“He asked You for life”

Shemini Azteret – Yizkor
Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

October 4th, 2007

 

With the blessing of the internet I surf for material to use for sermons. While there are whole sermons dumped on my Rabbinic listserv and other wonderful sites, I am really just looking for ideas, thoughts, and poems. Sometimes I don't look at all, because I have within me enough that I want to say, that I don't need anything else. Other times I just look around and save it "for a rainy day." That happened this year when I was preparing. Among other wonderful material I saved these three particular pieces and today join them together for Yizkor. As you know, this Yizkor is never as 'heavy' as that of Yom Kippur. That is a genre all its own. The Yizkor remarks of the Shalosh Regalim are of a different vintage, a little more reflective, a little lighter and a bit more uplifting.

One of the pieces came from the time when the UNC choir came here. In their pamphlet was a poem entitled "We Are…" by Ysaye M. Barwell. The second is anonymous, doesn't have a title either, and was printed in a weekly edition of "Ten Minutes of Torah" by the Union for Reform Judaism. The third comes from Israel, written in Hebrew that I have translated, from a source called "Tzohar." My purpose is to weave them together.

Let me begin by citing a conversation that I had yesterday with Menachem just as I was getting serious about writing this sermon and decided to do this and put aside the one I had begun. He called and was reviewing events of the family. He said how wonderful it is to be a father and if he could just spend all of his time driving the new minivan with the children taking them from one activity to anther and watching them grow up. Ariel is 5 ½,  Moshe is 2 and nearly two months and Raya is two and ½ months. They are growing and changing rapidly. Menachem remembered that it was only yesterday, he is 32, that Ruby was driving him and his sisters to soccer games, youth groups, day school, and car trips during vacation. All of us can look back upon life this way and remember when we were, well, whatever age and thus our children were so young. Now we watch them as parents to their little children and they remember us as being young doing it to and for them, even as we remember them.  That is the gift of life, of creating life, of living. It is the luminescence of existence. It ignites and ascends in brightness and in swiftness. There is an eternal beauty that enraptures the soul, no matter how difficult, how challenging, how exhausting are the trials and tribulations of child rearing. We and they are young but once. But, oh that once.

We Are….

For each child that's born, a morning star rises and sings to the universe who we are. We are our grandmothers' prayers, and we are our grandfathers' dreamings. We're the breath of our ancestors; we are the spirit of God. We are mothers of courage and fathers of time we are daughters of dust and the sons of great visions. We're sisters of mercy and brothers of love; we're lovers of life and builders of nations. We're seekers of truth and keepers of faith; we are makers of peace and the wisdom of ages. For each child that's born, a morning star rises and sings to the universe who we are.
I have two pictures that play in my head. One is the mirror into which I look daily. There is nary a dark color hair left in my beard. Yet on the mantle place in the living room, where I daven when I do so at home, there is an enlargement of an instamatic taken of Ruby and me dancing at our wedding. Not only did I have hair on my head, but my beard was totally deep brown/black. And when I daven, among the other family pictures of our children and our parents, there is picture of us. And I always wonder, in the familiar words: "Where did the years go?" I look at us and I look at our parents, with both my father's and mother-in-law's deaths growing in unimaginable years. I am not sure that I neither can nor want to put into words the connection between the first piece and the next, except to say that while the word "holy" does not appear in the first text, it is indeed embedded in between the words. And, the word "holy" – "kadosh" is perhaps one of the most special words in our vocabulary.

'Tis a fearful thing
to love what death can touch.

A fearful thing
to love, hope, dream:
to be-And to lose.

A thing for fools, this, and a holy thing,
A holy thing to love.

For your life has lived in me,
Your laugh once lifted me,
Your word was gift to me.

To remember this brings painful joy.

'Tis a human thing, love,
a holy thing,
to love what death has touched.

I don't know how of my colleagues implore people who are not obligated to say Yizkor not to leave. In studying the sources of Yizkor it is clear that no one needs to leave, despite the fact that my father used to through me out from shul. The practice of leaving is only a folk custom based on a folk belief that if you stayed when you didn't have to say Yizkor, it was a backwards way of saying that you wish you did. This custom has persevered despite all Rabbinic efforts to the contrary. The fear of death is stronger than logic.

So you may share my surprise and even joy, that in surfing the Jewish sites before the Yom Tov season, I found the following text from Israel. It is meant to be read by those who stay in Yizkor when they don't have to, and instead of reciting from the prescribed paragraphs in memory of whichever family members, they read this text instead. It comes in two formats, the one that I have translated and a longer one, which refers to the care that we owe and give to our parents and relatives. Maybe I will translate that another time.

"He asked You for life; You granted it; a long life, everlasting."  (Psalm 21, verse 5)

Prayer of Thanksgiving for the Family's Welfare

My Father in heaven, I stand on this holy day, amidst a congregation of Israel who are pouring out their souls and remembering their parents, crown of their glory, and their dear loving relatives that have gone to eternity.

And I give thanks to You because with Your awesome loving kindness and great goodness, there is no anguish in my heart and there is no tear on my cheek, because my father and my mother, my husband/my wife, my brother(s), my sister(s), all of them are with me. No person is missing from us.

Life, they asked from You, You gave them, "therefore my heart rejoices, my whole being exults, and my body rests secure (Psalm 16, verse 9)." Adonay, guard them from all evil. Adonay, watch over their going and coming. Adonay, extend their days in pleasantness to see their children and their children's children delving into Torah and living with mitzvot.
I entreat and plead with You. Be gracious, even as You have spoken.

(composed by Rabbi Jeffrey Cohen, Rabbi from England)

I cannot say this prayer in its totality. There are people missing from my personal constellation, even as their names are embodied in my children and grandchildren. I do think back to the time that I could say this prayer, just as it is written. That time recedes in my personal history. Yet I am thankful that my children can chose to remain in services for Yizkor. Yonina officiated at them on Yom Kippur for the Hillel at the University of Rochester and Menachem has been doing it for years. Yet they and Tzeira are blessed in being able to say this text in its completeness. May they be able to do so for many, many years to come. Yet I can emend it and in the next edition of our Yizkor booklets will insert it and the other text, for we can and should balance our vision, our hearts and emotions. And while we remember our loved ones who died, let us give thanks for what we had, and for what we have, those who were with us, and those who are with us.

May these here with us strength us, gladden us, rejoice with us.

May those there, who were once with us, bless us and entreat God to bless us, too.

Amen.