live, they
too shall live, for they are now a part of us.
(10:45):
As we remember them. That's our goal in the very end.
Whether you ask why or whether you ask how, whether
you make a donation in their memory, whether you serve
in their memory, whether you build memorial to them, we
need to live our lives so that they are remembered
(11:05):
to our deeds. That is the greatest tribute to all
that has been taken away from us. And I acknowledge
that it isn't only what happened in Texas. There are
floods in Durham and Chapel Hill portions of Illinois. There
are people's homes who were lost to fire and other
floods as well. When tragedy strikes, we can turn to
(11:27):
our faith traditions not just define the answers, but also
define the questions, because the questions lead us to the
answers of our own, not only the answers that our
faith offers us, but sometimes the answers that we need
today and later. But let's be honest with ourselves. We
can simply accommodate ourselves to a prescription of mourning, even
(11:51):
as Judaism prescribes it. There is something called shadow grief
that lingers. It comes around again, a first birthday, first
holiday without our loved ones, is a reason to prepare
for them, not to be surprised by them, to acknowledge
the real feelings that we have to share when those
moments come. This is a hard year coming up for
(12:13):
many families. Together with faith, communities, neighborhoods, and other sources
of real emotional, spiritual, and mental health, I know we
can do it, and I'm glad that people have called
even upon me, and I hope that as you listen
now and wish to share this message with others, it
might be helpful to those who need it. Again. I'm
(12:34):
Rabbi David Lyon from Congregation Beth Israel in Houston. To
share this message or to listen again, please find it
at my podcast called Heart to Heart with Rabbi David
Lyon at Sunday ninety nine dot com on the iHeartRadio app.
As summer continues, the weather will continue to challenge us too.
(12:55):
And having lived in Houston for many years, I know
that summertime in early foll means the possibility for hurricanes.
We brace for it. We pray that they don't come.
We pray that others who are affected by storms are
not hurt by them. But after all is said and done,
we only need to look to each other to pray
(13:15):
for the strength. We know that we can still find
within us to do what we need and to do
what we must, and to ask the questions that we
need to ask. But to go any further in the
moment may not ever bring us back what we really need,
which are the people who are lost and the young
ones who will never grow to be all that they
(13:35):
could be. Let's pray for them in our own way,
in our separate words and separate houses of worship. Let's
appreciate God's gifts to us because they are, as we know,
so incredibly precious. And when we lift ourselves up from prayer,
let's make a commitment to choose life, to continue to
(13:56):
live as they would want us to live, and to
bring goodness to others in their memory, so that their
lives will not be for naught and the tragedy will
not take everything away from this world that they ever
meant to us. I think that out of the storm
can come that those things that can never be taken away,
love and smiles, kindness, opportunity and potential. Let's offer it
(14:21):
to the world around us and steal away from the
raging storm what is so horrific and turn it into
something positive, beautiful, and most importantly, something hopeful. As the
week unfolds, contemplate and meditate on these words and the
opportunity to take out of all that has happened and
turn it into something filled with greater potential for you
(14:44):
and for those who are touched by your life. God
bless you, and God bless the families who are hurt
this past week and need so much healing with God's help.
Thank you for joining me, and I look forward to
being with you next time.
Thank you for joining me. I'm Rabbi David Lyon from
Congregation Beth Israel in Texas. Last week, last time I
reflected on the meaning of the fourth of July. Little
did I know, or any of us know what that
wee can would mean for many hundreds of people in Texas,
where major floods came roaring down and took so many
(00:23):
lives with it. When I woke up and began to
learn about what was happening, my phone began to ring.
Because what happens in one area of Texas very often
impacts many people around the state. Because children and families
travel vacation and go to summer camp far from home,
as we often do in the summer to spend time
(00:44):
with family and friends in special places that we returned
to year after year as we build special memories and
special bonds. Of course, people travel from out of state
to be in these places too. But in the middle
of the night, as the Guadalupe River was roaring with
increasing feet of water that no one expected, at least
(01:06):
not in time, so many of those plans and dreams
and memories came crashing to an end. We know from
the news that Camp Mystic was horribly affected, and many
dozens of girls were swept away by the waters, some
rescued and some not. We also know that upriver from
the camp, many families, including other campers, were also caught
(01:28):
in the horrific storm, and some lost their lives. When
my phone rang, it came from two different places. One
a family whose loved ones were celebrating a reunion were
woken up at about three in the morning to evacuate.
To make a long story short, they were caught up
in the waters. One survived and the other didn't. And
(01:50):
the horrifying storytells not only the end of a terrible night,
but also the end of a beautiful marriage and friendship
and memories for a family. Woman who wasn't able to
cling to a branch or a pole as the rivers
came storming through was swept away. Her funeral will be
in a few days. But also the little girls whose
(02:11):
lives were lost leave parents and families aching with extraordinary
pain that is very difficult to deal with or to extinguish.
When I received calls from parents whose children were not lost,
but whose friends were lost to the floods, very dear
and close friends. Not only some were friends, but daily
(02:32):
friends from school. Though they went to separate camps, they
were friends in the neighborhood and around town. So what
kind of council would I, a rabbi offer them. Most important,
as any social worker, psychologist, or pastor would offer, is
to be sure that our children know that in the
company of their parents they are safe. At home, they
(02:56):
are safe. Yes, you and I know that not a
hundred percent of the time can we always make sure
even home is perfectly safe. But we need to encourage
them to know that our love, our concern, and the
safety that we've placed around them is enough. They are
safe with us. Second, we have to explain in terms
(03:17):
that they understand what happened and how it will affect us.
That is, your dear friend is gone from life and
we will not see her again. It brings us sadness
for what will never be again and for what we
held so dear. But also we have opportunities to retrieve
from the tragedy what will never be taken away from us,
(03:41):
which are very special memories and ways to think about
her and talk about her. And third, it comes from
a specifically Jewish place. Is very often we're led to
by instinct to ask why why did it happen? I've
talked before, and it's time to teach again that why
(04:02):
is not a very good question because it can lead
to completely unanswerable questions that lead us astray and sometimes
making up magical thinking that tells us that she's in
a better place God needed her more than we did.
But in fact, we want to know in our hearts
and souls that the best place for our children is
(04:24):
always right next to us. And what reason could God
have a loving compassion of God to rip a child
away from her parents in such a horrific manner? So
why is not a good question, although some people will
point fingers to be sure that blame is assessed, opportunities
to correct a terrible problem will be fixed, and so forth.
(04:47):
But the Jewish question comes from the Book of Lamentations
in the Hebrew Bible, our book of sorrows, so to speak.
In Hebrew, it's called aha, and ahra is a Hebrew
word that means how. It's the beginning of the questions
we need to ask. How will we remember those who
are lost in the storm? How will we pick up
(05:10):
our lives to continue to choose to live among the living,
and how will we honor the memory of those who
are lost, so that their memory is not also taken
away from us, but as a source of life, honor, duty,
and sacred living in the future, when we ask a
(05:31):
myriad number of how questions will come up with answers
that meet our need today and in the future too. Yes,
the pain is very deep, and the Talmud also teaches
that there are tears of fruit and tears of smoke.
The tears of fruit are the ones that we shed
when we do find moments of joy to remember them,
(05:54):
to recollect the times that they made a smile and laugh.
Those are tears of joy, we call them. And then
there are tears of smoke, the tears that sting our eyes,
because there will be lingering death memories, lingering thoughts of
our loved ones that will continue to cause us pain
and heartache every single day. How could it not when
(06:16):
a child is taken from us? When we invest and
love and adore our children with not only what they
need to day, but our hopes and dreams for them
in the future. And so our tears of smoke are
truly tears that sting our eyes, and we need to
allow ourselves the time to grieve. In Judaism, there's really
a prescription for grief. We call the first seven days,
(06:39):
including the day of the funeral shiva. We sit for
seven days, disallowing social times, work time, other interruptions and distractions,
to focus on our grief, to be comforted by family
and friends. And after a week, as we slowly emerge
from that seven day intensive, the next twenty three days
(07:01):
which bring us to the end of thirty we call
shloh sheen. We slowly emerge a little bit to return
to a little bit of our routine, some work, perhaps
not a social occasion, and begin to emerge as we
can after thirty days, a little bit more, and through
the full year slowly to get back into what we can.
(07:23):
What also happens is, and I've observed it many times,
is that there are family and friends who come close
to comfort, to give us strength, to let us know
that the future will be okay for us and with us.
There are others who are incapable of doing it. They
don't feel instinctively or otherwise trained to find the words
(07:43):
or the ways to help, and they fall away. And
sometimes we stand in the middle of it and say
what happened to so and so? I thought we were
such good friends. And I would urge anybody who finds
themselves in that place to know it isn't you, it's them.
And there are life changing events such as this that
causes people to come and go from our circle of
(08:06):
family and friends. New people will come into our life
and will say, what took you so long? You have
been such a source of support to me And the
others who have been part of our lives for so
long who disappear and fall away. That's part of the
heartache and part of the pain too. But these life
changing events change life, but it doesn't end life. And
(08:30):
so in the book of Deuteronomy and Torah, we are
reminded God gives us life and death, prosperity and adversity.
And then it says uvaharta beerhim choose life. We choose
life because it's only in life where we can serve God.
We say in Judaism, with a mitzvah, a good deed,
(08:51):
a commandment, a moral obligation, a sacred duty. To deprive
ourselves of life is to fail to serve God. And
while we can be angry with God because of such
tragedy and a horrific outcome. We also acknowledge that God
is like an unconditionally loving parent. Even as we mourn
the loss of our loved ones, our friends, loved ones,
(09:14):
God mourns too. These are God's precious children who would
have grown up or continue to live, to laugh and play,
to learn, to work, and to make a positive difference.
So when we fall out of life, we fall out
of the opportunity and privilege to serve life, to do good.
That's part of the reason we mourn too. Imagine these
(09:36):
young children who could not grow up to fulfill the
gifts that God had implanted within them. We will ultimately
forgive the waters that came roaring through because we are
inextricably linked to nature and can't avoid the rhythm of
the seasons that come and go, the storms, the rains,
the snow, the winds, the falling leaves. We are part
(09:59):
of of the rhythm of nature that all things obey,
including us. And so we often say that as the
flowers bloom and the sun shines, will remember them, And
when autumn comes and the leaves change and the winds
change course, will remember them. And in the winter, when
the snow falls and the air turns chilly, and we
(10:22):
bundle up with those who are close to us, will
remember them. And when the spring comes around again, when
there are joys who know and sorrows to feel, will
remember them. But as the familiar reading tells us, and
I'm only paraphrasing today, as long as we live, they
too shall live, for they are now a part of us.
(10:45):
As we remember them. That's our goal in the very end.
Whether you ask why or whether you ask how, whether
you make a donation in their memory, whether you serve
in their memory, whether you build memorial to them, we
need to live our lives so that they are remembered
(11:05):
to our deeds. That is the greatest tribute to all
that has been taken away from us. And I acknowledge
that it isn't only what happened in Texas. There are
floods in Durham and Chapel Hill portions of Illinois. There
are people's homes who were lost to fire and other
floods as well. When tragedy strikes, we can turn to
(11:27):
our faith traditions not just define the answers, but also
define the questions, because the questions lead us to the
answers of our own, not only the answers that our
faith offers us, but sometimes the answers that we need
today and later. But let's be honest with ourselves. We
can simply accommodate ourselves to a prescription of mourning, even
(11:51):
as Judaism prescribes it. There is something called shadow grief
that lingers. It comes around again, a first birthday, first
holiday without our loved ones, is a reason to prepare
for them, not to be surprised by them, to acknowledge
the real feelings that we have to share when those
moments come. This is a hard year coming up for
(12:13):
many families. Together with faith, communities, neighborhoods, and other sources
of real emotional, spiritual, and mental health, I know we
can do it, and I'm glad that people have called
even upon me, and I hope that as you listen
now and wish to share this message with others, it
might be helpful to those who need it. Again. I'm
(12:34):
Rabbi David Lyon from Congregation Beth Israel in Houston. To
share this message or to listen again, please find it
at my podcast called Heart to Heart with Rabbi David
Lyon at Sunday ninety nine dot com on the iHeartRadio app.
As summer continues, the weather will continue to challenge us too.
(12:55):
And having lived in Houston for many years, I know
that summertime in early foll means the possibility for hurricanes.
We brace for it. We pray that they don't come.
We pray that others who are affected by storms are
not hurt by them. But after all is said and done,
we only need to look to each other to pray
(13:15):
for the strength. We know that we can still find
within us to do what we need and to do
what we must, and to ask the questions that we
need to ask. But to go any further in the
moment may not ever bring us back what we really need,
which are the people who are lost and the young
ones who will never grow to be all that they
(13:35):
could be. Let's pray for them in our own way,
in our separate words and separate houses of worship. Let's
appreciate God's gifts to us because they are, as we know,
so incredibly precious. And when we lift ourselves up from prayer,
let's make a commitment to choose life, to continue to
(13:56):
live as they would want us to live, and to
bring goodness to others in their memory, so that their
lives will not be for naught and the tragedy will
not take everything away from this world that they ever
meant to us. I think that out of the storm
can come that those things that can never be taken away,
love and smiles, kindness, opportunity and potential. Let's offer it
(14:21):
to the world around us and steal away from the
raging storm what is so horrific and turn it into
something positive, beautiful, and most importantly, something hopeful. As the
week unfolds, contemplate and meditate on these words and the
opportunity to take out of all that has happened and
turn it into something filled with greater potential for you
(14:44):
and for those who are touched by your life. God
bless you, and God bless the families who are hurt
this past week and need so much healing with God's help.
Thank you for joining me, and I look forward to
being with you next time.
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