Editor’s note: NewsLanc doesn’t have a Religion Section but would welcome submittals of exceptional sermons and writings of general interest by the clergy. At NewsLanc’s request and with permission, the following is a large excerpt from the text of a Yom Kippur message by Rabbi Jack Paskoff of the Reform denomination Shaarai Shomayim synagogue at Duke and James streets, downtown:
….Almost 20 years ago, Rabbi Lawrence Kushner wrote a book that serves as an extended commentary on the portion of the Torah in which Jacob has his famous dream. A ladder reaching up to heaven, angels going up and down on the ladder, and a conversation with God. Jacob wakes to the awareness that he has found Sha’ar Ha-Shamayim, the gateway to heaven. Kushner’s book is called “God was in this place, and I, i did not know.” In the epilogue, we find these thoughts: Each person has a Torah, unique to that person, his or her innermost teaching. Some seem to know their Torahs very early in life and speak and sing them in a myriad of ways. Others spend their whole lives stammering, shaping, and rehearsing them. Some are long, some are short. Some are intricate and poetic, others are only a few words, and still others can only be spoken through gesture and example. But every soul has a Torah. To hear another say Torah is a precious gift.
Over the years, on the High Holidays, I have shared with you the personal Torahs of luminaries like Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Martin Buber, and Rav Kook. This morning, I want to teach you more of the Torah I learned from Kathleen Johnson. Kathleen is the director of the agency we worked with on our two trips to the Gulf Coast. While doing hard work, on both trips I metaphorically sat at the feet of this wise woman, as we are instructed to do in Pirkei Avot, where Yose ben Yoezer is quoted as saying: “Sit humbly at the feet of the wise, and with thirst, drink in their words.” Most of you have heard bits and pieces of the story of these encounters with Kathleen from myself and others who traveled with us. This morning, as I share more with you, I want to ask you to think about yourselves and our congregation, and how we can grow together by living according to some of the teachings of this tzadeket, this righteous woman.
When I walked into Kathleen’s office at about 7:15 on the first Monday morning of our trip this year, she was sitting speaking with Mike. In Kathleen’s 5 years in Mississippi, she found homes for quite a few of the homeless, both animals and humans. Mike was the last person she needed to place. With a pile of paperwork on her desk, her work days still running for 12 or more hours, she sat talking with Mike. Kathleen had all the time in the world for him. Even though we were eager to get to work, she wasn’t going to cut Mike short. He had her full attention. At that moment, his story was the only one that mattered. When the story drifted from Mike’s reality to his mother’s recent diagnosis of cancer, Kathleen expressed genuine concern, not clichés that express our own discomfort with talking about illness, and certainly not “Oh no. This is going to take another 10 minutes.” Kathleen worked hard to make a genuine connection, to make a homeless person, ignored by government and society, feel valued and respected. If we think about our own interactions, think about the last time you felt a genuine connection with another person. More importantly, think about the last time you gave someone your full attention, even a loved one. Especially in our day when we talk about our ability to multi-task as if it is a badge of honor, these connections don’t come easily. They take work.
Here’s another lawn mowing story I heard from Kathleen. She had learned of a woman who was unable to mow her lawn. As a result, especially in an environment like Mississippi, there were snakes, and the woman had been bitten. When Kathleen asked the woman if she needed help, she reported her snake bite. That day, Kathleen sent over 4 homeless people with lawnmowers. The woman got her lawn mowed, guaranteeing her safety for a couple of weeks, and the men earned a day’s wage and felt the dignity that comes with hard work. Aside from that, connections were made. How many of you would stop to ask a neighbor if he was OK? How many of you would stop to ask a stranger? How many of you would show up with a lawn mower and just get to work?
One of the things that Kathleen was witness to was the racism that is still rampant in the Deep South, and, if we were honest with ourselves, probably in a good part of the country as a whole. One day, shortly before one of the Christmases since Katrina, she got a phone call from a fire house in New York City. They had done a toy drive, filling an 18 wheel tractor trailer, wanting to drive it down to Mississippi where the toys could be donated to the kids whose lives were disrupted by the Hurricane. Kathleen of course agreed to help see that the toys would be distributed appropriately. She approached the pastor of a church near her facility, and asked for the names of all the churches in the area. He produced a list, which Kathleen examined, only to find that the list included only Baptist churches. She went to another pastor, who also provided a list. When Kathleen looked it over, she asked where the Black churches were. The pastor answered calmly, as if it were perfectly natural, that the black churches weren’t on that list. Kathleen had to compile the list by herself. So here’s the question for us. What are our prejudices, and how will we work in the new year to overcome them?
Even though the drive was for children’s toys, in that trailer from the New York fire company were some boxes of adult clothes. Kathleen took the children and told each of them to pick out something to give to their parents as a Christmas gift. She watched as the children presented their gifts and the joy they showed at having the ability to be givers, not just takers. Where did Kathleen learn the importance of helping people give? It seems that one of her own children had cancer as a young person, requiring lengthy hospitalizations. At different times, even while in the hospital, her son was able to be somewhat mobile. One day, again shortly before Christmas, someone whose name Kathleen never learned came to her son and gave him twenty dollars with the instruction to go to the gift shop to buy his parents a gift. Just as there is joy in receiving, there is joy in giving, and perhaps even more important than the joy of giving is the dignity that comes with it.
John Woodward was on both of our trips. This time, he asked to photograph people and hear their stories. Kathleen was eager to help him fulfill his wish. One day, while we went to work, John stayed back. Kathleen sent him to a government office along with a case worker and a client. When they arrived, with a long time to wait before being seen, John looked around. The individual offices were large, but the waiting room was tiny. Waiting outside was not an option in the triple degree heat and humidity. At one point, John asked where the restroom was, and was told that there was no public restroom in the office. He had to walk down the block to the office of a trailer park. John wondered what would happen if there was an elderly person who needed the restroom, or someone who was ill. The indignities suffered at the hands of government can sometimes be the cruelest of all.
We were Kathleen’s last group of volunteers. The agency was closing down, primarily because of a lack of funds and a lack of volunteers. This was a source of despair for Kathleen as she had been fighting the bureaucracies of government for 5 years and there was still work to be done. Even in this, Kathleen found a healthy insight. She acknowledged that closing down was perhaps not the worst thing in the world. After 5 years, she feared that a perpetual victim mentality would set in among many of the people. They needed to learn to stand again on their own two feet.
Here’s one last piece of Kathleen’s Torah, not directly connected to her Katrina work. Three of us were speaking with her at one point, and we got on the subject of special education in this country. Kathleen observed that a key component is missing. The focus is on the disability instead of the abilities, and she feels that needs to change. She spoke of her intellectually challenged sister, who nevertheless had a facility with languages. And then she told us her own story. When she was a child, her father worked at a school where Kathleen was taken under the wing of the headmaster. Kathleen loved to garden and together they would work outdoors. One day, Kathleen’s father approached the headmaster, expressing concern that Kathleen was retarded because she couldn’t read. The headmaster knew better. He called her over and gave her a math problem to solve. She immediately arrived at the answer in a day before calculators and computers, without even pencil and paper. He gave her a much harder problem, which she again solved. Kathleen’s father was shocked. While this was before we all knew about dyslexia, the headmaster knew that Kathleen was capable, just requiring a different manner of teaching. He became her teacher, and she thrived.
Kathleen is not Jewish. When she first moved to this country from Australia, she had never met a Jew, but she was living in a community with a Jewish Community Center, and there was a class she wanted to take there. For some time, she thought the receptionist at the front desk was named Shalom because that’s what she said whenever she answered the phone. For someone who has such little exposure to Jews and Judaism, I have rarely encountered someone who so fully embraces and models values that are so consistent with Jewish teaching. My friends, fortunately, Kathleen is healthy, and will undoubtedly find another place where she will continue to teach and inspire while helping other people in another community rebuild their lives. This is the Torah of Kathleen Johnson.
Here’s my final challenge to you this High Holiday season. What is your personal Torah? What is your innermost teaching? What is the lesson of your life? If you were to meet a complete stranger, what would they learn about you and about the things you hold dear? Would they learn about greed, a desire for personal gain, intolerance? Would they learn about someone who neglects education or culture? My hope is that what they will learn is a Torah of giving, of learning, and of loving. A teaching of openness and acceptance. Contemplating this holiday in particular, I hope they will hear words and observe deeds that demonstrate messages of T’shuvah, atonement, and genuine forgiveness. I want them to see in each of us a Torah of devotion to the teachings of our people.
My friends, in the year we are embarking on, may you hear much Torah that is a welcome gift in your lives, and may you teach much Torah to those who need to learn from you. Together, may we study the Torah of our people and may we internalize it into our lives. In this way, may 5771 be a year of blessing in our lives, and may we share that blessing with the world.
Amen
