I Don't Sleep Well (Pasach lesson)

Drafted 9.29.2009 for publication:  I don’t sleep well. That’s not to say I’m not a good sleeper. I suppose more accurately I’m a short sleeper. Getting up two or three times every night to stroll around the house, talk to G-d, talk to the cat, or make notes to myself has become normal. At first I was somewhat distraught rehearsing how miserable tomorrow would be if sleep continued its perforated character. Then one night I had a “defining moment”, much like Esther’s ”such a time as this?" defining moment presented by Rabbi Silverman in the Purim message. It came to me in a blinding flash of the obvious, “this is a time to listen”. After that everything was different and I even somewhat enjoy this second sleep idea because in the quiet of the night G-d’s voice seems more singular. It is important to know G-d’s voice in this noisy world full of a virtual cacophony of sounds that continually bombard the ear and cloud the mind.
My defining moment leads me to think about Passover and how G-d’s protection and guidance redeemed the Jewish people from their harsh bondage and saved them from death itself. What if there had been no one to hear and recognizes the voice of G-d. What if Moses would have come down from the mountain and said to his wife, “I saw the darnedest thing, a bush that burned and was not destroyed. You don’t see that every day. What a coincidence.” He would have missed a defining moment and everything would have been different. What if the Hebrew slave that, rather than shaking his head and wagging his finger at Moses, said, “I think I’m going to put blood on my door post.” and changed the history of a nation and the world.
Passover teaches many lessons. The one I think about now is how G-d remains active and present in this noisy world. If we want to hear him we have to pay attention. We can’t sleep through His constant attempts to protect, guide, redeem, and save. He has not stopped speaking or become disinterested. He hears us as we rehearse the miseries of life and waits for us to wake up and recognize that He’s been here all the time waiting to help.

In Memory of Bill Graves

A friend who dies, it's something of you who dies. (Gustave Flaubert)

I find it a peculiar thing that any of us ever get to know anyone of us. The propensity of human kind is to guard our existence from exposure to life’s embedded risks and trials depriving us from what life itself is really about. Regardless of the fact that from birth the most prominent human needs orbit around human interaction the natural tenancy is “fight or flight.” We indeed make life more complicated than it needs to be. The British humorist Douglas Adams in his strange and wonderful construct of a largely irreverent universe says, “We also live in strange places: each in a universe of our own. The people with whom we populate our universes are the shadows of whole other universes intersecting with our own.” (Mostly Harmless)

This may be an odd way to begin a conversation about the death of a good man but it is in part how I feel about Bill Graves. I’ve known Bill for somewhere around 20 years and in that time had a myriad of opportunities to work with him in his roles in state and federal government. He sat on the Board of Finance Fund for nearly a decade. These were the places where our universes intersected and my discovery was that here was a man that was more than a shadow but a presence. His opinions, positions, and integrity were always clear. His somewhat eccentric persona shielded many from the intelligence and insight Bill had to offer. At one chance meeting outside a local restaurant several blocks from his office he stopped to chat with me and a couple of my staff members. Very abruptly he said, “Well, I’m late” and turned to sprinted away down the street briefcase in hand and overcoat flapping in the wind like superman’s cape.  

Bill Graves will be remembered in each of our universes. He wasn’t a close friend or an intimate friend or my best friend; but he was a good friend. He would cross the room to say “hello” or call with some bit of information he thought would be interesting or make a special attempt to send a message of friendship. Bill was among a few “workplace” friends to attend my 60^th birthday party in the middle of a snow storm. He didn’t have to come but by making it important to attend he sent the message that our friendship was important.

Bill has moved on. He has gone to a place we all shall travel. Death itself will not deny us the friendship of a good man and a good friend. We will remember you. Thanks, Bill.