With every contest there has to be a winner and a loser. Sam Berger may have won the election, but both candidates were winners. It was a big kidush Hashem that both Sam Berger and David Hirsch did not engage in personal attacks and stuck to the issues. I would be surprised if they were not under pressure to engage in demonizing the opponent with baseless attacks. Unfortunately, that is what politics has become in this country. It is a sad state of affairs that we have to acknowledge candidates who treat each other with respect and accept results of an election. It used to be a given. I would have liked to see a higher turnout from the frum community for the special election. The small turnout may make Berger vulnerable to a primary challenge by candidates in other communities in the Assembly district when he runs for a full term.
Now on to my main topic. This past week, I went to visit three places where few people want to end up at: a nursing home, a hospital, and a cemetery. They are also places that many people avoid visiting. Usually, they are depressing places to visit.
I went to the cemetery to visit the gravesite of my father, his parents, and my aunt and uncle. I went because of the custom to go to a cemetery on Erev Rosh HaShanah. When I went it was eerily quiet. I would have expected at least some other people to visit Erev Rosh Hashanah. It is very sobering walking past thousands of graves and seeing stones as far as the eye can see. It is convenient living close to a cemetery where family members are buried. However, seeing a cemetery daily reduces the effect that would occur if seeing it would be an unusual occurrence.
Although my visit to the hospital and the nursing home were work-related, it is unusual that I had two nursing home trips and one hospital visit the same week. I am not a chaplain or a social worker; I am a lawyer whose practice includes, among other things, guardianship proceedings. Nevertheless, with many of the people whom I represent either as counsel or as a guardian, I feel like I am all they have. Some of them may have family but the family wants nothing to do with them. Instead, it is left to strangers through the court system to help these people.
I was thinking about why this happened last week. Then I thought about my article that was published last week where I was focused on death. I mentioned that to do teshuvah we have to admit that it is not a given that we will live through the next year. It was a mistake to limit it to life or death. The famous prayer in the U’Nesaneh Tokef section of the Rosh HaShanah service talks in detail about death and types of death that can occur. But it also talks about other things that can happen short of dying, such as who will become rich or poor, who will suffer or enjoy tranquility, who will live in harmony or harried. The situations that happened with a few of my clients or ward this week was a reminder that there are other bad outcomes that can occur short of death. Even if the person you are visiting at a nursing home or in the hospital may not be in terrible shape, there are plenty of people there who are. Anybody who visits these facilities sees the deterioration of individuals’ physical and mental faculties.
It was also a reminder of the importance of chesed, especially this time of year. It is nice to write a check but maybe we should do more. When I was in high school, I had a roommate who would go every Friday to the nursing home to visit a person who could not get out of bed. There are also schools and organizations who visit individuals in hospitals and in nursing homes. Maybe we should care more about the plight of others who are in worse circumstances than we are and try to make them feel better, even for a few minutes. It is not so easy to do since it can be emotionally draining. However, it is something that we should consider when we state our goals for the next year.
Have a g’mar chasimah tovah.
Warren S. Hecht is a local attorney. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
