There is a time for everything under the heavens, a time to be born and a time to die … a time to open your mouth and a time to keep it shut! May 5th is Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day, a day of tears and remembrance. The very next day, the 6th, is Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel Independence Day, a day of joy and merriment. Such is the way of the world. We have times that we are lost in grief and we have times that we are feeling high as a kite. Yet, there are people who seldom, if ever, have a chance to look on what Brian of Monty Python fame would call “The Sunny Side of Life.”

Have you ever brought a smile to someone’s face? It feels pretty good, doesn’t it?

Have you ever gotten someone to laugh so hard they were rolling in the aisles? It feels great, doesn’t it? Now, let me ask another question — have you ever hurt someone? Have you ever made someone cry? Doesn’t feel so good, does it?

And yet, without thinking, we, arguably the most intelligent beings on the planet, have an incredible habit of causing pain to others. One particular example got me in the midst of the Passover Holiday. An elderly woman I know was rushed to the hospital. As her friends and neighbors found out that she was having health difficulties, they began calling her. One took care of her beloved poodle, another took care of her mail, another came to visit her each day. Everyone was helping the hospitalized woman, putting her mind at ease and, even in the midst of her pain, she couldn’t help but smile at how her friends were rallying around her.

But then her friends began to question why the woman’s sister, who lived in the area, was not doing anything to help. They began gossiping about the sister, and it went from bad to worse. They were saying how cold she is, how she must not care about her sister at all. And, before long, one of them just had to say something to the hospitalized woman and it wasn’t pretty.

Well, there are phones in the hospital, but the woman was not up to using one just yet. So she lay there in that bed fuming. She got angrier and angrier at her sister. Then, the day came when she was able to make a call and she got no answer. Want to know why? It seems her sister had been rushed to the hospital the very same day and was going through her own medical crisis, and her friends were wondering why her sister wasn’t there to help her.

So, did all these well-meaning friends help the situation or hurt it? How much better would it have been if they simply concentrated on what they were able to do to help instead of deciding what someone else should or shouldn’t be doing? As the Talmud teaches us, “People eat and drink together, yet pierce each other with the sword of their tongues.” (Yomah, 9b)

When I was a young boy, I came home from school and saw the ugliest thing I had ever seen on my Momma’s kitchen sink. It was a huge cow’s tongue. I couldn’t believe that something that tasted so delicious could possibly be so gross. I guess it was that day that I learned that the tongue can be sweet as sugar or it can be gross as can be. It all depends on what we do with it.

Shalom, my friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Israel of Deerfield Beach. We welcome you to join our warm and caring family for Shabbat and festival services. We’ll make your heart glow…who knows, you might even fall in love with Shul all over again.