I was at a wedding the other night when an elderly woman collapsed unconscious on the dance floor. It happened last Sunday.
The wedding was beautiful. My wife and all of our kids and I were there together. We sang and danced and celebrated at this wonderful simcha of a family who have been our collective friends for many years. As my father, may he rest in peace, said after our own wedding: “To make a wedding really festive, it helps to have great music—and a lot of young people.” This one had both.
Like so many of our people’s rituals, a Jewish wedding typically incorporates multiple and contradictory themes. There is of course the joy and hopefulness of a couple who have found each other and are coming together to build a home and a life. The language of the sheva brachot, the seven special blessings recited at a wedding, reminds us of this: “Bring great joy to these loving friends, just as You brought joy to Your creations in the ancient Garden of Eden.” A wedding is a rebirth, a renewal, the creation of something wholly new and wonderful in the world—and that’s a cause for celebration.
The counterpoint, of course, comes from our recognition that not all is or can be wholly joyful in a world so broken. The Talmud records that since the destruction of the ancient Temple, Jews have tempered the festivities at our weddings. Most famously, we do that by breaking a glass. At this wedding, as at many others, the glass-breaking was introduced by the singing of im eshkakhekh Yerushalayim, “If I Forget Thee, O Jerusalem,” (Psalms 137:5), as well as a prayer for the return of the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza and an end to the war.
All of which is to say that we are used to the simultaneous presence of these major and minor keys. But this experience was a deeper lesson in holding it all.
I was standing just behind the woman as she collapsed. The band stopped playing. For a moment it felt like time stood still. I found myself shocked and momentarily paralyzed. The father of the bride called out, “Is there a doctor in the house?” Two people raced over. They determined she needed CPR. Someone called 911. I remembered that I had seen a defibrillator in the coat room and ran to retrieve it. By the time I came back, someone was doing chest compressions.
The rest of us moved out of the ballroom and into the foyer as we waited. Our festivity turned to worry and apprehension. Parents spoke to their young children about what was happening. And though I was one of many rabbis in the room, it occurred to me that this isn’t one of those scenarios most of us are taught to prepare for, or, thank God, encounter in our careers. I found myself praying, and accessing my own mindfulness practice to try to calm my anxiety.
After a few minutes, the police, followed by the paramedics, arrived. The woman had, thank God, regained consciousness. As she was wheeled to the ambulance, we all clapped. And then, because the mitzvah of bringing joy to the newlyweds was still the evening’s prime directive, the band struck up again, we set aside the heaviness for a moment, and danced again.
One of the big themes of Parashat Ekev is practicing anava, humility. Moses exhorts the Israelites not to be deluded into thinking that they have brought success upon themselves. “Remember that it is YHVH your God who gives you the power,” he says (Deut. 8:18). That’s the purpose of the mitzvah of birkat hamazon, reciting grace after meals; “When you have eaten your fill, give thanks to YHVH your God for the good land given to you.” (8:10) We cultivate an awareness that our food, like the rest of our lives, isn’t ultimately about “me, myself, and mine,” but part of a much larger whole.
Yet anava involves not just this act of self-limitation or even negation, but also self-affirmation. As Alan Morinis famously teaches, “No more than my space, no less than my place.” An unbalanced sense of humility can lead to a sense that “nothing is in my hands—it’s all in God’s—so therefore there’s nothing I can or should do.” And of course that’s not true. As I remarked when one of my children said, “Thank God” upon seeing the now-conscious woman wheeled out to the ambulance, “Thank God—but also thank the first responders.” (And, if you’re like me, let this be a reminder to renew your CPR certification regularly.)
One of our great challenges today is living in the gap between our feeling that we bear the weight of such large, heavy problems—on a national, international, and species-existential level—and the comparatively tiny amount of agency most of us actually have to respond to them. And while we undoubtedly have a responsibility to do everything we can to address those problems, this week reminds me not to lose sight of the ways each of us can and must be vehicles for making the divine Presence manifest in the world: in healing, in showing up in community, in dancing out our hopes at a wedding—even at a time of fear.