The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts

This weeks parsha opens up with the mitzvah to contribute the half shekel. This was for the census that was conducted in the desert as the Jewish people were on their journey to the promised land. However many people contributed the coins those were the number of people that were counted among the ranks at that time. A question that many have asked is what the reason for the half shekel is? Does it seem to be a little on the frugal side? Why not go for the full shekel? Especially in the context of the last few parshas, where the Jewish people were exhorted to give generously for the construction of the essential Mishkan!

I saw this powerful insight written in the Nesivos Shalom that I would like to share. Although every Jew makes a valuable and immeasurable contribution, we are after all a small part of something far more significant than all of us put together. That entity is called Klal Yisrael. As a wise person once said, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” This phrase aptly defines the modern concept of synergy. For anyone who has played team sports, it echoes the T.E.A.M. acronym—together, everyone achieves more. That was the point of the individual just contributing the half shekel according to the Nesivos Shalom. No one should ever feel as if they are alone. They are part if something significant and compelling and that is Klal Yisrael.

I recently heard a great story from Rabbi Zale Newman from Toronto that underscores this powerful idea. He writes a story about officiating a funeral for a Holocaust survivor with no relatives. These are his words.

Last Wednesday I faced the very real possibility of performing a funeral for a sweet, elderly Holocaust survivor all alone.

After being hospitalized a number of years ago, I joined the Bikur Cholim organization, almost 500 volunteers who visit and provide services for sick people in the Toronto Jewish community. I am part of the Sunnybrook Health Sciences team who visits Jewish patients in this huge hospital. My role is to visit before every Shabbat and Jewish holiday.

Seven months ago I began to visit Eddie “Efraim” Ford, an 85-year-old survivor originally from Budapest. He was six years old when the war broke out and survived by being hidden with a Christian family.

The war took its toll in many ways, but eventually Eddie made it to Canada where he began a new life for himself. He married and divorced and never had children. Aside from a nephew in Detroit, we knew of no other living family members.

When I met him he was fighting cancer that had spread to three parts of his thin, small body. Eddie was quite the personality. He had written a book of poetry and fondly remembered his time as a young member of the choir in the Dohany Street great synagogue of Budapest. He could only remember the tunes to the Shema when the Torah was taken out and some lines of the Aleinu prayer.

Every Friday in the hospital, as part of his late-in-life Jewish reawakening, he would put on his huge red kippah and we would sing Shalom Aleichem, Adon Olam and of course Shema Yisroel and Aleinu.

He cherished the hospital Shabbat candles we brought for him which he lit every week, put on tefillin, and made blessings on the cookies and drinks we brought for him. He was “winding down” but we kept this practice going, along with daily visits from our team members up to two weeks ago. When I visited him the last Friday, he was barely conscious, but nevertheless I sang his favorite pre-Shabbat songs for him.The following Monday, Bikur Cholim received a call from the hospital that he had passed away. There was no one to take care of funeral arrangements. We had his body taken to the non-profit, traditional funeral home for proper Jewish burial. They offered to provide their services and a plot at no cost, as he left the world with no money or assets. It took quite some time to get all of the legal matters in order and the burial was set for noon on Wednesday.
However, who would attend a funeral for someone they didn’t know, in the middle of the day, out in northern Toronto, in frigid -27C degree temperatures?
I feared it would just be Eddie, me and our Father Above.

I sent out a late night Facebook post. Three people responded that they would join me. We were now up to four attendees, I was hoping for at least a minyan of ten.
When I arrived at the cemetery just before noon, I couldn't get in because of the long line of cars. I assumed there was another funeral taking place at the same time and I wondered how we would find Eddie's designated resting place.

I stopped people who were walking, and they all said they were going to the funeral of Mr. Eddie Ford. I had to park far away and walk in the freezing wind to join almost 200 people (!) in a vast, warm circle of love, as we gave Eddie a traditional, sweet, proper, fitting, and loving send off to the Next World. We made a pathway to comfort his long lost brother from a small town in Ontario, whose relative had found about Eddie’s passing on the Internet and informed him so that he could attend.

I am in tears just thinking about how humbling and awesome it is to be part of the Jewish People who, on very short notice, would drop everything, drive a long distance to stand outside in an open field on a super freezing, windy day to escort a sweet Jew from Budapest, who was unknown to almost all of them, on his final journey.

We are indeed one family.