Dying we live [1995]

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When last I spoke to my teacher, Abraham Joshua Heschel, he asked if he could borrow my kittel. He was not at home in New York but here in California and it was before the High Holidays. "You know, he explained "the kittel is part of the tachrichim -- the shrouds in which the dead are clothed for the funeral. You know on Yom Kippur I face my mortality." When, more than on Yom Kippur, must we face our mortality?

One must be alive to one's death. Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th century Danish theologian, would tell the story of an absent minded scholar so abstracted from his own life that he half knew that he existed, until one fine morning he awakened to find himself dead. We dare not be so abstract.

You, I, and ours are living older now and equally important we have it in our hands to prolong longevity. We have the powers to extend our lives and the lives of those we love.

In the Garden of Eden the serpent seduced the human being and whispered "On the day that you eat this fruit your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as gods." We have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge. We have become as gods. And it is revolutionizing our lives. Listen to the radical changes.

The Lord gives, the Lord takes away. But we can give and we can take life. During the services of the first day of Rosh Hashanah, we heard the lament of Hannah the woman angry at her husband, Elkanah, because of her childlessness and embittered toward God because of her barrenness was heard. "I am a woman of sorrowful spirit. I pour out my soul before the Lord. Lord, look upon my plight."

That was Hanna's cry yesterday. Today, doctors and geneticists have become active partners in the creation of human life. Through artificial insemination, sex pre-selection, host mothers, test tube babies, recombinant DNA technology, Hannah need not despair. Cry no more, Hannah! You are given a child. The first successful laboratory fertilization of a human egg by a human sperm -- in vitro fertilization was reported as recently as 1969.

Science has radicalized our idea of ourselves and our prayers. The meaning of liturgy has changed. "How many shall pass away and how many shall be born? Who shall live and who shall die? Who shall be at ease and who shall be afflicted?" Yesterday, the prayer was bothersome to some because it smacked of fatalism. We resented God's decrees. But God has shared His powers with us. More than ever in history we are God's partners.

Who shall live and who shall die is in our hands.

"Who by injection and who by withdrawal of medication? Who by morphine and who by hydration? Who by renal dialysis and who by halting alimentation? Who by omission and who by tubulation?"

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Dying we live [1995]