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| Tuesday, November 13, 2007 |
613 Words: The Courage of Surrender
This is part of our Nov/Dec 2007 issue.
I never knew my great--uncle David very well. He lived in Dallas and I grew up in Chicago, so our paths crossed only a few times at family gatherings while I was a child. But I'd heard he'd lived a rich life, filled with colorful experiences and challenges, that he'd been a tank commander during the D--Day invasion in France, and I always had an idealized, almost mythic image of him as a fighter.
When I was older, David and I finally had a chance for some real conversations, mainly about the War, but also about Judaism, ritual practice, and God. David and I had our last conversation while I was in Dallas for a conference. By that point, David was an old man -— he had a serious heart condition and was very ill. My parents had said for years that he could succumb to it anytime -- but, fighter that he was, he kept hanging on.
Some years passed; David's health deteriorated. My parents gave me updates on his situation and I spoke with my great-aunt Charlotte over the phone. When I got a chance to travel again to Dallas, to tail and write a magazine piece on a professional storm chaser, I went first to visit my great--uncle at his home.
Charlotte led me into the bedroom. David was there along with a nurse. He was lying on a cot; tubes attached to his body. David didn't recognize me. He slipped in and out of consciousness. At times, he would curl up into a fetal position. When he moved he let out a moan that chilled me to the bone.
I sat with Charlotte in the kitchen. She told me that David's death was no longer a matter of weeks or even days away, but of hours and minutes. "I've been getting myself ready for this for years," she said in her southern drawl. "He's in so much pain. I just want him to let go and let it end."
Just then, something struck me. Though I was David's great--nephew, I was also an ordained clergyman. I felt that, at this moment, Niles "the rabbi" might be of more help than Niles the great--nephew.
I stood over David in the bedroom. This figure who'd seemed larger than life now looked tiny. His limbs were thin and frail. His right leg hung off the side of the cot and he appeared as if he already had one foot in the grave. David had always come across as rooted in the real world. Yet now his appearance was ethereal. The roots that had held him down in his life -- through immigration to a new country, the Great Depression, and a World War far away from Texas -- were now being extracted before my very eyes.
I put my hand on David's leg. He gazed at me with a kind of vague recognition. I decided to recite the Shema prayer with him and for him, the declaration of a Jew's commitment to monotheism that is traditionally said, not just upon going to bed and waking up, but also, if possible, on one's deathbed.
Less than an hour later, Charlotte called. She told me David had died. Charlotte said she was convinced that on some level David grasped the words I'd recited, that saying the Shema had helped him to let go, to give up his long, defiant fight. Yet to me, David was still a warrior. What I'd witnessed was a different kind of heroism: the heroism of surrender. David hadn't given up. He had instead chosen to give over, to surrender his soul, in his own indefatigable way.
Niles Elliot Goldstein is the founding rabbi of The New Shul in Manhattan and the author or editor of eight books, most recently GONZO Judaism: A Bold Path for Renewing an Ancient Faith (St. Martin's), honored by and NBC as one of the best five religion/spirituality books of 2007. His website is www.nilesgoldstein.com.
-- Text by Rabbi Niles Elliot Goldstein
This is part of our Nov/Dec 2007 issue.
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