Jerry
and Judy Rothstein ז״ל
Let us rejoice in the lives of two people who lived life to
the fullest. Last year, when Judy
returned from the latest trip to Israel, she told me that she loved Israel so
much that she was ready to retire and leave her Hawaiian home of over 30 years
and move there. On Sunday, after
celebrating the Jewish holiday Tu B’Shvat, late in the afternoon, as Jerry and
Judy left the Shalomha Ranch in Lapahoehoe to return home, they stopped their
car and got out to take a last photograph at the entrance of the driveway.
Planted in the ground, rippling in the wind, side by side, were the
American flag and the Israeli flag.
Though I have only lived in this community for a little
more than a year, I spent a lot of time with these two proactive servants of
God. It seemed that every event
worthy of attendance, there we were together.
In life, there are those who talk the talk, and there are those who walk
the walk. Jerry and Judy spent their
whole lives “doing” and thus giving of themselves. If you knew them and
worked with them, you couldn’t help but follow them because they took
“doing” to the next level. They
got others to “do” too. They had
a unique and amazing ability to multiply their efforts by getting others
involved. They always fought the
good fights and stood on the right side of issues with both mind and body.
When it came time to commit energy, it was not just a matter of putting
time in because it was expected, it was organize and bring others along for the
ride, it was stand up and testify at public hearings, it was write that letter
to the newspaper or congressman. Selflessness
in service was their munificent bounty.
I don’t think I have ever known two less pretentious
people in my life. The trust they
automatically granted all those they met was without guile and modeled the
higher good in which they lived each moment of their lives.
Life was an endless possibility and opportunity for service, always
looking for the next hill to climb and then looking back to beckon us to join
them. In the later years of life
when many of us would consider taking an easier course, they took on new
projects, like the monthly library book sale, with Jerry, at age 68, hauling
thousands of pounds of books around, and pound for dollar, in turn, raising
thousands of dollars every month for the public library.
As the librarian of Konawaena High School, he tempted me with first
choice of all these books for the benefit of my school, and thus enlisted my
whole family in the process. When I
returned to the library on Monday, there was a letter from Jerry waiting with
the bill for my last purchase.
On Sunday, the day of the accident, I spent the whole
afternoon with Judy and Jerry and other members of our island’s small Jewish
community, joining together in celebration of the Jewish holiday Tu B’Shvat,
the Jewish Arbor Day, our New Year of the Trees, rejoicing in the fruit of the
tree and the fruit of the vine, celebrating the splendid, abundant gifts of the
natural world, which give our senses delight and our bodies life, celebrating
the renewal of vision and awareness, celebrating connections and connectedness,
to our own inner-selves, to the social world of human beings, and to the natural
world and its Source. The ritual
consumption of fruits and nuts, if done with kavanah (כונה), the
proper intention, causes sparks of holy light hidden in the fruit to be
liberated from their shells and rise up the heavenly ladder to return to their
divine source, thereby contributing to the regeneration of life for the coming
year. Together we prayed, together we ate, we
dedicated, we remembered, and we planted trees.
With the deepest meanings of symbolism, we all shared these things for
our annual traditional sanctification by way of renewal.
In keeping with any gathering of Jews, there is always an
opportunity for learning. Listen closely and understand how Tu B’Shvat provides us
a contextual map, a template, a framework, for how to live an exemplary Jewish
life. There are four stages of
development honored symbolically while celebrating Tu B’Shvat.
In the first stage, Assiya (עשיה),
represented by the earth and action, we eat fruits soft inside, but protected by
a hard shell or peel. This realm
needs the most protection from external extremes. With this stage, we
acknowledge a rooted awareness of the tangible world around us, our spaceship
earth; and understand our proper place in this world.
In the world of work, of everyday activity, the spiritual requires
protection and nurturing. Special
effort is necessary to protect it from indifference, from being forgotten, from
unkind influences. The Jewish tradition teaches us that our relations with all
things in the world of action can lead us to higher spiritual levels. We realize
wasting, pollution, and not actively caring for the environment lead to very ill
consequences. By internalizing and acting on the Jewish values of chesed (חסד)
caring, tzedakah (צדקה),
righteousness, rachamim (רחמים),
compassion, and kavanah (כונה),
proper intention, we can create and
sustain a world in harmony with Being. Jerry
and Judy lived the embodiment of these principles.
Their life epitomized an approach that believed that one must “Peel off
one’s shell and embrace the world around you; and, protect it with all one’s
might.”
In the second stage of development, Yetzira (יצירה),
represented by water, we turn to spiritual, inner development by blessing fruits
with a soft outside but a hard pit, or an inner core that we don’t eat.
The pit symbolizes regrowth and a transformation of the earth.
Now the pit is something that we normally throw away, paying it no mind,
and yet, there is no succeeding generation if the seed is not planted.
Maimonides, a 14th century Jewish philosopher, whose
800th birthday we celebrate this year, teaches us that we should
consider the entire world as if it were exactly balanced between acts of
righteousness and acts of evil. The very next action we take, therefore, can
save or condemn the world. Jerry
and Judy’s life was a not just a planting of the spirit, but a constant
replanting and regeneration on a daily basis.
Many people spend their lives as followers of some spiritual community;
Jerry and Judy were leaders of not one, but two such communities, New Thought
Spiritual Center and Kona Beth Shalom, giving intimately of themselves and
modeling righteousness for other members. Judy
was a chronographer, a person who made history real by recording photographs of
vital life events. With her
photographs, she acted as the ombudsman of traditions that extended both from
the present back into the past, and, forward into the future.
What will we do without Jerry’s pronounced voice, in the New
Thought newsletter he diligently sent out? When
I returned to work on Monday, there was the newsletter waiting in my mailbox.
A plethora of wisdom, thought-provoking tributes to our elders, and
activism, I not only read it thoroughly each week when it came, I copied
portions and sent them to others; I saved the quotes and shared them with my
students at Konawaena High School; I laughed at the jokes; and, I paid
attention, which, of course, was the point above all.
The third stage of
development is B’riah (בריאה),
or creation, and is represented by air, when the tree is fully being, growing
and flowering. Fruits of the realm
of creation have no shells and no pits, but are eaten in entirety as they are.
They represent the dominion of the intellect.
This dominion allows for the full development and nurturing of humanity
in a world which contains suffering. In
our most precious relationships, we are most like the fruits that are soft
throughout and that can be taken whole, being available to each other in every
aspect and facet of our personalities, and being strong in a way which does not
cut any part of us off from ourselves or from each other. At this moment of
I-Thou, there is no inner shell, like the fruits of B'riyah. We
feel at one with each other and with all creation.
It seems fortuitous that while eating our Tu B’Shvat seder, the ceremonial
repast, Jerry and I sat and conversed about his beloved mango trees which are
just in the stage of flowering and setting fruit.
Included in this realm is the universal care accorded to those who can
not care for themselves, and the concept of Tikun Olam, or repairing the world.
By its very nature, Tikun Olam (תקון
עזלם) depends on the kavanah (כונה),
or intention, one has when performing creative work.
Jerry and Judy were such powerful teachers that one knew that if they
were involved with a cause, it was a cause of righteousness.
Proper intention moves mountains and touches hearts.
Jerry and Judy did both with determined focus and high expectations of
success.
On Tu B’Shvat, the
Jewish New Year of the Trees, the fourth and final stage of blessing is Atzilut,
(אצילות),
or nobility. It is represented by
fire. This purview is one of pure
spirituality, without a physical embodiment.
In the world of Atzilut, we become aware of God's love, mercy,
wisdom and other realities perceived with our hearts, not our senses. Our hearts
are full and we praise the Source which renews all creation.
I offer the following prayer written by a chacham (חכם),
a wise man, who lived at the end of the 18th
century, Reb Nachman of Bratslav (1772-1810):
Master of the Universe,
grant us the ability to be alone;
may it be our custom to go outdoors each day
among the trees and grass - among all growing things
and there may we be alone, and enter into prayer,
to talk with the One to whom we belong.
May we express there everything in our hearts,
and may all the foliage of the field -
all grasses, trees, and plants -
awake at our coming,
to send the powers of their life into the words of our prayer
so that our prayer and speech are made whole
through the life and spirit of all growing things,
which are made as one by their transcendent Source.
May we then pour out the words of our heart
before your Presence like water, O Lord,
and lift up our hands to You in worship,
on our behalf, and that of our children!
And so, at this time,
the torch of fire has been passed. There
is a Jewish tradition which says that the world’s whole existence rests on the
shoulders of 36 Tzadikim Nistarim,
צדיקים
נסתרים,
36 hidden, righteous men and women. When
one of them dies, God finds another replacement.
I invite each of you now to take a
moment and close your eyes to enter this realm of pure spirituality. Cast your
mind to a special memory you have of Jerry or Judy.
With eyes closed, picture the tree of life that was theirs, planted with
hope, in humility and goodness. Feel
the strength of their tree. Select a
fruit from their tree. The fruit is
ripe and ready for eating. Eat that
fruit. Savor it as it goes down your
throat. You have eaten the fruit of
blessed lives. In keeping, from
beyond our ken, Jerry and Judy call out to you.
They say, “Life is responsibility” and they ask, “How can you be
the tree?” They call out to you
saying, “Life is possibility” and asking, “How can you be the fruit?”
חזק
ואמץ
ושמע את
הקריאה
Stand tall and
heed their call!
written by Yehudah Plaut, January 30, 2005