We have marked many anniversaries over these High Holidays: one hundred years of our sanctuary, twenty-five years since 9/11, ten years since Leonard Cohen’s passing, among others. In these final moments of Ne’ilah, here is one more with which to close.
Forty years ago, in early 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff. The seven astronauts who just hours before had been chatting with the press were suddenly gone. I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news; I imagine many of us do. It was a wound felt by our nation, by our world, and most of all by the families of those seven brave souls.
On Yom Kippur of 1986, many rabbis, not surprisingly, chose to speak of the tragedy. One rabbi, Rabbi Kenneth Berger of Tampa, Florida, spoke specifically of the investigations that had followed the disaster. At first, it was thought that all seven astronauts had died immediately, at the moment of the explosion. After months of inquiry, it came to light that death had come only when the capsule hit the water. For perhaps as much as five minutes, the astronauts were alive and may have been conscious, knowing that death was certain.
Berger was a master orator. He developed the thought – both terrible and altogether clarifying – of being faced with the knowledge of one’s imminent death. What would you think of, he asked. What went through their minds? What would go through your mind? Whose face would appear before you? What would you wish you had said? What grievance would you wish you had let go? What love would you wish you had expressed? It was a message for that Yom Kippur and for every Yom Kippur.
The story, tragically, does not end there. Not quite three years later, Rabbi Berger and his family were aboard United Flight 232, flying from Denver to Chicago on their way home from a family vacation, when catastrophic engine failure left the plane preparing for an emergency crash landing in Sioux City. The rabbi’s wife, Aviva, fainted from the shock. Rabbi Berger reached across the seats and gathered the hands of his daughter Avigail, sixteen, and son Jonathan, nine, trying to reassure them, Avigail would later recall.
The plane burst into flames after hitting the ground in Sioux City, Iowa, killing 112 people. Rabbi Berger and his wife, both in their early forties, were among the dead. Their middle child, Ilana, then thirteen, was at camp at the time. Avigail was in a coma for a month from her injuries, awakening to the absence of her parents. Jonathan suffered lesser injuries.
Rabbi Berger’s brother, who was tasked with cleaning out his late brother’s office, found the Yom Kippur sermon about the Challenger and brought it to light. The original is now in Avigail’s possession. The rabbi’s words both haunt and resonate:
“God, grant us the wisdom to appreciate life,” Berger wrote, “to make all our life bound up in the lives of others, who are living, so that after the fullness of [our] days, others will gather to bless our name, for [we] have given and shared and loved and appreciated. . . . “That scene,” Berger continued, “still haunts me – the explosion – and then five minutes. If only I. If only I . . . and then the capsule hits the water, it’s all over. Then you realize it’s all the same – five minutes, five days, five years, fifty years. It’s all the same, for it is over before we realize. ‘If only I knew.’ – Yes, my friends, it may be the last time.”
We have arrived at Ne’ilah. The sun is going down. The day is disappearing. The gates are closing. P’tach lanu sha’ar b’eit ne’ilat sha’ar, ki fanah yom. Open the gate for us at the hour when the gate is closing, for the day is waning.
We have spent twenty-four hours speaking about teshuvah as though time were abundant. Ne’ilah reminds us: What if it isn’t? Our days are limited—that much we know. Just how limited, none of us knows – a realization as terrible as it is clarifying. What actually matters? Who actually matters? With limited time, how shall we spend our time? What love have we neglected? What grudge have we held onto beyond its term?
Earlier today, during Yizkor, I urged you to think long. Build something that outlives you. Mentor. Parent. Teach. Plant. Create institutions. Live so that after you have receded from the picture, your love and your contribution continue. At this moment, I urge you to think of the here and now. Our lives are of such limited duration.
“Five minutes, five days, five years, fifty years – it’s all the same.” We dare not postpone what can be done today: the apology, the embrace, the cause. Ne’ilah is Judaism’s answer to “someday.” At Ne’ilah, there is holy desperation in the air.
If there is someone to love, love them now.
Someone to forgive, forgive them now.
Something to learn, learn it now.
A Jewish practice to begin, begin it now.
A gift of tzedakah to make, make it now.
A wrong you can repair, repair it now.
A cause that needs you, enter the fray now.
“Five minutes, five days, five years, fifty years. It’s all the same, for it is over before we realize.” At Ne’ilah, there is holy desperation in the air. When asked to describe the emotion of Ne’ilah, the rabbis provide us with the image of Ha-melech ba-sadeh—the king in the field. During Elul, God, the King of Kings, otherwise distant and inaccessible, leaves the royal precincts and comes out into the field, where ordinary people may approach freely. No credentials. God comes out to meet us where we are.
But now the day is ending. The time in the field is coming to an end. The king returns to the palace. The gates begin to close. And we are not finished. We still have commitments to make, prayers to offer, apologies to give. We pull at the gates. We plead for them to remain open just a little longer. We knock on the door. We knock on heaven’s door. If it is still open, it will not be for long.
P’tach lanu sha’ar b’eit ne’ilat sha’ar. Open the gate for us at the hour when the gate is closing.
Five minutes. Five years. Fifty years. None of us knows. It is over before we realize. Let’s make every second count.
Freedman, Samuel G. “A Rabbi’s Enduring Sermon on Living Your Last Five Minutes.” https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/us/a-rabbis-enduring-sermon-on-living-your-last-five-minutes.html. Appeared in print on October 2, 2016, Section A, Page 4 of the New York edition of the New York Times with the headline: "The Enduring Lessons of ‘Five Minutes to Live’."