The Party's Over

Va'yeilech

Dear Rabbi:

It's time to call it a day
They've burst your pretty balloon
And taken the moon away
It's time to wind up the masquerade
Just make your mind up the piper must be paid”
You danced and dreamed through the night
Now you must wake up, all dreams must end
Take off your makeup, the party's over
It's all over, my friend”

“The party's over

 It never ceases to amaze me as I look at data as it relate to Jews. For example, the world's "core" Jewish population, those identifying as Jews above all else, was estimated in 2019, at 14.7 million, or 0.2% of the 7.89 billion humans that make up this planet. Despite, this incredibly small number of inhabitants throughout the world, the contributions made by those that identify themselves as of the Hebrew faith are astounding.

One arena that Jews have traditionally shined in is the field of music. Within that talent is the ability to write words and put it to a tune that will be remembered forever. The words I cited above come from the combined minds of Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, three Yids that composed many immortal songs including “The Party’s Over”.

This is not the first time I have commented on Shabbat Shuvah, and it is not the first time I have used the words of a song to convey my thoughts on the last day in the life of Moses. While he was still with us, Rabbi Richardson, asked me to give the devar Torah on that Shabbat in 2012, because he was recovering from an illness that eventually took his life and wanted to save his strength for the sermons he poignantly made during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur that year. To those that were privileged to hear Rabbi Richardson during his tenure at the JJC, he would often make a point by leading with some song that got everyone’s attention. That year, I tried to emulate his brilliance by singing the words to “Someone To Watch Over Me” by two others of the Jewish faith, George and Ira Gershwin.

 You could conclude that I refer to songs because of what is actually written in Vayelech in the Sixth Aliyah at Deuteronomy 31:21-22 when the following is stated:

  “And it will be, when they will encounter many evils and troubles, this song will bear witness against them, for it will not be forgotten from the mouth of their offspring. For I know their inclination what they [are planning] to do today, [even] before I bring them in to the land which I have sworn [to give them]."

“And Moses wrote this song on that day, and taught it to the children of Israel.”

But you would be wrong. I am drawn to musical thoughts as it relates to what is contained in the First Aliyah at Deuteronomy 31:2, wherein Moses states the following:

“He said to them, "Today I am one hundred and twenty years old. I can no longer go or come, and the Lord said to me, "You shall not cross this Jordan."

Can you imagine the shock within the throng of people that had taken an incredible forty year journey of wonder and awe to hear from the leader that led them on this trip that “the party’s over” for the person that had “watched over me” all those years and had delivered them to Promised Land only to find out that he would not be joining them.

I believe the feeling of this kind of loss is not hard to imagine for those of us who have experienced the death of our own parents who looked over and protected us until the day they no longer could. The discomfort of not having the ones that made sure the “boo boo” went away was no longer with us, is a pain that never really leaves.

It could be called a coincidence that the twentieth anniversary of September 11, falls on the same day as Shabbat Shuvah this year, but I for one do not believe in coincidence. I was two blocks from where the first plane hit on that fateful day, and I walked over to see a hole on one of the upper floors of Two World Trade Center. I looked up in disbelief, but I was naïve to think that it was a small plane that had accidently hit the building. I went into my office building and when the second plane hit One World Trade Center, and shook the building I was in, I knew that something was terribly wrong. Not only did I lose some of the naivety that was within me as I thought about the invincibility of our Country, but the rest of our citizenry learned that we were vulnerable to someone else’s madness and I don’t think we have ever recovered from the shock from that day of reckoning.  Just like when Moses told our desert ancestors that they would have to carry on without him, Americans in the aftermath of 9/11 lost a sense of innocence that can never be recovered.

“The party's over

The candles flicker and dim

It seemed to be right just being with him.

Shalom,

Mordecai