[First posted in 2012; authored by Sinaite DVE.
Death has been on my mind lately. Good friends just passed on, and the latest friend was a schoolmate who was a very successful doctor in Las Vegas, a kind, warm, generous and big-hearted surgeon and pediatrician who just celebrated his 55th birthday. He died a couple of days after his birthday, scuba-diving in Catalina Island, getting his diving certification. It was a very surreal experience, scrolling through his social media page, just after we learned of his death. Hundreds of messages flooded his wall, each post relaying how he had personally touched the life of each person, his wide, happy grin forever frozen in time juxtaposed along these messages. And a most poignant message on his wall on the day he died: “Just finished diving. It was fun.” Then he was gone, his life over and finished.
As we go through the High Holy Days, especially Yom Kippur, I personally reflected on the fragility of life. Of how life is so uncertain, of how easy it is to get caught up on the materialism of the world and forget that our lives are a mere wisp and puff of breath in the eternal vastness of forever.
Psalm 103:
15 As for man, his days are like grass; As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
16 When the wind has passed over it, it is no more, and its place acknowledges it no longer.
Yet YHWH, in His infinite wisdom and grace, has given us the opportunity each year to repent and to renew our physical lives so that we are sure to be inscribed in the Book of Life.
The beauty of being out of the various religions we have been through, and finally discovering that we only have ONE, TRUE YHWH, is that LIFE is to be LIVED in the HERE and NOW. As we re-learn from the TORAH, I have rediscovered that I have to live my life not focused on what is to be when I die, but on what I can do to get pleasure from the blessings of Adonai each day. I need to focus on how I can share these blessings, to do the minutiae of everyday living – kindness, generosity, forgiveness, gratefulness, obedience to and striving for a Torah lifestyle, making a difference, albeit small, in the lives of those whom I come in contact with every day – family, friends, co-workers. Doing all these is allowing the light of YHWH to shine in my small corner of the world.
My schoolmate-friend who just died comes to mind. Amidst all the expressions of sorrow over his death, I can see he lived his life well – he worked hard, he shared his gift of healing generously, he knew how to enjoy, and share his blessings. He joined medical missions to Africa and gave freely of his time and talent. He did make a difference to all those who had a chance to know him. But did he know the one true YHWH? Did he worship the one, true God? That rhetorical question I leave to the judgment of Adonai.
For me, I live each day with this in my mind, as I strive to live EACH day to its fullest, and to ensure that my name is inscribed in the Book of Life:
“If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve YHWH, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve YHWH.” (Joshua 24:15)
DVE@S6K
