Phillip Burdman taught me a new Yiddish expression this week: “Haylacha Mensch.” It’s something that out of his grandfather’s mouth over a quarter century ago, usually about a death, meant that the person was so good they should go right to heaven. While I was unable to find an exact reference, to me it sounded like, “Hey! Look there’s a mensch.”
Phillip was thinking of this expression in preparation for his sister, Hynda Burdman’s funeral this past week. And she definitely qualified. The eldest of the Burdman clan, Hynda was a lifelong educator for the Children’s Psych Center in West Seneca. She devoted her life to helping others. And, while she had little in remaining family, her large work family showed up droves for the funeral. Having spent more than a half a century advocating for kids, she touched a lot of lives and made the world better by her mere presence in it.
The name of this week’s Torah portion, Lech Lecha, actually sounds a little like the first word in Phillip’s expression. In it, God calls on Abraham to leave his home and head toward a place that God will show him. We often wonder why Abraham was chosen in the first place. Perhaps changing the words “Lech Lecha” to “Heylecha” as in, “Hey! Look, there’s a Mensch,” gives us a better sense of what is happening in the portion. God looked around and found the perfect person in Abraham. In this spirit, I encourage all of us to look around and point out the mensch’s among us. They are the ones that hold up the world. Let’s celebrate all that they make possible.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex
Last Updated on 02/03/2020 by Marc Slonim