Mishpatim - Caroline and Kirk: Tales of Desperation & Redemption
"I sit by your grave and weep,
Silently, not to disturb your sleep.
Rest in peace my beautiful son
It won't be long before we are one,
While I lie down by your side.
And talk, no secrets to hide.
Tell me, Eric, what did I do wrong?
What should I have done to make you strong?
Now I sit here and cry,
Waiting to be with you when I die."
'Life Could
Be Verse: reflections on love, loss, and what really matters', Health Communication Inc.,Douglas, K, 2014, [p. 72]
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The best bit?
She came up to us interns (there were three of us) and spoke to us
individually about the shoot. She asked why we were interning and what we
wanted to do. She didn’t have to do that, and yet she did anyway. You don’t
often see that on a high-profile fashion shoot. She was kind and lovely and I
don’t think I’ll ever forget it. I hope that’s how she is
remembered."
Daisy, 26, content manager,
London
The last
few weeks have witnessed the demise of two people, who on the face of it,
couldn't have been more different.
The first,
a young, beloved TV presenter with so much left to give, who tragically chose
to end her life prematurely and the second, a wise, centenarian Hollywood actor
whose very name invoked countless memories of his performances in the minds of
his millions of admirers around the world.
I knew
little about Caroline Flack before last Saturday night and even less about
'Love Island' the popular TV show she fronted. I had heard her name in
relation to the recent court case, but as I didn't care much for her or the
programme, the news glossed over me.
It was
different when it came to Kirk Douglas. I am very familiar with a great deal of
his films, including "Cast A Giant Shadow", "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ", "Lust for
Life", Gunfight at The OK Corral" and of course "Spartacus".
I was also aware of the retracing of his roots and the public reclaiming of his Jewish background, which began in the late 1980s with
the publication of his autobiography, "The Ragman's Son".
Since Saturday
night, I have read, with a growing sense of sadness how Caroline struggled with
her mental health, which worsened after she won the "Strictly Come
Dancing" contest in 2014.
She wrote:
"'It all started the day after I won Strictly. I woke up and felt
like somebody had covered my body in clingfilm. I couldn't get up and just
couldn't pick myself up at all that next year.....'
I felt I was being held together by a piece of string which could snap
at any time. People see the celebrity lifestyle and assume everything is
perfect, but we're just like everyone else. Everyone is battling something
emotional behind closed doors - that's life. Fame doesn't make you happy."
One would
have thought that Kirk Douglas, née Issur Danielovitch, who didn't have an easy
start to life, would have been able to enjoy his twilight years embraced in the
warmth of his family, but he too suffered greatly, narrowly surviving a
helicopter crash, in which two other people were killed in 1991 and only five
years later, being struck down by a severe stroke which robbed him, an actor,
of his greatest tool, his voice.
And then he
lost his youngest son, Eric, the subject of the poem I read at first, to a drug
overdose. He was only 46 and this was but eight short years after his father's
debilitating stroke.
(1) Now these are the rules that you shall set before
them:
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(א) וְאֵ֙לֶּה֙ הַמִּשְׁפָּטִ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר
תָּשִׂ֖ים לִפְנֵיהֶֽם׃
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Sforno on
Exodus 21:1:1 (Ovadiah ben
Yaakov Sforno - Italian Rabbi d.1550)
ואלה המשפטים,
in the previous paragraph, the Torah spoke about the prohibition of coveting
property belonging to someone else (20,14). This did not involve action.
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(14) You shall not covet your neighbour’s house: you
shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his male or female slave, or his ox
or his ass, or anything that is your neighbour’s.
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(יד) לֹ֥א תַחְמֹ֖ד בֵּ֣ית רֵעֶ֑ךָ לֹֽא־תַחְמֹ֞ד אֵ֣שֶׁת
רֵעֶ֗ךָ וְעַבְדּ֤וֹ וַאֲמָתוֹ֙ וְשׁוֹר֣וֹ וַחֲמֹר֔וֹ וְכֹ֖ל אֲשֶׁ֥ר לְרֵעֶֽךָ׃ (פ)
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By
contrast, where it says ואלה המשפטים,
the Torah speaks about laws governing
the concrete nature of “אשר לרעך,”
tangible matters
belonging to your fellow man.
The Parsha
of Mishpatim that we just read, starts recording the laws that Gd gave to Moses
whilst he was on Mount Sinai for the 40 days preceding his first return to the
Children of Israel (when they greeted him with the obscene Golden Calf).
It contains
a panoply of civil laws ranging from the treatment of Hebrew slaves, those who
commit manslaughter, matricide or patricide, kidnapping, through to criminal
damage, theft, sorcery. behaviour towards Gentiles, orphans, widows, the poor,
keeping Shabbat and
even the rudimentary laws of Kashrut.
In short,
it provides, in detail the foundations of what should be a just and moral
society.
A society that values and respects the rights of individuals:
A society that values and respects the rights of individuals:
·
Where those self-same members play an active role in
building a community of like-minded people.
·
Where each person is treated justly and those who break
the rules are punished accordingly.
·
Where people like Kirk Douglas insisted on
crediting Dalton Trumbo, the screenwriter of Spartacus – a man whose career and
livelihood had been decimated through being blacklisted during the barbaric
McCarthy witch-hunts of the 1940s and '50s.
Kirk Douglas,
who donated millions of dollars to improve the lot of his fellow human beings
by giving to countless schools, hospitals and medical centres both in the
United States and abroad.
Kirk Douglas,
who contributed to the creation of playgrounds in Jerusalem enabling Arab and
Jewish children to play together, building a shared future together. The ardent
Zionist who established the ‘Kirk Douglas Theatre’ in the Aish building
opposite the Kotel.
This was
Kirk Douglas, the proud Jew who reclaimed his heritage, realising that it was
never too late to contribute to the kind of society espoused in this week's Parsha.
And
Caroline Flack, who although she didn't achieve the same dizzying heights, in her tragic,
untimely death, showed us that, had we lived by the words embedded in the
fabric of Mishpatim, we too might have been part of a society that could have
protected her.
Had her inner turmoil been addressed earlier, perhaps she might have taken different decisions, choices which might not have resulted in the alleged charges relating to assaulting her boyfriend. This led to her feeling that she had no other option but to take her life.
Had her inner turmoil been addressed earlier, perhaps she might have taken different decisions, choices which might not have resulted in the alleged charges relating to assaulting her boyfriend. This led to her feeling that she had no other option but to take her life.
(21) You shall not ill-treat any
widow or orphan. (22) If you do mistreat them, I will heed their outcry as soon
as they cry out to Me.
She may not
have been a widow or an orphan, but she was just as vulnerable and perhaps,
only now, will her anguish be understood. When large swathes of society
enthusiastically promote a culture where programmes like 'Love Island', 'Big
Brother' or any similar reality show are venerated, sooner or later, that
society’s shallow outlook and cynical facade will self-destruct and cause the
collateral damage we witnessed last week. Hopefully, Caroline has found the
inner the peace she craved so much.
As Kirk
wrote, at the age of 98:
Gd walks beside me in the open air.
I can't see Him but I'm sure He's there.
Together we admire His green grass,
His roses in bloom,
Tomorrow that red one will decorate my room.
Together we admire His palm trees,
Tinted silver by the setting sun.
A sudden breeze carries Gd away,
As light is fading at the end of the day.
I sit there lonely, until it's hard to see,
So, I get up and - He is inside of me!
I'm happy to know that Gd is everywhere:
In the broiling sun, the pouring rain,
And in the cool night air.
Look for Him. He is your friend too.
But if you can't find Him, He will find you.
[ibid p.74]
Now, he has
found them both and the moral lessons that we read today were never more
applicable that in the societies we currently inhabit.
We can't
afford to risk losing another Caroline and we owe it, both to ourselves and the
youthful members of the next generation, to ensure that a society’s moral
compass can always be redirected.
It is never
too late to change the world.
Shabbat
Shalom.
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