Emor Rabbi Harold Kushner, z"l

Rabbi Harold Kushner, z”l, passed away just before last Shabbat. Harold was one of those most humble and gentle human beings. I remember when I was a student at JTS and he came to share with us his thoughts about how he walked through life having a son who had passed away to progeria. He had just penned “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” and I recall the discussion following that lecture on whether one could accept his philosophy related to God. And while at first the philosophy was not accepted by the most traditional within both the faculty and students, later on that philosophy became one that we all recognized that provided the most comfort to those who were suffering from many different situations in life.  

Many years later, Harold called me at my home on the North Shore of Boston, suggesting that I seriously consider moving to a congregation down the road from where he was the Rabbi Laureate. I was impressed that such a world-renowned rabbi would reach out to me in such a fashion. And I did heed his advice. On occasion, he would grace a congregant’s living room to teach as part of a program in our congregation. As I shared this past Shabbat in services, occasionally Harold purposefully sat next to me in rabbinic study sessions. I was somewhat overwhelmed by having him as my study partner, but he insisted, graciously asking me to read the text and explain it to him in my own way. I was always nervous because he was such a marvelous commentator of Torah. Our Etz Hayim Chumash has many of his profound explanations within it. And yet, he always made me feel that I was his teacher. In truth, I could hardly wait to ask him to provide his understanding of the text so that I could glean from his wisdom. Harold was quite a humble man and grateful individual, despite what might have turned anyone to question his or her faith.

There were twelve eulogies delivered at his funeral, by some of the great rabbinic minds in the Conservative Movement and from his colleagues and friends. While I was unable to attend the funeral, I have begun reading some of them. One of them, by Rabbi Jack Riemer, reflects what our Torah reading, Emor, misses. For our Torah reading suggests that a kohen, the priest in the Temple of old, who has been touched by a tragic event and was at that moment involved in the ritual of the Temple, should not be involved in defiling oneself through mourning, grief, etc. How untrue that message is in our world today. We, as human beings, need to not simply be involved in ritual, but in our own experiencing of celebrations and walking through our own challenges as they happen.

Rabbi Riemer shares a few lessons from Rabbi Kushner’s thoughts that guided not only him and his wife, but also so many of us during our lives. Let me share with you just one of those thoughts from the eulogy. I’m sure more of those thoughts will follow in a different venue. Rabbi Riemer writes:  

“To have lost a child who was as sweet and as bright and as life loving and as kind as Aaron was would have been enough to ruin many of us and to make us bitter and cynical and angry people. To have marked his every birthday with the knowledge that it meant that his end was coming closer and closer....to have watched his classmates become athletes and watched them begin to date and begin to mature and to know that Aaron would never have any of these experiences? This would have been enough to embitter the spirit of any parent. It would have been enough to warp the character of any parent who loved his child.

But it did not do that---not to Harold and not to Suzette and not to Ariel. Harold somehow emerged from that pit of grief and pain with his spirit intact. He came out of that morass of sorrow into which he had been thrown for no reason that he or anyone else could comprehend-with the determination to help others who were in distress and to keep Aaron’s memory alive in this way….

Who cannot be moved by the fact that Harold was not destroyed by the pain that he lived through? Who cannot be awed by the fact that he used his talents to write a book that would be a tribute to his son and that would enable his son to live on?

“So let this be [one of the] lesson[s] that we who are in grief today should try to learn from Harold Kushner, to live lives that have purpose and that are not centered simply on ourselves.

He put it this way in one of his books:

“Is there an answer to the question of why bad things happen to good people?

The answer is to forgive the world for not being perfect,

And to forgive God for not being perfect,

And to reach out to the people around us who are not perfect.

And to go on living......in spite of the fact that we are not perfect,

And to respond to what has happened to others.

With the care and the compassion that they so much need from us.”

“And then Harold wrote these words:

“The happiest people I know are the people who don’t even think about being happy. They just think about being good neighbors and good people. And while they are busy being good, happiness kind of sneaks in through the back door and enriches their lives while they are not looking for it.”

Let these words be Harold’s lesson to us on this sad day. Let them remind us that after the pain there comes the task, the task of helping others and let them remind us that it is in that task of helping others that we find comfort for our own pain.”

Perhaps then, that was the message of the Torah reading for this Shabbat, that the kohen needed to find the means to help others, even during his grief and challenges. In doing so, the kohen would walk through the valley of the shadow of whatever that challenge might have been to find the means to help others. In doing so he would find good in our world and in his own personal life.  I have seen that in some of your own personal lives. And your personal examples are such great expressions of not only how to deal with the grief you might feel, but also how you have personally overcome them in a manner that offers a lesson to all of us, as well.

Shabbat shalom.