Honey Kessler Amado, Passukim to Carry with Me
Reflections dedicated to my Father, Bernard Kessler, of blessed memory. December 3, 2019

I first began to consider the assignment about choosing a passuk that I want to carry with me ten days ago. I considered three passukim that I find particularly moving: one most poignant–Esau’s plea, “Father have you no blessing for me?” (Gen. 27:36); one most powerful—“And Aaron was silent” (Lev. 10:3), and one most inspiring—“You shall be holy because I, the Eternal, your God, am holy” (Lev. 19:2). I began to write my reflections
tonight, the night after my beloved Father, Bernard Kessler (now of blessed memory), died. In this contemplative time, I was drawn to the most poignant and most powerful possukim for reflection. Another time I will reflect on the
most inspiring passuk.

Most Poignant

וַיֹּ֣ אמֶ ר לְ אָ בִ֔ יו בָּ רֲ כֵ֥נִי גַם־אָ ֖ נִי אָ בִֽ י׃
And he said to his father, “Bless me too, my father.” (Gen. 27:34.)
וַיֹּאמַ֕ ר הֲלֹא־אָ צַ ֥לְ תָּ לִּ ֖י בְּ רָ כ
He said, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?” (Gen. 27:36.)

For me, the most poignant passuk in the Torah is Esau’s plea from last week’s parashah Toldot,(Gen. 25:19-28:9), wherein he cries to Isaac, after Isaac gave his blessing to Jacob, “Bless me too, Father! … Have you not reserved a blessing for me?” (Gen. 27:34, 36.) In this passuk I hear the humanity of an adversary. If we are to “love the stranger as ourselves,” we must be able to appreciate the stranger’s humanity. Perhaps this appreciation begins with seeing that Esau, the stand-in for the Edomites and Rome, who surely cared little for Israelites or Jews, also loved his father and yearned for his blessing. This insight into the inner core of our adversary may confound us in the adversary’s inability to see our humanity, but it may also be a point for seeking common ground.

Esau cries: “Bless me too, Father!” I cry: “Bless me, Father – one more time.” I never had to cry for a withheld blessing or for a blessing given to a sibling at my expense. I had a kind and loving Father. Once in my early
twenties when I apologized to my Dad for likely being the most difficult of the three children to raise (he neither confirmed nor denied this, but the Sixties touched everyone), he said to me, “Don’t you worry. Mom and I have enjoyed raising you very much.” (Perhaps he borrowed this idea from Mark Twain.) It was a blessing of approval, a blessing of acceptance as a separate human being, a blessing of encouragement to be my own person; it was a blessing of deep love. Having had that, I can imagine the pain of one who does not have that, or fears the loss of that, and cries, “Bless me too, Father.” Even the pain of an Esau.

Most Powerful

ִוַיּדֹּ֖ ם אַ הֲרֹֽ ן .silent was Aaron And
(Lev. 10:3)

The most powerful passuk for me is “[a]nd Aaron was silent” (Lev. 10:3) in parashah Sh’mini (Lev. 9:1-11:47). The power is in all that the silence holds. I suggest that far from Aaron’s silence being an acceptance of the punishment meted out to his sons, Nadab and Abihu, for their “strange fire,” or his acceptance of Moses’ explanation for the punishment, Aaron’s silence was a cacophony of feelings and thoughts that could not be expressed at once or at one time. It was a rage against the loss, a rejection of the justice of this God so new to him, a wail at the death of his sons, an aching concern about how to console their mother, a fear that a new generation would not know them, and a longing to see them—to touch them, to be with them—one more time. And Aaron’s silence is yet more: it was being with the many memories of these two sons as they flooded him. Aaron’s silence was as filled with sound as a single drop of sunlight is filled with all the colors of the rainbow.

When I called the skilled nursing home in Long Beach, where my Father has spent the last five months, to ask which hospital the ambulance had taken my Father, the social worker told me that my Father had not, after all, been transported to a hospital. He explained that when the paramedics arrived, my Father’s heart had already stopped. I whispered, “Are you telling me that my Father has died?” He said, “Yes. I am sorry for your loss.” I said, “Thank you. Good-bye,” and hung up. And I stood silent, thinking, about how to tell my son; how to tell my daughters, how to frame words and cradle their fears and sadness; how to find language for my sadness and for my gratitude for being his daughter. Soon after speaking with my son, I went to the nursing home to be with my Dad until the mortuary transport arrived, driving into the rush-hour traffic and finding its slow pace to be oddly calming.

Tonight, my silence allows my many thoughts, memories, and feelingsto float without having to be sequenced or structured for articulation. Silence allows my sadness to co-exist with my profound gratitude. Rabbi Dara Frimmer gave a beautiful teaching on gratitude last Shabbat, citing to this week’s parashah Va-Yetzei (28:10-32:3), wherein our matriarch Leah names her fourth son Judah, in praise and thanksgiving to God. (Gen. 29:35.) Why thank God after the fourth son, and not the first, the Rabbis asked. Rabbi Frimmer cited to a midrash that Leah knew that there would be 12 sons and that, as only one of the four women bearing Jacob’s children, she was entitled to only three. So, the fourth son was more than she was entitled to, and for that, she thanked God.

I have had my Father vibrant into his 96th year. I have had my Father into my 70th year. I have had more than I am entitled to, and for this, I thank God.