Post Sandy - of Land and Love

I remember a conversation I had with my family when I was growing up about another family in the neighborhood.  They were facing a particular challenge and I said, “I feel bad – look what they are dealing with.”

And my mother said some version of a Yiddish phrase the gist of which is, “Unfortunately, on a beautiful Tuesday morning after Passover these people had their challenges.”  Meaning, even before the crisis, things weren’t easy for them.  And the crisis of course just made things worse.

Life was challenging enough before the recent storms – everyone I know has challenges – but the storms brought things to a new level – it exposed cracks that were already present and it added new cracks.

There have been many conversations about infrastructure and resources and more will certainly be forthcoming.

I want to talk about what I believe really animates us, what really keeps us going. 

As I often do, I’m going to take us back a few thousands years in order hopefully to shed some light on the present.

We read this morning about how our father Abraham had to take care of two items – finding a burial place for his wife and a wife for his son.

Neither was easy to find.  But they boil down to two concepts – land and love.  In order to lay his beloved Sarah to rest, Abraham purchases land in Hebron.

In order to find a wife for Isaac, he sends his servant on a highly choreographed mission complete with camels, bracelets, conversation and travel, but in the end it comes down to this – Rebecca sees Isaac and covers her face out of conventional modesty; Isaac hears the whole story from the servant, brings Rebecca into the tent of his mother, Sarah.  ותהי לו לאשה ויאהביה  She became his wife and he loved her.

In the midst of all of the assessment and negotiation that this portion describes – for the purchased land in which to bury Sarah and the promised land that awaits Isaac and Rebecca – the driving, animating force here is not land – it’s love.  The love of Abraham for Sarah, and the love of Isaac for Rebecca.

We know the value of land quite well – it’s a source of some stability and security – but time and again we are reminded of its limitations.  I want to expand on that for a minute – in the literal and metaphoric sense – and then I want to talk about love.

Land erodes and recedes and fights back.  We saw that clearly these past weeks – we always know it rationally, but two storms really drove the point home.

I will leave for different forums the questions of whether we are building in the right places in the right concentrations. 

But one thing becomes clear from time to time, and that is that our land, our homes, our stuff – are not as stable as we like to imagine.

Now of course, we know that love can be fickle.  Love can also erode.  Love ebbs and flows like the tide.

But in general, and especially in light of what we experience during challenging times such as these past weeks – I’ll bet on love over land, embrace over place, connection over acquisition, any time.

Many of us heard that NYU hospital had to relocate following the first storm.  I can hardly imagine how much effort and precision it takes to evacuate a hospital.

Nurses carried babies, some premature, down staircases with limited lighting to a new location.

Our own Beth Hagan nursery school met in our youth house on Monday and Tuesday because our main building was without power. 

Anyone who walked into the youth house Monday and Tuesday saw teachers greeting students with hugs and smiles.  The children were not in their usual classrooms, with their usual toys, but they seemed to manage pretty well.  The adults somehow succeeded in conveying to the children that they were safe and loved in the new space, and the atmosphere was one of comfort and joy. 

We put out word that we were looking for coats and blankets to donate to nearby towns that were truly ravaged by the storm.  Those who could came with boxes to the youth house, which we have been delivering to the best of our ability.

Tough situations can expose and expand the cracks, but they can also expose and strengthen the glue that keeps us together.

Tough situations can remind us that for all the vicissitudes of human relations, our ability to care for each other is ultimately the most stable factor in our lives.

The psalmist wrote עולם חסד יבנה olam hesed yibaneh – the world is sustained based on chesed.  The word can be understood to mean “kindness” as well as love, and I think they’re intertwined. 

We tend when we speak of love to focus on romantic attraction, or chemistry.   But the word chesed has a different valence – concern that goes beyond attraction or shared interest.

The Torah is a real book for a real world – if it weren’t, it wouldn’t have lasted.

And so it shouldn’t surprise us that it presents a dynamic, rather than a single concept – and land and love are at the core.

So the first couple, Adam and Eve, are told to fill the earth and conquer it, and the first redo couple, Noah and his wife, are told the same thing, and Abraham and Sarah are told that God will give them the land. 

And questions of land acquisition and conquest continue through the Torah.

But that’s not the only song being sung.

Toward the beginning, Adam and Eve disobey, realize they are naked, and God makes clothing for them. 

Toward the end, God buries Moses personally.

The rabbis noticed that and said, the Torah begins with an act of love and ends with an act of love. 

And in between, God loves Israel and Israel loves God.

And Isaac loves Rebecca.

And there are ups and downs and ins and outs, but the force of love somehow remains.

And the final note of the Torah is this.  Moses doesn’t get the land, but he does get the love.  I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

David Brooks recently wrote about a study performed on a group of men at Harvard in the 1930’s.  The study traced their degree of success from college onward.

The initial hypothesis was that there would be a correlation between body type and success – the more classically masculine the body, the greater the success.

The hypothesis proved false.  The greatest indicator of success was the degree to which the men enjoyed loving relationships – with parents, in their youth, with partners and children as they matured.

It would be foolish to denigrate the importance of achievement and acquisition.  It’s hardwired in us.  No sooner does our land erode than we want to rebuild.  And who can blame us?  Though we may differ on the boundary between need and want, we all need a place to call our own.  Land matters.

But love matters more.  Which is why, when we snap at each other or dismiss each other, when the wires that get crossed have nothing to do with LIPA, it’s worth the risk, the investment and the swallowing of pride to try to repair whatever damage has been done.

And during a crisis, when tempers flare and patience is strained, damage inevitably is done.

So apologize to whomever you snapped at this past week.  And thank whoever helped you.  And give an extra hug to the people who are part of your life, in big and small ways.  And the next time you have the choice between connection and conquest, think twice about how to proceed.

Fill the earth and conquer it has its place.  Working and guarding the land has its place.  But in the aftermath of Sandy and Athena and in the face of whatever awaits us, I nominate, as the most energizing articulation of what it means to create, sustain and enhance life – the words attributed to King David, lover extraordinaire – olam hesed yibaneh.  The world is built on loving-kindness. 

Let that phrase guide us, in good times and bad. 

Delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck, Parshat Hayei Sarah, Saturday, November 10, 2012