Irv is 92 years old. He has a warm smile and beautiful, blue eyes. We were talking the other day about the passage of time, about loss, about the blessing of a good neighbor, and about the history of Stephen Wise Temple. The last subject is one that Irv’s a true expert in as he and his wife, Jo, are founding members of our congregation.
Irv paused for a moment in our conversation, looked me in the eyes and said, “You know, you only come this way once but if you do it right, once is enough.”
Of course, the important question to consider is what it means to “do it right.”
In the eyes of our tradition, living right is not about how many years we are granted but rather about what we do with the time we have and, more precisely, how we live our lives in a way that makes the world a better place: to love the stranger, to pursue justice, to strive for holiness, to repair what is broken in the world. As the prophet Micah has it: “What does God require of you? Only this: do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.”
In a world of excess, what does “enough” even mean? It’s not about how long we live or even about the gift of good health – we won’t all be so lucky. Spending time with Irv and Jo, seeing the friends they’ve made, the family they’ve raised, and the sense of deep satisfaction they get from knowing that our community, our Temple, and our schools exist, in part, because of their efforts, I think they’ve figured it out: it’s about how we choose to live our lives, day by day. If we get it right, dayeinu, it’ll be enough.
Shavua tov,
Yoshi