New York is still shaking and so is much of the Jewish world. \u00a0Little Leiby Kletsky of blessed memory, was buried Wednesday evening, but nothing has been put to rest. \u00a0How could it be otherwise?<\/p>\n
The details of the horrific murder of the 8 year-old child can be found elsewhere, for those who want them. \u00a0But I want to focus on the powerful and insightful words of Badana Gertz, a woman in her 60s, who came from Flatbush, two neighborhoods over from Borough Park, to pick up garbage outside the building in which Leiby lived. \u00a0This woman, whom I have never met, became a kind of rebbe to me and could be one for the rest of us as well \u2013 a spiritual master of Tikkun Olam, of liberating sparks of holiness in the midst of events which make even the most faithful among us question whether anything remains sacred in our world.
\nDuring the frantic 36-hour search for the missing boy, the effort involved not only the full force of the NYPD and the Shomrim, a local volunteer neighborhood security organization, but hundreds, if not thousands of regular people. \u00a0They gathered and organized on the street in front of Leiby\u2019s building, and after a day and a half, there was plenty of trash. \u00a0Rather than simply wait for the Department of Sanitation, at least one person, Badana Gertz, began the clean up on her own. \u00a0Why she chose to do so is a spiritual lesson for anyone at any time, but especially at times like these.
\nPicking up napkins from the street by hand, Ms. Gertz explained to a New York Times reporter, \u201cAt least I was able to do something besides pray and pray and pray.\u201d \u00a0Clearly prayer was a part of this religious woman\u2019s response, but just as clearly, so was the need to something else as well. \u00a0Although we may never meet, I now count Badana Gertz as among my teachers.
\nAlthough many do at such times, she did not dismiss the importance of prayer, nor did she give up on its value. \u00a0Ms. Geertz simply and sagely acknowledged that sometimes prayer is not enough \u2013 we find ourselves needing to do more.
\nI know that very formulation opens the door to as many questions as it answers \u2013 \u201cmore\u201d of what? \u201cenough\u201d for whom? \u00a0For Leiby? \u00a0For God? \u00a0For Ms. Gertz? \u00a0I want to respond \u201cyes\u201d to all three of those last questions, but that is a personal matter, or one left to those who enjoy theological debates which seek a single right answer. \u00a0Ms. Gertz was speaking to a more fundamental issue, one with deep roots in our tradition.
\nThe need to make a material difference, to clean up a mess when your whole world feels dirty \u2013 this, too, is a holy need. \u00a0Picking up dirty napkins, in this context at least, is a sacred act. \u00a0Perhaps in its own way, it is also another form of prayer, one in which, as in the Kaddish, we attempt to argue order and goodness back into the world.
\nThe Kaddish is written in the future tense, perhaps precisely because in the midst of loss, we acknowledge that the sacred has been diminished \u2013 that God\u2019s name is not as great as it was before the loss we have suffered. \u00a0But, it is also in the future tense because we believe that through the words we say and the actions that we take, we can restore that sense of greatness and the presence of the sacred.
\nTo clean up, to mend what is ripped, is a deeply religious impulse — at least for Jews of pretty much every spiritual stripe. \u00a0I can\u2019t claim to speak authoritatively for other traditions (I barely claim to do so for my own), and I know that the impulse to fix things is itself part of the problem from a Buddhist perspective, but on the morning after Leiby Kletzky\u2019s funeral, there are all kinds of napkins to pick up. \u00a0I am deeply grateful to Badana Gertz for reminding us that sometimes prayer is not enough and we can all begin picking up those napkins.
\nIn the days and weeks ahead, we can all begin to pick up more napkins \u2013 to see the messes, and along with our prayers, begin to clean them up ourselves. \u00a0Our actions will not fix everything, and may feel quite small relative to the challenges we face, but the very act of doing so can help restore a measure of decency and hope at a moment when we crave both so deeply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New York is still shaking and so is much of the Jewish world. \u00a0Little Leiby Kletsky of blessed memory, was buried Wednesday evening, but nothing has been put to rest. \u00a0How could it be otherwise? The details of the horrific murder of the 8 year-old child can be found elsewhere, for those who want them.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,4,6],"tags":[136,17,137,132,134,133,138,135],"class_list":["post-894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judaism","category-news","category-religion","category-spirituality","tag-healing-world","tag-judaism-2","tag-kaddish","tag-leiby-kletsky","tag-mourning","tag-prayer","tag-saying-kaddish","tag-tikkun-olam"],"yoast_head":"\n