From Our CEO
The Measure of a Life
October 11th, 2016

By now, many of you have probably heard the remarkable story of Polish-born Yisrael Kristal, who at age 113 is registered with the Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest living man. Last week — 100 years delayed — Yisrael celebrated his bar mitzvah in Israel, surrounded by his surviving children, grandchildren, and 30 great-grandchildren.

Why the delay? World War I was raging in Europe when Yisrael turned 13. During World War II, Yisrael was sent to Auschwitz and other concentration camps — and his wife and two children were murdered. Yisrael survived, but just barely, weighing 82 pounds when he was liberated. Eventually, Yisrael returned to Poland, remarried, made aliyah to Israel, and ran a successful candy business.

In other words, every year, Yisrael kept living and evolving. And when he recently stood at the bimah reciting the blessings over the Torah — he was the 13-year-old Polish boy. He was the survivor of Auschwitz. He was the Israeli businessman. He was the 113-year-old bar mitzvah boy surrounded by generations of family whose story spread across the world.

I’m sharing this story in the context of Yom Kippur, a time that has many of us thinking about the measure of our own lives. Judaism subscribes to the view that life is not merely a series of ever-repeating seasonal cycles, but that our lives — and human history itself — represent a progression, like the slow turning, forward movement of a screw over time. Most lives don’t have the dramatic arcs of Yisrael’s but we’re always changing — nothing stays the same. Yom Kippur is the moment to ask ourselves: Have we changed this year for the better? And how do we want to live in the New Year and into the future?

These questions are, of course, personal. But there is also a distinctly communal dimension: our individual stories are deeply interconnected, and the measure of a life may well be how much we’ve worked to improve the community that raises us up and makes us better. Just like Yisrael, we keep moving. Our challenge is to move in the direction that gives us reason to look back with pride — on a life well-lived.

Wishing all a meaningful fast. May we be sealed in the book of life for a healthy and happy year.

G’mar Tov