"I sit by your grave and weep,
Silently, not to disturb your sleep.
Rest in peace my beautiful son
It won't be long before we are one,
While I lie down by your side.
And talk, no secrets to hide.
Tell me, Eric, what did I do wrong?
What should I have done to make you strong?
Now I sit here and cry,
Waiting to be with you when I die."
'Life Could Be Verse', Kirk Douglas, 2014
p. 72
"I remember one of the first ever internships I ever did was for a fashion shoot where Caroline was going to be on the cover of a magazine. She was incredible and so inspiring on the day. She never complained and made it look easy, even though she was going through multiple outfit and hair and make up changes. I was exhausted just watching her.
The best bit?
She came up to us interns (there were three of us) and spoke to us individually about the shoot. She asked why we were interning and what we wanted to do. She didn’t have to do that, and yet she did anyway. You don’t often see that on a high-profile fashion shoot. She was kind and lovely and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. I hope that’s how she is remembered."
Daisy, 26, content manager, London
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/feb/18/readers-pay-tribute-caroline-flack-love-island
The last few weeks have seen the demise of two people, who on the face of it, couldn't have been more different.
One, a young, beloved TV presenter with so much left to give, who tragically chose to end her life prematurely and the second, a wise, very elderly Hollywood actor whose very name invoked countless memories of his performances in the minds of his millions of admirers around the world.
I knew little about Caroline Flack before last Saturday night and even less about 'Love Island' the popular TV show she fronted. I had heard her name in relation to the recent court case, but as I didn't care much for her or the programme, the news glossed over me.
With Kirk Douglas, however, it was different. I am very familiar with a great deal of his films, not least "Spartacus", "Lust for Life", Gunfight At The OK Corral" and of course "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". I was also aware of the retracing his roots which began in the late 1980s with the publication of his book "The Ragman's Son".
That was until last Saturday night.
Since then, I have read, with a growing sense of sadness how she struggled with her mental health, which worsened after she won "Strictly Come Dancing" in 2014.
She wrote:
"'It all started the day after I won Strictly. I woke up and felt like somebody had covered my body in clingfilm. I couldn't get up and just couldn't pick myself up at all that next year.....'
I felt I was being held together by a piece of string which could snap at any time. People see the celebrity lifestyle and assume everything is perfect, but we're just like everyone else. Everyone is battling something emotional behind closed doors - that's life. Fame doesn't make you happy."
One would have thought that Kirk Douglas, nee Issur Danielovitch, who didn't have an easy start to life, would have been able to enjoy his twilight years embraced in the warmth of his family, but he too suffered greatly, narrowly surviving a helicopter crash, in which two other people were killed in 1991 and only five years later, being struck down by a severe stroke which robbed him, an actor, of his greatest tool, his voice.
And then he lost his youngest son, Eric, the subject of the poem I read at first, to a drug overdose. He was only 46 and this was but eight short years after his father's debilitating stroke.
(1) Now these are the rules that you shall set before them:
Ovadiah ben Yaakov Sforno - Italian Rabbi (d.1550)
(יד) לֹ֥א תַחְמֹ֖ד בֵּ֣ית רֵעֶ֑ךָ לֹֽא־תַחְמֹ֞ד אֵ֣שֶׁת רֵעֶ֗ךָ וְעַבְדּ֤וֹ וַאֲמָתוֹ֙ וְשׁוֹר֣וֹ וַחֲמֹר֔וֹ וְכֹ֖ל אֲשֶׁ֥ר לְרֵעֶֽךָ׃ (פ)
ואלה המשפטים, in the previous paragraph, the Torah spoke about the prohibition of coveting property belonging to someone else (20,14). This did not involve action; by contrast ואלה המשפטים, now the Torah speaks about laws governing the concrete nature of “אשר לרעך,” tangible matters belonging to your fellow man.
The Parsha of Mishpatim that we just read, starts recording the laws that Gd gave to Moses whilst he was on Mount Sinai for the 40 days preceeding his first return to the Children of Israel (when they greeted him with the obscene Golden Calf).
It contains a panapoly of civil laws ranging from the treatment of Hebrew slaves, those who commit manslaughter, matricide or patricide, kidnapping, through to criminal damage, theft, sorcery. behaviour towards Gentiles, orphans, widows, the poor, keeping Shabbat and even the rudimentary laws of Kashrut.
In short, it provides, in detail the foundations of what should be a just and moral society.
A society that values and respects the rights of individuals
- Where those self-same members play an active role in building a community of like-minded people.
- Where each person is treated justly and those who break the rules are punished accordingly.
- Where people like Kirk Douglas, insisted on crediting Dalton Trumbo, the screenwriter of Spartacus, a man whose career and livelihood had been decimated through his being blacklisted during the barbaric McCarthy witch-hunts of the 1940s and '50s.
Kirk Douglas, who donated millions of dollars to improve the lot of his fellow human beings by giving to countless schools, hospitals and medical centres both in the United States and abroad.
Kirk Douglas, who contributed to the creation of playgrounds in Jerusalem enabling Arab and Jewish children to play together, building a shared future together. The ardent Zionist who established the Kirk Douglas Theatre in the Aish building opposite Kotel.
This was Kirk Douglas, the proud Jew who reclaimed his heritage, realising that it was never to late to contribute to the kind of society espoused in this week's parsha.
And Caroline Flack, who didn't achieve the same dizzying heights, in her tragic, untimely death. She showed us that, had we lived by the words embedded in the fabric of Mishpatim, we too might have been part of a society that could have protected her. We could have prolonged her life by so many years.
She may not have been a widow or an orphan, but she was just as vulnerable and perhaps, only now, will her anguish be understood.
When large swathes of society enthusiastically promote a culture where programmes like 'Love Island', 'Big Brother' or any similar reality show are venerated, sooner or later, that society's shallow outlook and cynical facade will self-destruct and cause the collateral damage that we witnessed last week.
Hopefully,Caroline has found the inner the peace she craved so much.
As Kirk wrote, at the age of 98:
Gd walks beside me in the open air.
I can't see Him but I'm sure He's there.
Together we admire His green grass,
His roses in bloom,
Tomorrow that red one will decorate my room.
Together we admire His palm trees,
Tinted silver by the setting sun.
A sudden breeze carries Gd away,
As light is fading at the end of the day.
I sit there lonely, until it's hard to see,
So, I get up and - He is inside of me!
I'm happy to know that Gd is everywhere:
In the broiling sun, the pouring rain,
And in the cool night air.
Look for Him. He is your friend too.
But if you can't find Him, He will find you.
[ibid p.74]
Now, he has found them both and the moral lessons that we read today were never more applicable that in the societies we currently inhabit.
We can't afford to risk losing another Caroline and we owe it, both to ourselves and the youthful members of the next generation, to ensure that that a society's moral compass can always be redirected.
It is never too late to change the world.
Shabbat Shalom.