March 15, 2025
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Parshat Ki Tisa
Counterworld
March 15, 2025 – 15 Adar 5785
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
A woman named Jessica Sklar, her husband and their two children were happily living their lives in Pacific Palisades when their house burned down. Since losing all their earthly possessions, they have been wandering in the wilderness. In less than two months, this family has moved five times, from A B & B X5. In the home they used to love, they had stability and serenity. In the wilderness they now inhabit, they have anxiety and uncertainty. A deep question lodges in their soul: We are not okay. Will we ever be okay again?
In the face of this anxiety and uncertainty, one place has brought them deep comfort: the Pacific Palisades Youth Baseball League which, because the Palisades fields were destroyed by the fire, are in neighboring towns. A Times article recently reported:
At last came the siren call: Play ball!
The pomp and circumstance…provided a modicum of normalcy for families who
in the previous 53 days have had to find new homes, schools, doctors, cars, clothes,
places to worship and more—all while navigating the maze of insurance and
government assistance and deciding what to do next.
I cried seeing people, said Juliana Davis, who lost her home.
I cried coming, said her friend Erin Chidsey, whose house also burned.
Of the 450 boys and girls who had signed up to play before the fire, 305 are still playing. And parents and children are finding it a tonic to their souls.
What do we do when we are in the wilderness? We have not lost our homes to the wildfire. Yet many of us feel that we are in a different kind of wilderness.
I have a wonderful Sisterhood class on Tuesday mornings. More than 30 people show up every Tuesday. We have been talking about our world through the prism of Jewish texts. What I hear from these students is deep anxiety. I have deep anxiety about our world. We are not okay. Will we ever be okay again?
What will be with Israel? I have always loved Israel. But I am just confused. And worried. How does this end?
What will be with our country? My students will say to me: I know you can’t talk about politics, and we respect that. But what is happening with our checks and balances? Will we be leaving a democracy to our future generations?
Edge. Anxiety. Concern for our future. Not feeling deeply anchored. And wondering: what can I do to create the world I want to live in and leave to my loved ones?
That is the Torah’s question now. How do we create a counterworld to the wilderness? In a world of chaos, a counterworld of order. In a world of cruelty, a counterworld of love. In a world that feels unsafe, a counterworld of home and sanctuary. Our Torah offers us three questions that we have control over.
Question number one: Who are our people? Who do we do life with? The Palisades survivors found their people: fellow Palisdades survivors. The Israelites found their people: their tribes. Who are our people? Finding our people so that we can navigate the anxieties of our time and keep loneliness at bay is life-savingly important. Loneliness can be fatal.
The recent passing of the great actor Gene Hackman, and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, and their dog, in a remote home in Santa Fe, points to how dangerous loneliness can be. The Santa Fe authorities concluded there was no foul play. Betsy Arakawa died from a respiratory illness linked to rodents. Gene Hackman died from heart disease and Alzheimer’s. While there was no foul play, there was loneliness. Authorities concluded that Gene Hackman, Betsy Arakawa and their dog had all passed away, but that there was no human being in their lives who knew they were missing. They were likely all deceased together for more than a week until a maintenance man got no answer when he rang the doorbell. He called security, who also got no answer. Security called 911, which is how their deaths were discovered.
This sad story offers a cautionary note. Loneliness is not a problem to be solved once and done. Loneliness is a tension to be managed all the days of our lives. Gene Hackman had been a preeminent actor of his generation. He had won two Oscars and starred in countless films. He had once been surrounded by people and energy, by glitz and glamour, and then it was all gone. Silence and solitude. We are not movie stars. But we are all vulnerable to the risk of chapters that have fewer people in our day-to-day lives. We used to have a home filled with children and their energy, but our children grew up and out. We used to be happily married for decades, but alas the love of our life passed away. We still have loved ones, but they live far away. We get a call, from our child or grandchild, every Sunday. But Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, there are a lot of hours without a lot of people around.
Which is why this place, Temple Emanuel, is so critically important at all ages and stages because if you show up here, you are part of a thick network of people who know and care and love you. If you show up, there are no Gene Hackmans at Temple Emanuel. When creating a counterworld to the wilderness, that is our first question: who are our people, and what are we doing to stay connected to them?
The second question: what gifts are we giving to build our counterworld? What is our distinctive energy that will make our counterworld more beautiful and more helpful? In the Torah, the woodworkers gave wood. What gift do we give?
A woman shared that her loved one had been moved to memory care. If you have ever been with a loved one in memory care, you know that it is a very hard place. But in these dreary days, this woman discovered one unexpected blessing: the food that her loved one ate was consistently terrific, beautifully presented and delicious. She had expected institutional food at a dreary institution. But meal after meal the food was amazing. So much so that she went to find the cook in the kitchen to express gratitude. When she found the cook, he was working on a mango infusion that would adorn the fruit plate dessert that night. Offering special food made with love and care with his gift. What is our gift?
And the third question: What difference will we make? Who will we help? Who will be better off in our counterworld because of our labors? Recently at evening minyan a woman came up to share that she was observing the yahrtzeit for her aunt. She began by acknowledging that it is not so common for a niece to observe a yahrtzeit many years later for an aunt. Let me tell you why I do this every year. She shared that her aunt did not meet the conventional metrics for a successful life. Her aunt never got married. Never had children. Never got a great education. Never had an important job. Her aunt could have lived an angry, grumpy life. Yet her aunt believed the purpose of her life was to give and receive love. This aunt made this niece, and other nieces and nephews, feel deeply seen and loved. And she taught that the most important metric for a successful life are the people we love. What could be a more important difference than that? This niece concluded that she will be saying Kaddish at her aunt’s yahrtzeit all the years of her life.
There are a lot of wildernesses. Biblical Israel had the OG wilderness. Families who lost their homes in the fire have their wilderness. We who have edge and worry about the lands we love have our wilderness. The Torah’s message for our time is clear: build our mishkan. Build our counterworld. Who are our people? What is our gift? Who will be better off because of us? The chef at the memory care did mango infusions. The aunt taught her nieces and nephews that the metric that matters is love. The families without homes found hope on a little league baseball field. What will we do to create our counterworld of hope and love where everything will be okay. Shabbat shalom.