My Beating Heart’s Lessons

What follows is my Yom Kippur evening sermon about the lessons I learned from my heart’s arrhythmias.

For those who missed last year’s dramatic Kol Nidre, let me fill you in.  Let’s just say that I did not make it this far into the service.  By this time, I was at Huntington hospital’s emergency room with Bruce by my side.  Truth be told, I had not been feeling well for nearly two weeks and unbeknownst to me had been walking around with my heart in atrial fibrillation.  When the heart does not beat properly, especially over such a prolonged period of time, the body does not get enough oxygen.  After ignoring symptoms such as being short of breath, my body finally said, “I am going to make you pay attention to me.  You are going to lie down right now and right here.”

I would have really preferred to have passed out at home rather than here in front of hundreds of people, but you have to admit, I stole the show.  Now, one year later, and after a number of medical procedures to correct these arrythmias, I have had time to reflect about what I have learned.  Crises often offer unintended teachings.  And it is these lessons I would like to elaborate on this Yom Kippur.

Lesson number one. If you are getting out of breath, let’s say for example, when reading a ketubah at a wedding, then don’t delay calling your doctor.  Don’t say, “I will call him after Yom Kippur.” Or “I have to get through the next couple of days and then I will call her.”  Or “I Just have to get through this big work thing and then I will call.”  Look how that worked out for me!  We tend to think about our responsibilities, to our work, to our families, to others, especially those of us in helping professions, before we think about our own needs, but as Yom Kippur reminded me you can’t take care of others if you don’t take care of yourself.  The flight attendants’ reminder to put on your own oxygen mask before your child’s is correct.  My instincts were wrong.

I have regrets about that mistake.  I am called to care for you.  I am asked to lessen your burdens.  Instead, I caused you pain.  Instead, I added to your worries.  Over the course of the year, I offered many apologies and to every single person to whom I said “I’m sorry” it was always, “That doesn’t matter.  Don’t worry about it.  As long as you’re ok.  That’s all that matters.”  It is a blessing to be so loved and cared for.  But to be honest, it has taken me the better part of the year to accept my own apology and forgive myself. 

I think when we are faced with any health crisis, we first dwell on what we might have done wrong, what we think we should have done differently.  “If only I had not drunk so much at those weddings or if only I had eaten less red meat or eaten more vegetables or if only I had not been in such a rush.  If only I had not…” Fill in the blank.  Whatever condition or ailment or disease or accident each of us faces, we first ask, “What did I do wrong?”  And the answer is “Nothing.”  Forgiving yourself helps to heal the body.  You have to start there.  

At first the doctors told me, “Cut out caffeine.”  Done!  “Eliminate alcohol.”  As everyone knows I take the mitzvah of celebrating your weddings a little too seriously, (I love tequila!) but I heeded this advice as well.  I have not had a drink in a year.  I followed the doctors’ directions religiously.  But still, after several months of following these instructions, I had another AFib episode. 

Lesson number two. Life is not in our hands.  Sure, we have some control, but ultimately, well that’s why I have a job.  I am the guy you call when things don’t make sense, when life seems so random and unfair.  I have always responded to these queries of “Why me?” with “I don’t know.”  I am searching for answers just like you.  I don’t know why some people are blessed with many years and others less, why others are racked with health challenges and others face none.  I just forgot to heed my own teachings.  Nothing like passing out on Yom Kippur to remind me of who is really in control. 

I have long believed that I can train my heart physically and spiritually to do anything and everything.  To be very candid, I never imagined I would be facing heart issues.  I can push my heart to its upper limits when swimming, cycling or running.  I can command my heart not to be afraid.  But guess what?  I discovered I cannot control it.  I cannot command my autonomic nervous system.  No matter how many times I work out or how disciplined I am at avoiding every known AFib trigger, I cannot control everything.  For that I needed a medical assist. 

Ablations are a curious medical procedure.  Basically, the doctors scar your heart to heal your heart.  This blocks the errant nerve signals.  Five months after having an ablation, it seems to be working.  These arrythmias are in the rearview mirror or as the doctor reminded me, he expects they should be.  There are no guarantees.  There is no 100%.  There never is.  There never was.  I have to learn to live with a chronic condition that is not entirely in my hands.  You can do everything right and still… You never know.  You can get the best doctor.  You can visit the most prestigious hospital.  You can do everything you are told; you can follow every bit of advice; you can take every medicine the doctors prescribe; you can be religiously disciplined—work out more or in my case a little less, but you never know.  Of course, I will follow all the doctors’ recommendations but there is no exact prescription.   Medicine is not an exact science.  No pill is perfect.  No procedure is fool proof. 

And so, the larger question becomes how do we live with these doubts and imperfections?  How do we embrace this mysterious thing called life? 

I found a few answers this past year.  And this brings me to lesson number three. Friends.  Friendship is one of those things that we often take for granted, but when there is a crisis, it is really needed.  It is so important to feel loved and cared for especially during times like this past year.  I did not ask Bruce to come to the hospital with me.  I did not ask the cantor to give me a hug when I was on the stretcher.  I did not ask Ben to make a joke when I was lying on the floor.  I did not ask Donna to hold my head.  Or… This what friends do.  They stand up for you.  The list is endless.  I did not ask for all the texts and phone calls and emails.  I did not ask for any of the kindness and concern that so many people extended to me.  Some said, “You have cared for us for so long, let us care for you.”  And so here is what you taught me.  It is good to feel loved and cared for.  And it is necessary for healing.  I am grateful for your friendship.  I am thankful for your love.  Healing is aided by the love and concern of others.

That was only made possible because I could not keep my condition a secret.  Lest we forget.  I passed out publicly.  My impulse would have been to not burden you with what I was facing.  My inclination would have been not to share what I was going through with anyone except Susie and my family whose love and support I am certain.  That choice was made for me.  There was no hiding getting wheeled out on a stretcher on Kol Nidre.  And that offered an additional teaching.  We are not supposed to carry our burdens alone.  We are not supposed to face illness or crises without the support of others.  This is why the Mi Shebeirach prayer for healing is done out loud.  This is why we share the names of those who need healing publicly.  We need the community to carry us.  We need others.  We are not supposed to travel through life alone.  Friends carry us—or in my case catch us when we are falling.  The community lifts us up.

So next time you are faced with a health crisis, no matter how big or how small, remember sharing it with others is not a burden with which you are saddling them.  Instead, it is part of the blessing of friendship.  It is an opportunity for them to show you how much you are loved.  And everyone needs to be loved.  Everyone needs to be cared for.  Healing is impossible on your own. It can only be done with others.  And you have helped my healing.  I could not have done it without you.  

Lesson number four.  Our community.   One of our congregation’s greatest moments was in my absence.  You observed Yom Kippur without your rabbi.  And that still makes me proud.  That aided my healing as well.  Why?  Because you communicated what matters so much to me matters to you.  I did not want to spend Yom Kippur in the hospital, but I did.  But I did so with the confidence and joy you were observing the holiday without me.  That was a balm as well. 

When all those questions like “Why me?” or “How I can I live without him or her?” seem insurmountable, we take solace in the community.  Each of us enters this place with different burdens and needs.  The community lifts us up.  This is why concerts are so powerful.  I love going to concerts.  There we revel in the joy that everyone else loves Springsteen as much as we do or knows the words to Kacey’s (Musgraves) songs as well as we do.  The best moment at such concerts—for the concertgoers but especially I believe for the performer—is when Bruce, David (Byrne), Kacey or Marcus (Mumford) stop singing and the crowd takes over.  That is how I felt on Yom Kippur.  I am not suggesting I am like any of those superstars but that is how you made me feel.  Like a superstar.  That is how powerful it was for me to know that you observed Yom Kippur without me. 

That is how each of us should feel every time we come to Shabbat services or at today’s Yom Kippur.  Perhaps we do not have the strength to sing our prayers on one Shabbat, or we do not have the stamina to sit here on the High Holidays for all these hours, but the music and songs and prayers carry us forward.  The strength of the person sitting next to you can lift you when it feels too heavy to carry on your own.  This is what it means to be part of a congregation.  This is what it means to be part of a community. 

It does not all depend on me or even you.  Instead, it depends on all of us. There will always be someone strong enough to carry us through when we are too weak to do so on our own.  We are not supposed to do any of this alone.  We need each other, most especially when we are weakened by illness or beaten up by the work week or distraught by grief.  Of course we can pray alone.  But the best praying is when we pray together.  Here, there are others to lean on.  This is what we built here.  This is what we have here.  We should never take our community for granted. 

The first time I had the physical strength to join the congregation for prayer was a few weeks after Yom Kippur.  I read the prayers I have read countless times.  I prayed the words “Baruch Ata Adonai Eloheinu Melech haolam, asher yatzar et haadam b’chomchah…. Praised are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the universe who formed the human body with skill, creating the body’s many pathways and openings.” I breathed in its words.  The prayer continues, “It is well known that if one of them be wrongly opened or closed, it would be impossible to endure and stand before You.”  I hesitated on these last words, “It would be impossible to stand before You.”  For years I thought the prayer was metaphorical.  Now it’s meaning became clearer.  It is literal.  There was a time when I could not stand.  And now I can once again.  I can stand before God.  My body is working once again.  And I say, “Thank God!  Praised are You, Adonai our God.”

And this brings me to my fifth and final lesson.  And that is gratitude.  To be honest, arriving at such feelings of thankfulness did not come so quickly.  I cannot put a date on it exactly, but I do remember this moment.  I was in one of my cardiologist’s offices (I have three now!) for the umpteen time waiting for the doctor to come in.  You know that moment after the nurse has taken your pulse, pulse ox, blood pressure, asked you your weight and height (one time I said 6 feet just to mix things up) and quizzed you about all the medicines you are taking.  Now you are sitting there all alone in that cold room wearing that ridiculous paper gown, and you start feeling sorry for yourself. 

It is a natural feeling this sense of “I can’t believe this is happening to me.”  There were times during this past year when I had this overwhelming feeling that I will never be the same again.  I imagine everyone facing disease or a medical crisis or recovering from an accident or grieving a death confronts these feelings.  But then, in that exam room, I spied this detailed picture of the heart with its four chambers, and arteries and veins with those receiving blood from the lungs colored in blue and those sending oxygenated blood to the body in red, and all the blood vessels that give this muscle its strength and the nerves that most of the time, and for most of us, command it to beat so rhythmically, and I was filled with awe and wonder.  How miraculous!

Isn’t it remarkable that the vast majority of time the body works without fanfare or praise?  I don’t understand all the Latin names or all the intricacies of the nerves that have been giving me so many problems, but my heart has been beating rhythmically for 60 years without fail.  And that’s a miracle.  In its 61st year it needs a medical assist to do so.  And perhaps that ablation is a miracle as well.  That scarring healed my heart.  I have now a permanent mark on my heart.  All of us carry scars.  We don’t get to choose the challenges we confront.  We do not get to choose the scars we are given.  We only get to choose how we respond.  We will not be the same.  But we can still be whole.  One can be whole with scars. 

The tradition’s blessings offer us a path toward wholeness.  This is why we are instructed to say them all the time—in good days and bad.  For years I thought this blessing for the body was about standing up after waking in the morning.  I did not think it was about having the strength to stand before God.  But now when I said it once again with renewed strength, I realized its import is literal.  You can’t bless God if you are too weak to stand.  You cannot give thanks if you are lying on the sanctuary floor. 

We need the body’s health before we can pray and offer thanks.  This Asher Yatzar prayer that now means so much to me precedes the prayer for the soul.  The body’s needs come before the soul’s.  The physical precedes the spiritual.  The Elohai Neshama prayer states, “As long as my soul is within me, I will offer thanks to You, Adonai my God.  Kol z’man shehan’shamah b’kirbi, modeh ani l’fanecha.”  We need strength to offer thanks.  To say it bluntly, you must be conscious to offer praise.  I thank You O God that I can stand.  I thank You for my life, for my body and for my soul.  I thank You that once again I can be whole. 

I have gained many lessons from this year’s journey.  Here they are.  Healing first begins with forgiving yourself for the missteps you might have made, for the choices that you regret, for the heartache you might have caused others. 

And healing cannot be done alone.  You need others.  You require friends.  You need to be surrounded by a community that can carry you when you cannot carry yourself. 

Finally, healing is magnified by gratitude. A soul filled with thanks can never be defeated.  Know this.  Gratitude does not arrive immediately.  It takes time.  Doubts still longer, the sense of loss still creeps in.  This path is a long, convoluted journey.  When gratitude does arrive—even if only momentarily, it is more powerful than all the medicines and procedures combined.         

The prayer for the body concludes, “Baruch Ata Adonai rofei chol basar u’mafli laasot.  Blessed are You Adonai who heals all flesh, working wondrously.”

We can never know how many years we will be granted.  I do know this.  I will greet every morning with renewed purpose.  I will bring words of thanks and praise to my lips. 

I thank You for my life, body and soul!