It is hard to sing of oneness when our world is not complete,
when those who have once brought wholeness to our life have gone,
and naught but memory can fill the emptiness their passing leaves behind.
But memory can tell us only what we were, in company with those we loved;
it cannot help us find what each of us,
alone, must now become.

Yet no one is really alone; those who live no more echo still within our thoughts and words,
and what they did is part of what we have become.
We do best homage to our dead when we live our lives most fully,
even in the shadow of our loss.

Mishkan Tefilah based on Gates of Prayer

“This opening line, I believe, is a callback to the Sh’ma, our declaration of God’s unity in the world and our unity with God: Hear, O Israel! Adonai is our God and Adonai is One. In all the tumult of life and of Jewish life in particular, the Sh’ma remains a steadfast declaration of the unity in the world. Rabbi Levy acknowledges that in our times of greatest grief, it can feel nearly impossible to sense that oneness. And his sentiments capture where I am at this moment. I feel broken. The world feels incomplete. It’s hard for me to sing of oneness.” https://www.bethaam.org/it-is-hard-to-sing-of-oneness/

Rabbi Jared Saks wrote those words in his d’var Torah toward the beginning of the pandemic, when we really didn’t know much of what was happening. That’s how I feel. The world is incomplete. Not whole. I feel broken. AndI’ll admit it, despite knowing this prayer for decades, I missed the connection between the Sh’ma and its call for oneness and this prayer. It is indeed hard to sing of oneness in this time and place. And yet we must. And we did. The worldwide Sh’ma on Thursday was a very powerful experience. Thinking that people all over the world at the same time were pausing and saying Sh’ma was affirming. Even more powerful was hearing my Bar Mitzvah student do it later in the day. It was a real from generation to generation moment.

This week we will mark Purim. A holiday where the Talmud teaches us that we should say “Be Happy It’s Adar.” It is aspirational, because not everyone is happy. Why should we be happy? Because the Jews 2000 years ago survived in Shushan. Or maybe more than in Shushan. King Ashauraus ruled over 127 provinces from Hodu to Kush, from India to Ethiopia. It was a worldwide empire.

The Talmudic discussion is found in Ta’anit 29a. It is part of larger discussion about the month of Av, the month we mark Tisha B’av and the destruction of the Holy Temples. The Gemorah teaches that when Av enters we decrease rejoicing. But after a very painful story about the destruction of the Temple and the cohanim giving up and throwing themselves into the fire to perish, Rav Yehuda quotes Rav, “When Adar comes rejoicing increases.”

My study partner and I argue about the purpose of Judaism. She says that it is not to find happiness or even joy, it is to find meaning in life. Our religious observances, prayer, Shabbat, kashrut, our acts of gimilut chasadim add structure to our lives that helps us find that meaning. I actually don’t disagree. But finding meaning can also bring us joy.

Joy and happiness are something I think about a lot. It comes from having the middle name Joy. I have a coaster next to my writing area at home that says, Choose Joy. The words Joy, Joy, Joy hang over my mantal. I have any number of books, mostly Jewish on the topic and my favorite, an introduction to the Kabbalah is called Finding Joy. I am surrounded by Joy. All sorts of things bring me joy: the daffodils blooming. The beautiful (and short lived) snow this week. A surprise kiss from my husband. A phone call from a friend. A quiet morning writing in a sunlit room. Yet all of these seem to be fleeting. I am not sure it is possible to sustain joy.

This year people have asked an important question, and I have tried to answer, How can we celebrate Purim in the middle of a war, when the hostages haven’t all been released, when there are so many, so very many casualties. So many children. And the answer is, we have to. For thousands of years, we have celebrated, for the very reason we have survived. Not everyone. But many. They even celebrated in the concentration camps and in the DP camps. And yes, it was documented. https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/purim/index.asp

One could say we have continued to celebrate from Hodu to Kush.

So rejoice we will. It won’t be easy. And if you can’t that is still OK, but we will as a community. We will hold you up. Because we are told so in the Talmud. Because it adds meaning to our lives, and because even in Israel, there have been weddings and brises and a pause, to celebrate Purim, even in the midst of sadness. It may be somewhat muted and it may be fleeting. But in Israel they will still celebrate and we will here too.