Because of You…

Because of You…

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor
Yom Kippur Yizkor
October 2006
10 Tishrei 5767  

My father taught me many things in life. My father taught me many things in his death. As much as he tried to shape me in raising me, he did even more in the last year of his life and in its last hours. He taught me things that were never listed in any college curriculum nor were in the syllabus at the Seminary. My father was the first person whose hand I held in the moment of his death. No child can grow up into adulthood without some differences or even conflict with their parents. That is normal. In that regard, my father and I were normal human beings. But I could not be the Rabbi, the husband, the father or the grandfather that I have become and into which I continually grow, without the lessons that my father taught me. All our parents have taught us invaluable lessons. As I speak about mine, perhaps you will reflect on yours and the indelible legacy that they bequeathed you. I entitle this sermon: Because of You.

I.

Because of you, I learned the ethic of hard work. Until his cancer had weakened him, no one ever mowed my father's lawn, seeded it, fertilized it or de-weeded it but him, my brother or me. When we first bought the house I spoke about last year, my father's uncle gave him a cast iron lawn mower. That's how we began. He took care of the property and the house. He rose early and went to bed late and filled each hour in between. No task was too hard. Each was approached with excitement and adventure. Each required personal involvement and commitment. He often worked other jobs in additional to the factory and he never complained. That our family would live honorably, properly and adequately was the highest priority. He worked hard to provide it and took immeasurable pride in his accomplishments.

Because of you, I learned that there was nothing too hard to do for my children. While my father couldn't drive the 4:00 P.M. carpool for Religious School, he would pick me and my brother up at 6:00, and most of the years we didn't go on the same day which meant he did it four days a week. When I went the Seminary High School in New York City he would meet my late night bus on return, take me the bus stop early Sunday morning and interrupt his afternoon to pick me up; always with a smile; without any hesitation. At the same time, being the only driver in the family, he drove the state of New Jersey for my brother in his growth as a musician. No distance was too far, no hour too early or too late. He hand built our desks and bookcases so that we had a proper place to study. You couldn't buy better in any store.

Because of you, I learned devotion to parents and grandparents. When my father's parents moved from one apartment to the other in the Bronx, my father came and packed up everything. When my mother's mother moved from the apartment to the Workman's Circle Home for the Aged in the Bronx, he, my mother, aunt and uncle, packed up her apartment too. Then, every weekend, having worked six days a week, the seventh was spent visiting both of them in the Bronx. And when my mother would sit with my grandmother, my father would roam the halls of the nursing home and talk with anyone and everyone, and about anything. For five years he was, for some of them, the only visitor they had. He taught me the values of deference, courtesy, and respect to and of the elderly. And when they died, he, my brother my uncle and me showed them the ultimate honor and buried them ourselves. And then we buried my uncle. And then my brother, my son, my daughters and me buried him ourselves. We owed that to the man who carried us, tended to us, and taught us.

Because of you, I learned that after taking care of the family's needs, the next highest priority was the synagogue. My father personally made sure that the soda machine was stocked with bottles for the youth groups. He was an officer and on the board for decades. He and my mother sold ads for the journal to every store they ever patronized. He shlepped merchandise for the bazaar and white elephant. Whenever he didn't work overtime on Friday night, we went to shul. After family and education, the next most discussed topic was the synagogue. And when my father was out of work, he still paid his synagogue bill in full. He taught me that a Jew needed the synagogue always.You need a synagogue, its community, its Rabbi until the day you die. And he was a member until then. That lesson left a very deep impression on me as a Jew. He never dropped out. He never asked for a reduction in dues. He never walked away. We were never "done" with the synagogue.

Because of you, I learned to love the State of Israel, even from afar, even when I didn't have the dream of visiting or studying there. My parents must have discussed this out of our sight, but I sat in shul and watched how, after the Bonds appeal, my father, with the income that he earned by the true sweat of his brow, took the card and proudly turned down a tab. We didn't have a shul appeal on the High Holy Days, but I knew that he made and redeemed that pledge too. It would only be many years later that he and my mother would take a trip to Israel in the year that I was studying there. My father put the State of Israel into my consciousness and my conscience.

There are many other lessons he taught me, but I will pause the list here.

He taught his sons well, and he lived long enough to show his values to his grandchildren. For his great-grandchildren, who might some day read this sermon, I write these recollections of my father.

II.

Because of you, I learned about death. Though I had been a Rabbi for seventeen years, fifteen after ordination, I had never held the hand of a person as they died, until I held his. On Mother's Day, 1991 we came to visit my parents. Seeing my father's condition, I summoned my brother from Boston. It would be many hours before he could arrive, in the wee hours of Monday morning. I held my father's hand and pleaded with him to wait for my brother. I asked for forgiveness in a river of tears for things that came back from my childhood that I had long forgotten. And except for moments allowing my mother to be alone with him, I never left his side, just as he had never left mine. My brother, my mother and I were with him until the end. "The faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the dying." I had never done that before. You taught me how to do it since.

The next most difficult moment was when they came to take my father away, through the front door, which he hardly used. I didn't want him to be with strangers. I didn't want him to be alone. As my mother had tended to him at home with superhuman strength and preserved his dignity, as we had gathered in waiting rooms directing our thoughts and prayers to him so that he would never be alone just with strangers, I didn't want my father to be alone now. Our Talmud class learned in the Gemara in Berachot a central Jewish belief that the neshama hovers over the guf, the body of a person after they have died. I desperately wanted the dignity for my father's body and the company for my father's soul. And when my father died, his guf and neshama were alone with strangers. And at that moment there was nothing that I could do about it. Only when we went to the funeral home could we arrange for shomrim, "watchers," better, "guardians," to be with him until the funeral, when we would be with him again, until we returned his body to the earth and his neshama to Gan Eden.

III.

Who wants to be alone? Maybe a little privacy sometimes, but totally alone? And in those moments of transition from 'kingdom' to 'kingdom' when they can no longer speak here and there where words are not necessary, to be alone? The night my grandfather died, my father had been with him in the hospital and given him a shave. My father was on the way home when my mother received the call that had died. Why couldn't he have died in my father's company, in stead of that of strangers? And then to remain alone in the bowels of the hospital until brought to the funeral home? I will always regret that scene. I did better with my father. That comforts me.

Does anyone here want to be alone when they die, and afterwards? May the day be far away, but writing these sermons makes me contemplate that time. I don't want to be alone. I don't want my neshama that has enjoyed your presence, your jokes, your "amens" to my sermons, your handshakes and embraces, to be alone. I would like your company in those closing hours until the loving earth will receive me in its embrace and my neshama be released to meet my father's again. I wish your protection. I wish that we protect each other. I wish that none of us should ever be alone, not in life and not in death. Because of you, I learned this lesson.

Several years ago I appealed through the Yom Kippur Yizkor sermon for people to step forward and join the Chevra Kaddishah, the group that performs the holiest task of preparing our bodies for burial. A goodly number came forward, but we are always in need of additional men and women for the respective chevras. I appeal again for volunteers. In the respectful privacy that embraces this group, I am the contact person and most heartfeltly solicit again for additional volunteers to join those dedicated and selfless men and women who perform this melechet hakodesh, this holiest work.

Our Chevra Kaddishah was sensitized to the fact that once their work was done, the bodies of our loved ones were left alone, their neshamas unescorted. They were motivated and committed to remedy this and created a Chevra Shemirah, people to shomrim, guardians, holy attendants. Two people have volunteered to coordinate these efforts, Nancy Walter and Barry Krauss. This year I again make this second appeal for something much more precious than your money - your time and your presence: join our Chevra Shmirah a most noble and gracious act.

Shomrim sit in an area adjoining the room where the body, the guf is located, and during their hours of attendance read devotional literature such as the Book of Psalms or secondary Jewish literature about life, its values, its struggles, books about Judaism, The Bible, and if high school students would participate, reading the books for their studies would be permitted, as the enlightenment of the mind is core Jewish value. Shomrim are in attendance for various amounts of time, depending on their availablity and necessity. The schedule is totally flexible. I included high school students for several reasons: they are mature enough to grapple with life and with death, which does not wait for us to grow up; they will be involved in core Jewish life values - showing respect and escorting the dead, even as they are not in contact with body, and there is no better use of their hours for community service. This is a mitzvah for the young and for the old to fulfill for each other. The lessons they will learn here and take with them will the seeds to be planted wherever they go. It is a mitzvah done with grace, love and sanctity.

Conclusion

I want to live a long time. I want to see our grandchildren Ariel Shlomit and Moshe Tzvi - the ones we have so far - grow up, have an aliyah at their bnai mitzvah and stand under their chupahs. Kayn yehi ratzon. May it be God's will. And with tranquil heart, though not without tears, I embrace the faith that my neshama will not die with my body. As I have not been alone now, in your presence, in your company, I don't want to be alone then. None of us should be alone. May we serve, protect and watch over each other, in life and in death.

 

I have the faith that ultimately our neshamas will be reunited. That will be peace sublime.

Amen.