This week Larry Lynn, co-founder of the grief and loss website After Talk, featured Rabbi Berger’s famous Yom Kippur sermon, which he delivered shortly after the 1986 Challenger spacecraft exploded and all on board died. I understand why Berger’s sermon is read to this day. What is incomprehensible is his own demise a few years later. 

FIVE MINUTES TO LIVE is a famous sermon given by Rabbi Kenneth Berger on Yom Kippur day in the fall of 1986. It was inspired by the crash of the Challenger space shuttle on January 28, 1986 and the subsequent revelation that the crew had likely survived the explosion and lived for another five minutes while the craft plunged 48,000 feet into the ocean. The catastrophe compelled Rabbi Berger to contemplate what those five minutes would have been like for the seven crew members.

Three years after he gave this sermon, Rabbi Berger, his wife, Aviva, and his three children were returning from vacation on United Airlines flight 232. An engine exploded, and for 40 minutes passengers were told to prepare for a crash landing. The plane exploded on impact, killing 112 people including the Rabbi and his wife. His three children survived.

FIVE MINUTES TO LIVE

by Rabbi Kenneth Berger

Dear Friends:

The scene still haunts me: It was perhaps the most awful moment of the past year. Against the pale blue sky on a crystal clear Florida day, the space shuttle Challenger exploded before our very eyes. Seven brave astronauts, who just a few hours before were chatting with the press, schmoozing with proud relatives and friends, were suddenly gone.

I bring this to your attention because life and death is a major theme of Yom Kippur. We read in our prayer book:

Who shall live, and who shall die?

‘Who shall attain the measure of man ‘s days and who shall not?

I am not one to watch short animal YouTubes, but this four-minute video of the reunion between conservationist Damian Aspinall and Kwibi in the African jungle is truly bittersweet. And incredible.

Kwibi grew up with Damian at his Howletts Wild Animal Park in England. When he was five, he was released into the forests of Gabon, West Africa as part of conservation program to re-introduce gorillas back into the wild. Now Kwibi’s over 10 years old, much bigger and stronger.

I am posting Frank Bruni’s New York Times column about how we approach hate.

He offers grey to those of us who think in black and white–reminding us that our point of view can 1) bring people together or 2) drive people apart.

Broadening the topic to the world at large, I know I participate in discussions that are “too limited,” and I cop to being naive at times. How could I not be? It is impossible to absorb all of the elements of an argument. Critical thinking is hard.

However, admitting one’s point of view is vulnerable is a step toward disagreeing more and hating less.

Frank Bruni
New York Times

With part of a recent column of mine, I disappointed myself, and maybe I disappointed some of you. I don’t get a do-over, but I do have this newsletter, in which I can own up to my error and make amends.

I’m referring to “Hate Is So Much Bigger Than Trump,” which was published a week and a half ago. It reflected on the mass shootings in El Paso and in Pittsburgh and made the point that the kind of hatred that motivated the gunmen predates the current president and will survive him.

“Understory”

by Mark Nepo

I’ve been watching stars
rely on the darkness they
resist. And fish struggle with
and against the current. And
hawks glide faster when their
wings don’t move.

I have been thinking about happiness lately. Actually I have been thinking about it for 20 years in relation to my private counseling/ coaching practice. I have noticed that the people with the most peace of mind aren’t the ones who judge their days based on a 1-10 scale of whether they are happy. That said there has been a plethora of recent clinical psych research on the subject of happiness, which supports the idea that there is a thirst for what the majority of us believe is possible.

Personally I have come at this topic from the other side:

“Am I unhappy? Really? Right now, what is so terrible that I can conclude I am unhappy?”

Right now is the key to getting clear on this – it narrows my opinion and forces me to be honest.

Below is Darrin McMahon’s 2008 talk on the history of happiness and his perspective. The talk took place at the Happiness and Its Causes Conference in San Francisco – co-sponsored by the UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center. McMahon is a professor of history from Florida State and authored the book Happiness, a History.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did. Have a great week and we will “talk” soon!