His is a voice that will be recognizable to most people who remember the 1960s (and in my case, the ‘70s).
“Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship
Enterprise. Its five-year mission: To
explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to
boldly go where no man has gone before.”
These are
of course the words spoken by the actor William (whom everybody calls ‘Bill’)
Shatner when he introduced the Star Trek episodes from the original series.
If you
recall, over Rosh Hashanah I referenced Time Magazine’s famous annual feature in
honouring someone they felt
"For better or for worse...has done the most to
influence the events of the year."
Bill is the subject of this final ‘episode’ in my own series describing the people I have nominated to be my Yamim Noraim/Days of Awe ‘People of the Year’. I will duly explain why I feel he deserves this award, particularly on Yom Kippur.
In 2005,
the journalist Abigail Pogrebin wrote a fascinating book titled ‘Stars of
David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish’ (Broadway Books, New York)
which described her interviews with sixty-two of America’s ‘most accomplished
Jews’ (as per the dust jacket). One of
these was with William Shatner (pp 352-355).
His entry
begins with the following paragraph:
Star Trek’s Captain Kirk used to recite the four
questions and lay tefillin during morning prayers. That’s difficult to imagine. William Shatner’s image has never exactly
been Jewishy. He’s sandy haired and
barrel chested – his bearing, at the height of his fame, was that of a classic
leading man. “There was a whole thing
where people would say, ‘Funny you don’t look Jewish,’” Shatner recalls. “The racial stereotype bothers me to this day. I’m very sensitive to it; I find it
offensive.”
Bill
recalls how he hailed from a traditional home in Montreal which, though
Conservative was, as he states, “Pretty much like Orthodox here (in the United States).” His mother kept a kosher home, he had a bar
mitzvah and, as I said, wore tefillin for a few years. He also had to deal with significant
antisemitism from the kids in his school.
He adds that he had willingly missed a school football practice because
it was Yom Kippur with the result being that he was never able to regain his
position on the team. The author writes that,
‘He says he didn’t try to convince his parents to let
him skip Yom Kippur services; he knew that by that age it was sacrosanct. “It wasn’t a choice,” he says
matter-of-factly. “It was Yom Kippur.”
Bill’s most famous role, of course, is that of the aforementioned, Captain James T (for Tiberius) Kirk alongside his friend of nearly 50 years, Leonard Nimoy, who played ‘Mr’ (later to be promoted to‘Captain’) Spock’, the half-human, half-Vulcan science officer and first officer aboard the USS Starship Enterprise. He was four days younger than Bill.
Sadly,
Leonard passed away in 2015 and a year later, Bill published a memoir called ‘Leonard:
My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man’ (William Shatner with David
Fisher, Sidgewick & Jackson, UK).
Having
read the book earlier this year, it moved me in a way that very few tomes have
managed to do.
Leonard
grew up in Boston and, like Bill, lived in a home where his parents kept kosher. In fact, their upbringing was quite similar
in that their parents were working class. Bill’s father was in the shmatte/rag trade
whilst Leonard’s was a barber. They both
came to the decision that they wanted to pursue a career in acting when they
were eight years old.
It was
not until July 1965, just over 60 years ago, that they encountered each for the
first time on the set of a new futuristic science fiction series which was to
be called ‘Star Trek.’ Bill doesn’t
remember the moment they met and he writes that when they first started working
together, although Leonard was ‘personally invested in the character, Bill ‘made the mistake of treating Spock with less than
complete respect. It was not a mistake I
made a second time.’
The
working relationship that was initiated back in those heady days of the mid
60’s developed into a deep friendship between the two like-minded individuals
over the next five decades. This was no
doubt reinforced by the critical and commercial success of the motion pictures which
began a decade later when Bill and Leonard revisited their roles over a twelve-year
period in the six films which concluded with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered
Country in 1991.
At this
point in the Drasha, you will no doubt be wondering why I have spent the last
three pages taking you on a voyage to explore what seems like a ‘five-year-mission,
seeking out old lives and space captains to boldly go where no Rabbi has gone
before on Yom Kippur’…
Please bear with me just a little longer and all of this will (hopefully) make sense, particularly on this holiest day of our calendar.
Behind
the ‘glitz and glamour’ of Hollywood’s brightest lights (million dollar special
effects), lies a decades-long friendship between two proudly Jewish men. One that no-doubt emanated from the values
they were brought up with and shared both in their professional and private
lives. In 2013, after decades of heavy
smoking (at one point, he got through two packs a day) Leonard was diagnosed
with COPD, although the signs had been there since 2006.
Towards
the end of the book, Bill writes:
I often think about friendships. Our friendship. All friendships. The complexities that bring two lives
together sometimes briefly, sometimes for almost a lifetime. There are fleeting friendships and enduring
friendships. It is such an
all-encompassing word, but it doesn’t sufficiently define the depth of any
relationship. There are so many
metaphors that might be applied, but ours covered an ocean of time, and as in
any voyage, between the calm seas we encountered moments of turmoil. One of my greatest regrets is that Leonard
and I were not as close as we had been during those last few years of his life.
He goes on to describe an incident
where he made a film about the ‘many captains of the Enterprise’ and Leonard
expressly stated that he didn’t want to appear in it. Bill didn’t think that Leonard was being
serious as this seemed so trivial and when a cameraman filmed him at a
convention without Leonard’s permission, he got angry and refused to speak with
his old friend again.
Despite
Bill trying to reach out and apologise, attempting to heal the rift, Leonard
never spoke to him again and passed away a month or so short of his 84th
birthday.
Bill
writes how puzzled he remains, granted that they had flown together following
the convention and Leonard hadn’t demonstrated any animosity or anger towards
him. However, for some reason only known
to Leonard, he decided to cut Bill out of his life.
Bill wrote
a heartfelt letter to his old friend letting him know how much he loved him in
the hope that Leonard would have read this before he died.
In one of
the final passages, Bill writes:
I think about Leonard.
I miss him. Even when we weren’t
in touch, he was always in my life. And
when I think about Leonard and all the adventures we had together, I remember
his own lust for life; I remember his desire to explore and experience life in
all its infinite wonders. I think of his
spiritual side, in which he never stopped searching for answers he knew he
would never find. I think of his
generosity and his commitment for equal justice for everyone. I think of his never-ending passion for the
arts and his quest to nurture creativity in young people. And I think of him standing in front of me,
his palm held high, his fingers separated in the Vulcan salute, smiling
knowingly.
I look back and the reflection I see is my own life…
I cannot
think of a more appropriate metaphor that represents Yom Kippur than the
friendship and love that these two men had for each other and how it sadly
dissipated.
In the
week (and if you are Sephardi, month) leading up to Rosh Hashanah and
throughout the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah/10 Days of Penitence, we recite Selichot. The
root of Selichot is סלח, from which we have the word ‘selicha’
which means ‘forgiveness/pardon/excuse’ and when you wish to say, “Excuse me (or literally forgive me)” in Ivrit, the term is ‘selach
li’.
Chazal
tells us that for Gd to forgive a person on Yom Kippur, he must first seek that
forgiveness (also known as ‘Mechila’ in Hebrew) from his fellow human being. If he asks three times and the response is
not forthcoming, the onus shifts on the respondent to make the necessary moves
to heal the wound.
The tragedy of Bill and Leonard’s relationship was that when Bill tried to apologise, to say ‘selicha’, Leonard was too angry to respond until it was too late for him to do so and the hurt that ensued followed him to his grave.
We are
fallible and I am sure that every single person here can relate to the way both
men felt and, in particular, the sense of loss that haunts Bill to this very
day. He wrote his book to help him heal
and let the world know how highly he thought of Leonard.
Yom
Kippur is the day when we ask Gd to forgive us for the slights that we have
caused Him over the year. Those
occasions when we didn’t live up to the expectations that He has of us and by
extension, we have of ourselves. When,
as Elton John famously sang ‘Sorry seems to be the hardest word’, we admit our
guilt and stand in front of the Creator of the Universe on the holiest day of
the year to say ‘Sorry’ or ‘Forgive me.’
Over
three thousand, three hundred and thirty years ago, we committed the seemingly
unforgiveable sin of creating a Golden Calf.
To call it an insult to the True Gd would be an understatement and yet,
in His infinite glory, He forgave us and we realised that this was the case, when
Moshe descended from Sinai clutching the second set of Commandments on the 10th
of Tishri – today’s date.
I chose
Bill as my final ‘Person of the Year’ because he really represents the very
essence of what it means to be a Jew. Our
pride, angst, shame and ultimately, innate desire to make amends, the qualities
that define us. And to paraphrase his
quote about Leonard – our commitment for equal justice for everyone.
I feel that he should join Omer Shem Tov and the Israelis that I described in my Drashot/Sermons on both days of Rosh Hashanah. These are not only my ‘People of the Year’ but also deserve a mention in everyone else’s list. We need them to remind us of how blessed we are to call them our own (and I include Sawsan Kheir, the Druze Psychologist). Each one in his or her own right represents the very best of us and just as importantly the imperfections that make us who we are.
On Rosh
Hashanah, it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed. Let us reflect on who they are
and how they can impact who we are. Because, one day, what you do
might earn you a place on somebody else’s ‘Person of the Year’ list.
I pray
that Hashem Yitzbarach, Gd Almighty hears our pleas, forgives us and grants our
people a year of peace and healing both in the Land of Israel and in the
Diaspora. May we see the return of the
hostages to their loved ones and the proliferation of wise and thoughtful
decisions on the part of those who represent us on the world stage.
May you
and yours be blessed with an easy and meaningful fast.
Chag
Sameach and Gmar Chatimah Tovah.
May it come to all of Israel.
Amen.
