Parashat Ekev: The Parachute Packers

Captain Charles (Charlie) Plumb, a US Navy fighter pilot who had flown 75 combat missions during the Vietnam War was having a quiet meal with his wife in a restaurant a few years ago.

During the evening, he was approached by a stranger who looked at him and said,

“You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!”

“How in the world did you know that?” asked Plumb.

“I packed your parachute,” the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, “I guess it worked!”

Plumb assured him, “It sure did. If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.”

(https://medium.com/jacob-morgan/this-is-the-true-story-of-charles-plumb-5eeb7eba334e)

Understandably Charlie spent a sleepless night thinking about this anonymous sailor.

Plumb says, “I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a navy uniform: a white hat, a bib in the back and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said, ‘Good morning, how are you?’ or anything, because, you see, I was a fighter pilot, and he was just a sailor.”

These days, Captain Charlie Plumb is a motivational speaker. He describes his experiences in the Navy and how he was shot down over Hanoi on his 75^th Mission only five days before what should have been the end of his tour of duty. He continues by detailing the way he was captured by the North Vietnamese and spent the next 2,103 days in captivity in a POW camp with his first cell being only eight foot long and eight foot wide.

You can view his story (which is quite harrowing at times) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLTc0K77Q7w

Charlie realised how this man’s meticulous (and I would imagine quite tedious) task had literally saved his life. There he was in a cabin somewhere below deck carefully folding parachutes into a backpack attached to a harness. And that was it. He would finish one and start on the next and so on.

This vital work brought home to Captain Charles Plumb a profound and life changing lesson on how interconnected our lives are and how grateful we need to be for everything we have. Even the things that we consider to be inconsequential.

It’s a powerful lesson for us all.

Parashat Ekev continues the narrative started in Va’etchanan which describes Gd’s beneficence towards the Jewish people.

If, indeed, you heed these laws, always vigilant to keep them, the L-rd your Gd will keep with you the covenant and the love He forged on oath with your ancestors. He will love you, bless you and multiply you. He will bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, your grain and wine and oil, the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flock in the land that He swore to your ancestors to give you…. (7.12-13)

Moshe reminds and warns the people against the arrogance of believing that their success is solely due to their own efforts.

“You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the Lord your Gd, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth” (8:17-18).

Rabbi Sacks ztl often spoke about the concept of “covenant and love” (brit ve-chessed). The covenant, he said, is a partnership between Gd and human beings, where each has responsibilities and obligations. Chessed, or loving-kindness, is the expression of that covenant in our actions towards each another.

In Judaism, we have a concept known as Hakarat Hatov which literally means ‘recognizing the good’ or as we refer to it – gratitude which is precisely the realisation that Captain Plumb had when he met that sailor.

Each of us has our own parachutes that were packed by someone else. Do we always recognise the time taken by the members of our community who go shopping to buy the delicacies that adorn our Kiddush Table? How about those who stand outside our shuls in the pouring rain and cold weather to ensure that we are safe? It might even be the young girl or the senior citizen at the cash till who packs our bag in a way that protects the more delicate items (such as eggs) that could easily be crushed or fall out of the bag.

The parachutes packers might be the drivers who travel all night and stay away from their loved ones to ensure that our fruit and vegetables reach their destination or the health care visitors and nurses who go out of their way to look after us. They might even be the people who stuff envelopes that enable us to attend polling stations or complete surveys.

Who is your parachute packer?

It is easy to take everything we have for granted but sometimes, we need to remember that the lives we lead are as plentiful and pleasant as they are precisely because of those people who spend time ‘packing our parachutes’.

And ultimately, we should remind ourselves that Gd is the ‘parachute packer’ who ensures that our crops receive the right amount of sunshine and rain to ensure that we have food on our tables whenever we wish.

Rabbi Sacks wrote:

“To be a Jew is to be a guardian of hope, a witness to the future, and a bearer of blessings.”

To be a ‘bearer of blessings’ we need to remind ourselves of those who are enabling us to do this. To recognise those in our communities, far and wide who pack our metaphorical parachutes.

May we carry these lessons forward, living lives of gratitude, responsibility, and loving-kindness to all. With all the negativity that surrounds us, we can play our part to make the world a kinder and more considerate place.

Perhaps, we might begin by packing somebody else’s ‘parachute’.

Shavuah Tov. 

Parashat Ve'etchanan: Our Moral Compass

Last week, I took a trip which led to my being momentarily airborne and resulted in a crash-landing on the tarmac a few feet north of our driveway.  Gd bless gravity!

If you’ve ever taken a tumble (in my case, this was because of uneven paving), you’ll know the drill.

The first thing that happens is that you trip.  Then you try your best to retain your balance in the vain (and frankly comical) hope that you’ll stop yourself falling.  As you realise that you’re not going to ‘make it’, a terror, like nothing else you’ve experienced, hits you and, in a split second, you try to position your body in a way that will minimise the damage you know you’re going to cause yourself - unless you’re Tom Cruise in Paris.  In my case, I managed to angle my shoulders so as I landed, I put my hand out and somehow managed to roll over, ‘stunt-man’ style so that I completed a 360° turn (it might have been two).  Had the result not been so painful, I might have marvelled at my prowess.  I was almost starring in my very own action movie.  The problem was that the palm of my left hand was blistered and my elbows and knees really hurt.

Sefer Mishlei, the Book of Proverbs teaches us (16.18) ‘Before collapse comes pride!  Before failure, haughtiness of spirit’ or in English parlance ‘Pride comes before a fall’.

I don’t know how proud I was feeling as I deposited an item in the bin by the green in front of our house and then attempted to fly across the road, but I can tell you that my spirit felt anything but haughty as I lay effigy-like in front of number 23.

Angry for being so careless, I picked myself up and hobbled back to the house, battered, bruised and at the same time grateful that I hadn’t inflicted more damage on myself.

In reflecting the episode, it occurred to me how the fear of what was going to happen to me was much worse that the result of the impact.  It was as though the loss of control bothered me the most.

In 1843, Charles Dickens introduced the noun ‘moral compass’ into the English language according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

https://www.oed.com/dictionary/moral-compass_n?tl=true

Google defines a moral compass as:

‘a set of beliefs about what is right and wrong that guides one's actions.  A moral compass can help one make decisions in daily life, but it can also help one find meaning and purpose in life.  An individual's moral compass is the foundation for ethical decision-making.’

There’s nothing in this definition which refers to losing one’s physical compass.  I had intended to walk southwards to my house but instead, I ended up in a north-easterly heap!

However, if we look at the events which took place, from my feeling secure in an upright position to losing my balance to changing the direction I was planning to move in, I believe that my fall could be a metaphor for losing my balance in more than just a physical manner.

This week’s Parasha of Va’etchanan, we recite the Ten Commandments or Aseret Hadibrot (version 2.0)  This provides a template for societies that are underpinned by values such as worshipping a single Gd (‘don’t create idols); recognising the need for a day of rest in the working week (‘Shabbat’); honouring parents, sanctifying life (‘do not murder’) and ensuring that there is an equitable justice system (‘do not bear false witness’).

The Aseret Hadibrot teach us the importance of having moral clarity in everything that we say and do.  Or alternatively, giving us a moral compass by which to lead our lives.

When this is absent, we find ourselves rootless, flying in the air as it were, afraid of what will happen when we hit the ground.

The last year has demonstrated what can happen when law and order is ignored and values are cast by the wayside.

From the ‘hate marches’ on our streets, to the antisemitic campaigns across American and British University campuses, the rule of law has been severely compromised.  Where people openly deny the horrific events of 7^th October and the College Presidents of three of America’s leading universities evade questions regarding whether they would discipline students who had been calling for a genocide against their fellow Jewish peers.

We have witnessed riots which have resulted in mosques being torched and people like you and me being frightened to go out in public for fear of being attacked.  Does this not feel as though we are all caught in that moment where we have tripped and don’t know what will happen to us when we land?  Frozen in the air.

Where societies’ moral compass is so hidden that people no longer know which direction they should be facing.  Where an Olympic boxer nearly died because she’d never been hit so hard before by a contender who should have been fighting in a different ring against a very different opponent.

The words that comprise the Aseret Hadibrot are no less relevant today than they were when given to us at Sinai by Gd over 3,300 years ago.

For society to heal itself, it must regain control of its balance.  We humans will always trip and fall.  The trick is knowing how to tumble and be able to get up without causing too much damage to our infrastructure.  That’s where our moral compass comes to the fore.   It provides us with an inner rulebook we can refer to which allow us to question our actions and by implication, recover.  It will help us heal ourselves.

Perhaps, if we have solid and clear values, we won’t trip so easily next time.

It’s never too late to take in the significance of those Ten Commandments.  We need to ensure that we utilise them to repair our bruised societies.  It’s never too late to start.

Shavuah Tov.