NEVER gIVE UP
Rabbi Stephen Weiss
Shabbat Toledot 5781 – 2020
B’nai Jeshurun Congregation, Pepper Pike, OH
Don’t put a lid on me!
The Florida sky had grown dark, and Chris Nikic, a young man age 21, felt ready to quit. He had been pushing through the grueling race for more than 13 hours, even though he could not navigate the course or keep the time without help.
It suddenly became too much. In the hot, humid air, he struggled to breathe. His feet burned as they pounded the pavement, his legs felt like concrete, and it seemed as if the muscles in his back had been put through a shredder.
But he was determined to overcome all this and complete this Iron Man, which is considered the most grueling of any athletic competitions. The Iron Man combines a 2.4-mile open-water swim in the ocean followed by a 112-mile bike ride and a marathon 26.2-mile run. All with no breaks in between.
Such a feat would not just put him in the record books. It would also prove to himself and those around him that he could, in fact, do big things. And if he could do big things, then maybe one day he would be able to fulfill his ultimate dream: to live independently and have a wife and a family of his own.
Would he make it to the end of the Iron Man?
Well, before I tell you — to understand the long odds Nikic faced during that race, which was held in Panama City Beach, Florida on a recent Saturday — you have to know that Chris Nikic has Down’s Syndrome. Throughout his life, he has faced one obstacle and challenge after another.
At 5 months old, he endured open-heart surgery. He was so weak and had such poor balance that he did not walk on his own until he was four years old. To keep him from choking, his family fed him baby food until he was six years old. When he learned to run, it took months for him to discover how to swing his arms at his side instead of holding them straight above his head. It took years for him to learn how to tie his shoes. When he was about 15, his parents took him to a parking lot near their home and taught him to ride a bike. It took six months for him to go 100 feet.
Chris’ parents struggled to get their son proper care and attention that he needed. They moved him to seven different elementary schools, searching for the right fit. At every turn, experts spoke of Chris in terms of limits instead of possibilities. He always felt isolated, left out, excluded. But Chris found refuge in riding his bike and in sports and participated in the Special Olympics.
And then, after undergoing a series of ear surgeries that sapped his strength and left him homebound, he grew determined to do more than he ever had before. He would do an Iron Man.
As the Iron Man began, Chris swam through the choppy Gulf waters in just under two hours, tethered to his coach for safety. Then his coach helped Chris onto his bike and fixed his feet to the pedals for the long ride.
Because Chris could not balance well enough to drink water while riding, he had to stop and climb off his bike to hydrate. When he did that on the 22nd mile, he had not noticed that he was standing atop a large mound of red ants, which swarmed his ankles and bit at his flesh, causing his legs to swell and grow painful.
He managed to get going again, only to crash his bike a few miles later while speeding down a hill.
Again, he kept on.
After the bike, came the marathon. It began well enough. Moving through the streets of Panama City Beach in the nighttime darkness, tethered to his coach so he would keep from falling and stay on course, he passed a clutch of family and friends who cheered in support.
But at Mile 10, everything changed. He slowed so much that it seemed he was barely moving at all. He began complaining about the pain. There was anguish in his eyes. His friends said he looked like a zombie. He looked like he was done.
His supporters huddled around him, doling out hugs, hoping to lift his spirits. His father clutched him, drew him close and whispered in his ear: “Are you going to let your pain win, or let your dreams win?”
Chris Nikic knew this wasn’t only about finishing an Ironman, but about showing himself what he could achieve in the future. His own home. Independence. A wife as kind and beautiful as his mother.
Chris looked back at his father and said, “My dreams, dad. My dreams are going to win.”
He began to jog again.
One halting step forward. And then a second. And then a third. And then another. And another…
Slowly, he found his rhythm. Nothing could stop him. He crossed the finish line with arms held high in celebration, and a little time to spare — 16 hours, 46 minutes, 9 seconds. Chris Nikic became the first person with Down’s Syndrome ever in history to ever complete an Iron Man.
After the event, Chris told a New York Times reporter, “I learned that there are no limits. Do not put a lid on me.”
What a story. Extraordinary. And so inspirational. “Do not put a lid on me.” I can do anything.
Chris’ story is a reminder of why inclusion and support of those with different abilities is so very important. I am proud that our synagogue is so deeply committed to full inclusion on every level. I am grateful to our Inclusion Committee for all of their hard work to make it so.
Chris’ story is also a reminder to all of us that whatever obstacles we face in life, whether related to our health, or job, or money, or relationships, we should never give up.
Chris’s determination, his perseverance in the face of such overwhelming obstacles makes me think of Isaac this morning. In a way, like Chris, our father Isaac lived a life filled with obstacles. First there was the taunting by his half-brother Ishmael. Then there was the akedah, the binding of Isaac. Imagine what it must have been like to have your own father bind you to an altar and hold his knife out over you. Later, Isaac and his family will struggle with famine and drought in the land which God had promised them, and be forced to move to Gerar. Indeed, our commentators often refer to Pachad Yitzchak – Isaac’s fear. There is even a well-known Torah commentary by that name.
How does Isaac cope with all this hardship? In his whole life, there is only one distinctive thing Isaac does on his own. Isaac re-digs the wells of his father.
You see, the Philistines had stopped up Abraham’s wells, filling them with dirt so that his family would not have a source of water and also could use them not claim the land.
When Isaac comes to Gerar, he digs and re-opens those wells. The king, Avimelech then orders Isaac to depart. He moves to the Valley of Gerar and digs and re-opens more of his father’s wells. The herdsmen of Gerar come and they fight with Isaac’s men, claiming those wells also as theirs. So, Isaac moves again and digs another well, another of his father’s wells re-opened. The Philistines followed and closed it up. He moves and digs yet another well, all the former wells of his father, Abraham.
In doing so — in re-digging well after well after well, and never giving in to the harassments of the Philistines — he not only restored a source of fresh water for his family, he also re-asserted his ownership of the land and his right to be there. That took courage. It is a courage that we should have when we assert our right to be in the land of Israel and demand that the world recognize our historic presence in that land, that it is our homeland.
Isaac knew that such an act would provoke the Philistines and lead to battle; but he was not about to surrender the legacy that his father had left him. Nor was he going to turn his back on God, who had promised to make his offspring a great nation in that place.
No matter how many times the wells were plugged, or he was sent away, Isaac persisted in digging, re-digging and re-opening more wells. Like Chris, Isaac never gave up, no matter how many obstacles he faced.
Traditional Jewish commentators also see something else in Isaac’s re-digging of wells. Wells bring forth water, and we refer to Torah mayim chayyim, the living waters. So they suggest that Isaac’s digging wells symbolizes his digging his fathers wells of Torah. In other words, Isaac sought to claim as his own not just the land but the spiritual legacy that Abraham had bequeathed to him.
It would have been easier to assimilate into the ways of the local population so as to be more accepted, but Isaac never gave in to that temptation. So Isaac comes to symbolize not jut standing strong for our land and our physical survival, but also willing to go to great lengths to overcome any obstacles and ensure our the survival of our faith, our values and our covenant with God.
Right about now, you and I, we are feeling like Chris Nikic at the tenth mile, like Isaac re-digging those wells. We are overwhelmed by the obstacles we seem to face in our every day lives, and the challenges posed by our society.
We are all suffering from pandemic fatigue. What we thought would last weeks has lasted nine months and will be with us for at least another four before we just begin to see real light at the end of the tunnel, maybe half a year or more before life begins to return to something that will resemble what we would call normal
Chris’s story, and the story of Isaac, is our story. Like them, we too must never waiver in our determination to overcome the obstacles we face and nor lose our faith in our ability to conquer the virus and vanquish this pandemic.
How do we do that? We do it by adhering to the advice being given by our nation’s and our state’s and county’s top public health professionals. We do that by steeling our selves and deciding that we will not allow ourselves to become fatigued. That we will stay in the fight. That we will wear masks, stay socially distant, no travel or invite others into our homes, and observe the county’s Stay At Home advisory.
We can do it. No, it is not convenient. And yes, we feel alone. But in these past months, we have learned the hard way that we can do it. We have learned how to work around these restrictions and still go about our lives, connect with our loved ones and be active in community.
We know the teaching of our sages: “One who saves one life is credited as if he or she had saved an entire world.” That one life might be the grandparent of someone we stood too close to without a mask, or the diabetic brother of someone in whose home we visited, or the high school student with asthma whose father was out with us at a business lunch or for cocktails.
How do we defeat the virus? One small step at a time.
You may not feel the victory with each little precaution that you take. They all seem like such insignificant acts. We do not know the path the virus takes through asymptomatic individuals until it decides to announce itself dramatically through symptoms in some person down the chain of transmission. But each and every little step that you take, makes a difference.
Chris Nikic founded the 1% Challenge. You can find it on the web and join the challenge to be one percent better each day. That’s right. Just one percent. That one percent change is almost imperceptible. Yet through his Challenge, Chris is teaching us what he learned through his life experience: Together, those little steps, one percent at a time, add up.
On the 1% Challenge website, he gives some examples:
If you start walking 100 steps and then get 1% better each day for one year, by the end you will be walking 3,700 steps.
If you start with 1,000 steps on the first day, and you increase by just 1% each day, at the end of one year you will be walking a Marathon.
Think about that!
In June 1955, Winston Churchill, who was then near the end of his life, was asked to give a commencement address at a British university. At the time, he was physically infirm. He had to be helped to the podium. He held on to the podium for what seemed an interminable amount of time. He stood there, quiet, with his head down. Then finally, he raised his head, and the voice that years before had called Britain back from the brink of destruction sounded publicly for the last time in history:
“Never give up. Never give up. Never give up.”
With those nine words, Churchill turned and went back to his seat. I’ve read there was silence. Then, as if one person, the whole audience rose to applaud him. They applauded him because he was a man whose life and words were in sync with each other. Again, and again throughout Churchill’s political career, he had known setbacks. Three times, his career apparently was over, he was sent off to oblivion, and yet somehow, he always had a sense that there was still something left after the worst.
Chris Nikic did not give up, Isaac did not give up, Churchill did not give up, and we will not give up.
As we have said many times, we will get through this pandemic… together.