Ear­li­er this week, Charles S. Sher­man wrote about a mirac­u­lous base­ball team and a life-alter­ing event and how he’s han­dled the chal­lenge. His book,The Bro­ken and the Whole: Dis­cov­er­ing Joy after Heart­break, will be pub­lished in March by Scrib­n­er. He has been blog­ging here all week for Jew­ish Book Coun­cil and MyJew­ish­Learn­ing.

Rab­bi Jack Riemer is one of my favorite peo­ple. He is a rab­bi’s rab­bi.” Our per­son­al rela­tion­ship is at best, casu­al. We are from dif­fer­ent gen­er­a­tions. But I enjoy his preach­ing style, his tal­ent for being at the same time folksy and instruc­tive. He has the abil­i­ty to take the seem­ing­ly ordi­nary, the Sein­feld moments” in our lives, and dis­cov­er a pro­found Jew­ish and uni­ver­sal truth. His mes­sages are fre­quent­ly deliv­ered with a twin­kle in his eye and a great sense of humor.

I was flat­tered, some weeks ago, to receive, unso­licit­ed, a love­ly email from Rab­bi Riemer. Some­how he had learned about my forth­com­ing book and request­ed a review copy. His reviews are well-respect­ed and hon­est. His reviews are car­ried in many Jew­ish news­pa­pers through­out North Amer­i­ca. Thus I was excit­ed to receive his email. 

Almost 30 years ago, when my son Eyal suf­fered a brain­stem stroke, leav­ing him quad­ri­pleg­ic and vent depen­dent, I received lots of love­ly cards and gen­er­ous let­ters offer­ing prayers and sup­port. Back then, I deliv­ered a ser­mon, There are No Athe­ists in Inten­sive Care,” that was prob­a­bly more for me than for oth­er peo­ple. It was pub­lished in a small pro­fes­sion­al jour­nal, The Amer­i­can Rab­bi. Appar­ent­ly Rab­bi Riemer had read it and was kind enough to drop me a hand­writ­ten note, that to this day I have kept. It was one of encour­age­ment and friend­ship, albeit very brief. Just a note to say, how deeply moved I was by your ser­mon in The Amer­i­can Rab­bi. I wish you and your fam­i­ly much strength — thank you for shar­ing your soul with us.” 

When I received Rab­bi Riemer’s request for a review copy, my mind went back to that let­ter that was still in my desk draw­er. I wrote Rab­bi Riemer and told him I still had the let­ter. I even quot­ed it. He in turn wrote back to me: I was just writ­ing a ser­mon when your email came in, about how you some­times do what you think is a small deed, and how it ends up affect­ing the world more than you know. The exam­ple I was using was the stranger who met Joseph, and told him where his broth­ers were. If he had not been there, Joseph and lat­er his peo­ple would not have gone down to Egypt and there would have been no Exo­dus. That stranger changed the course of human his­to­ry and yet if you had asked him: Did he remem­ber that one-minute con­ver­sa­tion that he had had with the teenag­er Joseph, he would have prob­a­bly said no. I feel that way about your let­ter and the fact that you saved my note for all of these years.” 

If all of us look back on our lives, we can remem­ber our child­hood when an adult — a teacher, a coach, a neigh­bor or an aunt or uncle per­haps — offered a kind word or some advice that helped us dur­ing a dif­fi­cult time. They may not have under­stood the impact of their words and or actions. But I con­tend those are the things that we hold onto, that we remem­ber always. 

Charles S. Sher­man is the Senior Rab­bi of Tem­ple Adath Yeshu­run, the largest syn­a­gogue in Cen­tral New York. Active in numer­ous faith-based and sec­u­lar orga­ni­za­tions, he has received many awards for his ser­vice and has been a respect­ed mem­ber of his com­mu­ni­ty for over forty years. He and his wife, Leah, par­ents of five chil­dren, live with their son Eyal in Syra­cuse, New York.

Charles S. Sher­man is the Senior Rab­bi of Tem­ple Adath Yeshu­run, the largest syn­a­gogue in Cen­tral New York. Active in numer­ous faith-based and sec­u­lar orga­ni­za­tions, he has received many awards for his ser­vice and has been a respect­ed mem­ber of his com­mu­ni­ty for over forty years. He and his wife, Leah, are the par­ents of five chil­dren and live with their son Eyal in Syra­cuse, NY.