Yom Kippur 5763: “The Pennsylvania Coal Miners and Unetanah Tokef”
(by Rabbi Howard L. Apothaker)
This sermon is copyrighted to Rabbi Howard L. Apothaker, Ph.D.
NO REDISTIBUTION OR REPUBLICATION IS PERMITTED.
Bored and boisterous during the Yom Kippur service, with the cantor cranking out yet one more exhaustive extension of some prayer about the sacrificial cult, the junior high school boys would sit at the back of the sanctuary. They were in a traditional Conservative congregation in which the musaf “Unetanah Tokef,” that includes the phrase ...“ who will live and who will die...” would prompt a pantomime.
They would act out each of the phrases... “who by water and who by fire, who by sword, who by beast, who by hunger, who by thirst, who by storm, who by plague, who by strangulation, and who by stoning.” Said a ring leader: “We thought we were pretty creative in our acting ability and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, until the ushers came over and threatened to tell our parents if we didn’t keep it down.” Listen the charade, literally and figuratively couldn’t last.
Is it such a charade? How many people I have spoken to who have — with or without a living will or legal medical power of attorney — have told me that “this way” or “that way” is the way they would prefer to die. They have seen loved ones die otherwise, and have tacitly made their choice, AS IF LIFE WOULD GIVE THEM THAT CHOICE!
This past summer, Somerset County, PA once again offered that heart-rending recital of life and death for the second time in 12 months. On September 11 of last year, death was brought by fire when hijacked United Flight 93 crashed in a nearby field. This time, only 10 miles away, death by water was imminent when 60 million gallons of water came rushing through a ruptured wall deep in the Quecreek coal mine. Last year, on Erev Rosh HaShanah I introduced an image, culled from my own Pennsylvania background and history, that many of you have heard since: Jews have been the bell weather of evil in society. Like canaries in the coal mine, they are sensitive to the coming of the destructive whirlwind. So first in Germany, so later throughout Europe, so in the Middle East, so at ground zero.
This year we were riveted by a story in an actual coal mine and to the heroism of blue collar Americans. We all remember the 80 hours of fear as the nine miners were trapped deep below the earth’s surface.
With the rush of water through a ruptured wall, the miners knew they had only seconds to live. Dennis Hall, was the miner who picked up a below-ground phone just moments after the accident to warn a second crew of nine men to get out because water was filling the crippled shaft. All those men made it out safely. But, according to their accounts they would all be dead if even another minute had passed before Hall’s warning.
What did it take for these nine men to be that selfless, to value the lives of others while in mortal fear of losing their own?
Who by drowning? The nine, trapped miners craned their necks at one point to keep their noses above the frigid water. Wearing heavy miners’ gear they attempted unsuccessfully to swim through off-shooting mine shafts in search of a possible escape route. They told of how one man, Mark Popernack, the miner who made the fateful drill hole into the neighboring shaft, was stranded alone in the dark for 3 hours before several risked their lives to search for him and return him to the group.
There’s the story of miner, Harry Blaine Mayhue, who said that when they were trapped, his first thought was that he hadn’t kissed his wife goodbye that morning. And as the waters rose around them, he asked his boss for a pen to write a note to his wife and children, telling them he loved them. They all wrote notes on cardboard, never knowing if anyone was ever going to see them. This story was eerily reminiscent of the tearful phone messages left by the soon-to-die victims on doomed airliners and at the World Trade Center last year.
Our liturgy tells us that it is in the hand of The Holy One to inscribe and to seal us in the Book of Life. How haunting was it when we heard that the miners INSCRIBED AND SEALED their notes in a waterproof container that was tied to the group! At the time of these heartfelt expressions, they had no idea of their fate, whether they would live or die. And if they were to die, how it be: from drowning in the freezing, rising water or from strangulation from the lack of oxygen, from hunger or from the stoning of a caving wall.
I don’t believe I am stretching the point to say these men understood the power of our Yom Kippur, without knowing anything about Judaism. Our lives(and theirs) perpetually hang in the balance. We hope that true “REPENTANCE, PRAYER AND ACTS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, WILL AVERT THE SEVERE DECREE.” We take an active role in inscribing and sealing our own fates in the metaphoric Book of Life along with God on this Fast Day.
There is something within us, I believe, an eternal truth that assures us, even in the face of death, that we are all somehow connected, part of something greater and far more lasting than our own earthly existence.
Several factors were credited for the miners’ survival — not the least of which was the stubborn persistence of those who kept digging or praying for them — but two things stand out: The pipe that pumped in heated air supplying oxygen and warmth; and the fact that the men tied themselves together, physically and emotionally, to stay together, live or die, as one.
The nine coal miners decided early in their ordeal that they would “live or die as a group,” tying themselves together so all their bodies would be found if they drowned. They huddled around the warmth of that pipe and took turns to cheer each other up, to keep their hope alive.
While we are experiencing the rigors of our own fast, let’s not forget those nine, wet, chilled hearty miners who shared one corned beef sandwich, one Pepsi and two Mountain Dews for the nearly 80 hours.
Let us not forget the unselfishness of the local community to donate their time and resources. As an act of tsedakah, the property owner of the land of the rescue site, when informed about the miners being underneath his property, said, “If they are underneath my house take it down. Do what ever you need to do to get to those men.”
Then there were the miners from around the area who donated many dangerous hours of their time to rescue their brothers in mining.
The Yom Kippur thematic link to the captivity of these miners will continue this afternoon. During the afternoon, many of us will read the story of Jonah who was cast overboard while at sea. He agreed to be tossed sacrificed so that the others on the ship might be saved. The story continues that he was swallowed up in darkness and despair for three days and threes nights while in the belly of the Leviathan, the large fish. He too was cold, cramped, and fearful. But God heard his prayer, and his SEVERE DECREE was AVERTED. Jonah emerged into the light of the dry land as a changed man with a new appreciation of life. He knew that he now had a mission and actively sought to carry out that mission.
Through all their turmoil, the miners said they maintained a glimmer of hope, unknowingly praying simultaneously with anxious family and friends huddled at the Sipesville fire hall. As I age, my appreciation for the power of communal prayer increases. That’s one of the reasons I love this season of the year — in part because of the power and strength I feel, and I hope we all appreciate from being together, praying together and singing together. What brings many of us here today. Those nine had their minyan of 10 completed with the unseen power of their waiting, praying families!
Yet, when the narrow emergency capsule was eventually lowered for their rescue, each man had to confront his fears alone as he was pulled to the surface. Like Jonah, each miner emerged into the light of the dry land on the surface as a changed man with a new appreciation of life.
Was this a brush with death or a brush with life, a brush with the appreciation of life? Can we learn from the experience of the PA miners in their purgatory/Gehenom deep in the earth at Quecreek Mine? What questions does it beg us to ask?
Before a brief suggestion, I want you to list to a reading. I now quote very gingerly from a short essay at the PBS Website concerning the scene last September 11th at the World Trade Center site. The reading is a true account and is called “The Leap.” The full original is soul-wrenching. Some of you may wish to tune out anyway:
“A couple leaped from the south tower, hand in hand. They reached for each other and their hands met and they jumped. Jennifer Brickhouse saw them falling, hand in hand.
“Many people jumped. Perhaps hundreds…. Their hands reaching and joining are the most powerful prayer I can imagine, the most eloquent, the most graceful.
It is everything that we are capable of against horror and loss and death. It is what makes me believe that we are not craven fools and charlatans to believe in God, to believe that human beings have greatness and holiness within them like seeds that open only under great fires, to believe that some unimaginable essence of who we are persists past the dissolution of what we were, to believe against such evil hourly evidence that love is why we are here.
“No one knows who they were: husband and wife … dear friends, colleagues, strangers thrown together at the window there at the lip of hell. Maybe they didn’t even reach for each other consciously, maybe it was instinctive, a reflex, as they both decided at the same time to take two running steps and jump out the shattered window, but they did reach for each other, and they held on tight, and leaped….
“Jennifer Brickhouse saw them holding hands, and Stuart DeHann saw them holding hands, and I hold onto that.
It prompts me to ask, “Who are the people you want to stay ’tied’ to? What is the lifeline that keeps you warm and breathing? To whom would you write if thought you were dying? What would you want to say? What would your prayer sound like?”
Given the dramatic freedom of an “AVERTED SEVERE DECREE and a renewed life...what steps would YOU take to change your life?
This evening we will light the Havdalah candle and sound the Shofar to conclude Yom Kippur. May we all emerge from this Holy Day reconnected to our community. May this light afford us the opportunity to become changed individuals with a greater appreciation of life.
G’MAR HATIMAH TOVAH
Yizkor List 5763
All those have lost their lives due to terrorism and the fight against terrorism here in America, in Israel, Afghanistan and Pakistan, including especially Daniel Pearl, award-winning Wall Street Journal reporter, murdered in Pakistan for being American and for being a Jew.
Isaac Stern — impassioned musician, generous teacher.
Troy Donahue — matinee idol; Dudley Moore who idolized “10”s; pop jazz singer, Peggy Lee and fellow performer, vibraphonist, Lionel Hampton; and Rod Steiger … The Pawnbroker.
George Harrison — the Beatle who sung of his own demise in “All Things Must Pass.” And John Gotti, who got to meet his real Godfather. Joshua Miner, the educator who otherwise tested the limits of survival by creating the self-reliance program,“Outward Bound,” whose 600,000 participants include former President Jimmy Carter. And John Knowles who, relating of such a journey in A Separate Peace, told of a boy’s search for self.
Dr. Christian Bernard who had the guts in 1967 to do the first human-to-human heart transplant. And Dr. Francis Moore who in 1954 directed the first successful human-organ transplant … a kidney. And Dr. David Barry, who, by developing AZT, cut the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV to near zero.
Herb Block, Pulitzer Prize, non-conformist Washington Post cartoonist who lampooned politicians. Disney cartoon storyteller, Bill Peet, who wrote 101 Dalmatians, and co-created Dumbo, Fantasia, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. And Chuck Jones, who had a hand in the making of the characters: Pepe LePew, Road Runner, and Wile E. Coyote, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny, and Daffy Duck.
Reggie Montgomery, the first black clown to perform with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Joe Black, the aptly-named, first African-American to win a World Series game in 1952, and the even-more-aptly-named, Willie Thrower, the first black, NFL quarterback who played for the Bears in 1953. And the dean of qb’s, Johnny Unitas, of whom a teammate once said, “It’s like being in a huddle with God.”
Don Tennant, creator of Tony the Tiger and the Pillsbury Doughboy, “Nothin’ says lovin’ like somethin’ from the oven.” Jay Chiat, whose Energizer Bunny and ubiquitous Nike “swoosh” are — to some, disturbingly — renown. And Bill Bissell, who when watching those “swooshes,” invented the improbably delightful cheer in which fans stand and raise their arms, section by section, “the wave.”
Humorist and MAD Magazine artist, Dave Berg, creator of “The Lighter Side….” And Justin Wilson, whose humor seasoned his Cajun cooking shows. Ira Walbaum, at whose food chain, expanded from inherited Brooklyn groceries, home chefs might have shopped. And Dave Thomas, who freed many from shopping and cooking altogether.
Jay Livingston, pop composer of favorites like “Que Sera Sera,” “Mona Lisa,” and the theme music to “Bonanza” and “Mr. Ed.” Composer of mysteries, Mildred Benson, who, under the pen name, Carolyn Keene, wrote the “Nancy Drew” series, and composer of stories, Astrid Lindgram, whose willful, pig-tailed coquette was known to us as Pippi Longstocking.
Mary Kay Ash, flashy, homespun cosmetics executive, buried in a pink Cadillac. And Ruth Handler, who, as co-founder of Mattel, created a doll, named for her daughter, Barbie. And was instrumental in developing artificial breasts for those having survived mastectomies.
Joseph Steiner, co-founder of another toy company, Kenner, producer of the Easy Bake Oven and the mother’s favorite, Play-Do. And Uzi Gal, humble Zionist whose first name, Uzi, was used against his wishes for no toy, but Israel’s first sub-machine gun.
Alfred Heineken, beer tycoon and marketing guru. And Foster Brooks, who was really a teetotaler, who played an endearing lush pretending at sobriety. And speaking of comedy, Mr. Television, Uncle Milty, Milton Berle, cross-dressing pioneer of early TV comedy. And Bill Blass, generous philanthropist, who would have been happy to outfit him.
Julia Phillips, who produced “Taxi Driver” and “The Sting,” Reginald Rose, who created the “12 Angry Men,” and German Refugee, Billy Wilder of “Sunset Boulevard,” “Some Like it Hot,” “Double Indemnity,” “The Apartment,” “The Fortune Cookie,” and others that featured star-studded rules for such as Barbara Stanwyck, Greta Garbo, Gloria Swanson, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemmon.
Lew Wasserman, chief of Universal Pictures, whose reputation led many anti-semites to declare that Hollywood was controlled by the Jews. Besides having a client list included Jimmy Stewart and Ronald Reagan, he was a major giver to Jewish causes, including Birthright Israel and Brandeis University. And Gerhart Riegner, the World Jewish Congress official, who, in August 1942 sent a cable to warn an incredulous, and tragically unmoved, world that Nazi Germany had formally decided at the highest levels to annihilate Europe’s Jews.
Princess Margaret, high-spirited younger sister of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, and their mother, the sprightly and rigorous Queen Mum, under whose wide-brimmed hats stood a beloved symbol of courage and self-sacrifice during WW II.
And a Grande Dame in her own right, Bella Wexner. The Wexner Foundation, founded in her honor by her family, has provided money for Jewish philanthropy, education and fellowships for rabbinical students and Jewish scholars.
Mike Mansfield, he served as Senate majority leader longer than anyone else and played a key role in the enactment of legislation on civil rights, social policy and foreign affairs.
Howard K. Smith, impassioned broadcaster, moderator of the first televised president debate in 1960, who has the courage of his conviction to leave CBS when he was barred from punctuating a 1961 documentary on racism in Birmingham, AL with the Edmund Burke quote: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Statesman Cyrus Vance who advised presidents; and Ann Landers, a nice Jewish girl who gave a little advice.
Thomas Kelly, who designed NASA’s insect-like lunar module that touched the moon’s surface and served — flawlessly, thank G-d — as a launch pad. Norwegian explorer, Thor Hyderdahl who traced the course of ancient pioneering missions. And Stephen Jay Gould, my favorite intellectual trail-blazer, whose science writing with wit, metaphors of talmudic proportion, and reference to the broad range in the arts, embodied the ideal of the scholar and teacher of the sciences AND humanities.
Justice Byron White, last surviving member of, and frequently dissenter on, the Warren Court. Chaim Potok, rabbi and novelist, whose main characters, as in The Chosen, were often dissenters in their own right.
Sweet swinging golfer, Slammin’ Sammy Snead,. Faye Dancer, former star of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, and inspiration for Madonna’s character in “A League of Their Own.” Ted Williams, baseball’s greatest pure hitter.
Brittanie Cecil, the first fan at an NHL game to die when she was hit with a puck off the stick of a Columbus Blue Jacket. And sportscaster, Dick Schaap, who might have told her story.
And hundreds of our brothers and sisters in Israel, those who have been murdered in Jerusalem’s neighborhoods, Gilo, French Hill, The Old City, Haifa, Zichron Yaakov, Netanya, Tel Aviv, in Tiberius and Megiddo and in the territories, by a cruel enemy, who viciously attacked men, women and children in busses, in restaurants, in their cars, and in their homes, at the Frank Sinatra Center at the Hebrew University, even at the celebration of a Pesach seder.
Abraham Zelmanowitz, a computer programmer, praised as a hero for remaining with his quadriplegic friend rather than flee the World Trade Center on September 11. Mr. Zelmanowitz, who worked on the 27th floor of the north World Trade Tower, refused to leave behind his friend and co-worker, Edward Beyea, who could not descend the stairs in his wheelchair. Both men died when the towers collapsed. Mr Zelmanowitz remains were identified and were interred next to his parents at the cemetery overlooking Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives.
And we also remember other 2,8l0 who died in the twin towers, and the 613+ who have died in acts of terror in Israel this year....may their memory be for a blessing...