Chag same'ach, G'mar chatima tova,
I talked a lot about the airline industry at Kol Nidre and their problems with bankruptcy. I would be remiss, however, if I did not mention one of my favorite airlines from the eighties which is no longer with us, Piedmont Airlines. I remember flying Piedmont Airlines from Boston to Chicago when I was at Yeshivas Brisk, via Charlotte, with a kosher meal on each short leg - good meals. They were friendly, oozing southern charm, and I remember once the stewardess struggling for the right etiquette whether or not to offer me an orange juice while I was davening with my t'fillin on. Piedmont made a point of giving you the whole can when you asked for a Coke. In my mind I created ads for Piedmont, I convinced my roommate to fly Piedmont, but nothing helped. Despite doing well, despite being the sixth largest American airline at one point with two hundred jets, they were swallowed up by USAir.
And until a few days ago, the Piedmont experience, was a bit of my life that had ended. Not the biggest tragedy, but a loss. Then I saw an article in the Wall Street Journal: US Airways, now being merged with America West: "Is embracing the names and logos of old airlines that have over the years been folded together to create the current US Airways. Those carriers include Allegheny, Piedmont and Pacific Southwest Airlines . . . instead of painting over predecessors' names, Chief Executive Douglas Parker is trying to revive the notion of "heritage" at the new US Airways, "I want to be sure we don't just toss away our past," said Mr. Parker. "It's a mistake to ignore it. It's an asset." There is a new "heritage logo" designed by Mr. Parker near every front aircraft door with names of predecessor airlines, and a few of the planes will be painted in adaptations of the original livery of airlines, such as Piedmont, that were melded into US Airways. Maybe one day in 5766 I will see a 767 take off from O'Hare with the Piedmont logo once again flying proud.
Our past as an asset.
A few weeks ago a congregant asked me about a line we recite over and over in s'lichot and the Yom Kippur service as we introduce the Viduy - confession : We say "She'ein anu azay fanim . . ." "For we are not so haughty to say before you that we are tzadikim and haven't sinned. No, we have sinned." That is the way it appears in the Birnbaum machzorim. But in the Artscroll Machzor and many other machzorim and s'lichot books, the line appears: "No, we and our parents - va'avoteinu - have sinned." The verse in Psalms 106:6, which seems to be the biblical derivation, reads: "Chatanu im avoteinu, he'evinu vehirshanu" "We have sinned with our forefathers/parents, we have sinned and we have acted wrongly." This would seem to support including our parents in our confession. But the Talmudic version, from Tractate Yoma 87b, reads: "Aval anachnu chatanu" - but we have sinned, with no mention of the our parents misdeeds. In the s'lichot of Rav Amram Gaon, of ninth century Babylon, we find instructions: "The chazzan shouts out: We do not have the nerve to say we are righteous and have not sinned. And then the congregation responds: But we have sinned, we and our parents - anachnu va'avoteinu." However, in the Yom Kippur service of Rav Amram leaves out the sins of our parents.
At Yeshivas Brisk we used the Birnbaum but the rebe'im made sure to tell us to add "our parents" when we declared ourselves sinners.
How does anyone, I was asked, whether it is King David in Tehilim, or Rav Amram or the Artscroll Siddur have the chutzpa to declare our parents - alive, please God, or, Aleihem Hashalom, deceased - to be sinners? How at Yizkor time can we even contemplate the shortcomings of our parents, whom we cherish alive, or whom we remember only as a b'racha?
In his commentary on the siddur, Rabbi Chanoch Zundel ben Yosef , who included "our parents" in the confession, confronts this question straight on by turning it back to us: We are not doing t'shuva, we are not repenting, for our parents. If they are alive, they will do their own t'shuva. If they have passed on, they are in Gan Eden, resting under the wings of the Holy Blessed One. We are embarking on t'shuva for ourselves, and in doing so, we look back to our parents lives and find parts which re-occur in our behavior that we want to change. We question where our life is going, by not denying where we came from.
We need to make sure that we do not perpetuate an approach to life which we think is wrong. The only way we can change our own behavior is to look back.
And friends, that is what our parents want and would want us to do. They are looking up to us or down at us at Yizkor time hoping it is a time of "anachnu va'avoteinu" - that on the strength of our ability to look back on their lives in an honest way, they can help us in our t'shuva, in our finding our way back to Hashem and back to being the kind of people we know we are supposed to be.
And that is where US Airways and their CEO Parker comes in. In the past when airlines were gobbled up by the next generation of airline, they painted over the previous generation. "Avoteinu" was considered a failed venture, taken over by the new "anachnu". But Parker teaches us that "our past is an asset." We love our past, we follow our past even when we think we are resisting it. Don't tell that to my oldest brother who thinks he is the rebel of the family, but he has ended up being the only Lopatin to remain in Newton, where our parents raised us, to have a boat just as my father did and to enjoy our little acre of land up in Maine that my father loved so much. When we appreciate that our lives are "anachnu va'avoteinu" then we appreciate how our own personal t'shuva is dependent upon figuring out our parents' lives, and being honest about their shortcomings. Only because they had such a huge influence on us do we dare say: We and our parents have sinned.
As the Etz Yosef goes on to explain, our rabbis who authored the s'lichot understood the concept of "minhag avoteinu b'yadeinu", the custom of our parents is the way we do things. Not only did the rabbis understand this psychological principle, but they felt that God understood it as well. I'm proud of how much of my parents' life I have integrated into my own. Every time a story in the newspaper comes out confirming what my father or mother told me decades ago I send it to my brother in DC. Mercury in tuna fish: My mom wouldn't let me eat tuna fish more than once a week more than thirty five years ago! Minhag avoteinu b'yadeinu! Now, my parents also spanked us as kids, but Rachel and I and almost no one we know in our generation of parents would do that. In fact I remember my sister arguing with my father in later years about when it was proper to spank a kid. Anachnu va'avoteinu chatanu. We need to re-examine our parents lives, with love, with respect, with reverence, in order to understand what parts of our own lives need attention.
King David in Tehillim, who included "our parents" in his confession, knew that to do t'shuva we cannot do it on our own; we need our parents help. But the Talmud, which left out "our parents" in its vidui, asks us to take personal responsibility rather than blaming our parents for our own failings.
In the end, maybe the Rosenfeld S'lichot books that we use at Anshe Sholom, present the best approach. They put "Avinu" "our parent's" in parenthesis. That parenthesis forces us to think about our parents' way of life but asks us not to hide behind our parents lives. It's a parenthesis of love. We can't bear to say that our parents sinned, but we know that to move forward we need our parents help: We need our parents there on their good days and on their bad days in order to help US, today, in our generation, become better people.
Our past is our asset. The true lives of our parents are a blessing because when we honestly look back at them they give us the ability to do real t'shuva. There can be no greater merit for those we love than to allow them to help us on a new course, one that makes us better people, better friends, better servants of God. Not better than them, but better than we ourselves have been. And on this course of t'shuva we become better children, and I know that those who will call us up after Yom Kippur and ask us how the fast went, and those looking down upon us from heaven will be proud of the distance we have come and proud of how far we can go.
May the merit of the lives of our loved ones, in this world and in the next, give us the strength to understand who we are and who we can become.
In their z'chut,
Chag sameach and g'mar chatima tova |
