Past Perfect, Present Tense, Future Tenser

My father wasn’t wealthy, but he might have been. When he was young, he and another boy were taken to school in a chauffeur-driven limousine. Grandpa, who never even graduated high school, was given an investment tip by a rich relative. Before too long my grandfather owned real estate in Brooklyn and got a substantial income from his holdings.
Then came 1929, the Great Depression. My grandfather was wiped out along with untold numbers of others. He never recovered financially or emotionally. The wind had been taken out of his sails. He plodded through the rest of his life, his normal grumpiness made even worse by disappointment over what might have been. Though a little quieter, he became almost like the people who lived in Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America:

An early missionary… tells how every morning the natives greeted the sunrise with piercing howls and shrieking laments. As he later learned in seeking an explanation for this weird rite, so much misery crowded into their lives that they viewed each new day with horror, every sunrise as the beginning of added evil. [Walter A. Maier and Warren W. Wiersbe, ed., CLASSIC SERMONS ON SUFFERING (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1984).]

You know where this is going. We’re in the same boat as my grandfather. Eighty years later the bottom has fallen out again. So many of us have been hurt, some more than others. People have watched their pensions erode, their portfolios become empty, their 401k’s become 201k’s. People have watched their mortgages strangle them, their car payments become unaffordable. Many have lost jobs. Many have given up trying to find another.

I can’t give you any financial advice on how to deal with this catastrophe. Marian does our checkbook. We know it’s dangerous to let me touch it. But I can give you some Jewish advice, some spiritual guidance on this holiest of evenings that I hope will help get us through these days that are difficult for so many, filled with desperation for so many more.

Remember the story of Sodom and Gomorrah? Abraham’s relative Lot, along with his family, is supposed to be saved from the destruction. The angels who were sent to obliterate the cities say to Lot:
Flee for your life! Do not look behind you... [Genesis 19:17]

But Lot’s wife disregards the warning:
Lot’s wife looked back, and she turned into a pillar of salt. [Genesis 19:26]

Why salt? One of our teachers reminds us that salt, especially in the ancient world, was a preservative. Lot’s wife, in looking back, showed she wanted to preserve the past. The attempt froze her on the spot. Since growth and change are the essence of our lives, looking back literally killed her. [The American Rabbi, February, 1985, pp. 42-3].

If we are not supposed to try and preserve the past, obviously we are to try and face the future instead. Often we do it haltingly, reluctantly:

We’re often startled to realize that it’s the future, not the past, that makes demands on us. The more uncertain that future, the harder the demands, the more we run from it. Nostalgia, someone has said, is “When we find the present tense, the past perfect.” [American Rabbi, October, 1990, p.25] and the future tenser, I would add.

           There’s a Jewish proverb that reminds us of the impossibility of returning to the good old days, no matter how hard we try. It reminds us that time is fluid, never still, and any attempt to swim against its current can only leave us with the regret of time poorly spent:

Four things come not back:
The spoken word
The sped arrow
Time past
The neglected opportunity [Pulpit Resource #3, 1989, p.30]

That’s pretty general. Our tradition also gives us something much more concrete. We are told in the Talmud that we should each do three things in the course of our life: have a child, plant a tree, and write a book. Notice how directly each of these partakes of the future, not the past. Each of them has its own unique message for us.

Children are our bid for immortality. They are supposed to see more of the future than we are given, which is why it is such an added tragedy when a child dies before a parent. But though they are like us, they are not us. They are different and will go their own way. Having a child is in part accepting that tomorrow won’t be like today, can’t be like today, must be and should be different from today.

When we plant a tree we repay some of our debt to both past and future. We put back some of what we have taken for our children and grandchildren to use. You know, I’m sure, the classic tale of the old man who was planting a tree. The king happened to pass by and asked why he was doing this, since he probably wouldn’t live long enough to enjoy either its shade or its fruit. The old man responded that all his life he’d enjoyed the shade and fruit of trees planted by others long before he was born, and so felt obligated to do the same and provide for the benefit of future generations.

The book that we’re each supposed to write? That’s progress. Whether on paper or, even better, through the fabric of our lives, we’re supposed to leave behind what we’ve learned so others don’t have to constantly re-invent the wheel. We hope they can start where we left off, and thereby the human race might grow in knowledge and accomplishment.
A child, a tree, a book. Change, resources, progress. That is what each of us is obligated to arrange for during our lifetime. That is what our Judaism teaches us.

But in the midst of despair, where is the energy, the motivation to come from to do these things? From hope. Israel Zangwill called the Jewish people, his people, our people, “prisoners of hope.” The national anthem of the modern State of Israel is HaTikvah, The Hope.

Over and over throughout our history, in the midst of hopelessness, we have found within ourselves the strength to hope. Reality or metaphor, or both, the saga of our people trapped between the sea before them and the Pharaoh’s armies behind them is certainly one such time. It is a template of disappointment almost beyond comprehension.

Having finally escaped from Egyptian bondage, they are now going to be pulled back into it – if they don’t die by drowning or by the swords of the Egyptian armies.

But with God’s help, they make it through the parted waters. It is the Egyptians who are drowned instead. Our people sang a song of triumph to God, a song that has become an important part of our liturgy:

Mi chamocha ba’elim Adonai, Mi Kamocha ne’eh’dar bakodesh.
Norah tehillot, oseh felet,
Who is like you, Adonai, among the idols the pagans worship?
Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in splendor, working wonders! [Exodus 15:11]

Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her in dance with timbrels. [Exodus 15:24]

A timbrel is a musical instrument much like a tambourine. It’s shaken and banged. For Miriam and the other woman, it was a percussive accompaniment to their joy and exaltation:

Where did she obtain the timbrels? Was there a music store on the other side of the Sea? Did she fashion timbrels for herself at that moment?

Not at all. She brought them with her from Egypt. She had faith in the future. She had hope. [The American Rabbi, Spring, 1998, pg. 23.]

One of my colleagues wrote as long ago as 1959:

                      When the Israeli armies marched into the Sinai Peninsula, Edward R. Murrow interviewed an Israeli soldier just returned from battle in. “Tell me,” Murrow asked, “suppose I were God and could grant you one wish, what would you ask for?” “If you were God and could grant my wish, then give me tomorrow. I want to see tomorrow.” [Teplitz, The Rabbis Speak, pg. 4]

Our task is to do what this young man wants God to do, for aren’t we all shutafim ba’elohim, all God’s agents? Our task is to see to it that all children, all people in all cities and towns everywhere, see tomorrow. No matter how chaotic, frightening, unclear or painful, our work is for the future, not the past.

When are we to do this? When the stock market goes up so many and so many points? When the housing market rises from its current doldrums? When the unemployment rate goes down?

No! No! No! A thousand times No! I want to share with you an idea from a modern philosopher who happens not to be Jewish but whose wisdom is deep. Lawrence Peter Berra, known to millions as Yogi, was asked by Tom Seaver, “Yogi, what time is it?” Berra replied, “You mean now?”

Yes, now. No matter how difficult the present is, there is no returning to the past. Nostalgia is relatively useless. What is useful is having a child, planting a tree, writing a book. Change, resources, progress. No matter how bleak the world seems now, we Jews have been there before. With hope and belief we’ve created a future, we’ve created a tomorrow.

“You mean now?” asked Yogi. Yes now, right now. Let us give all God’s children, including ourselves, the gift of tomorrow. It is the greatest gift there is.-