"Will you be my Chevra Kaddisha?"

Yizkor Yom Kippur 5764

"Will you be my Chevra Kaddisha?"

October 6, 2003

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

 

Introduction

The last day and night of my father's life, my mother, my brother, and me took turns holding and speaking to my father.  He was never left alone.  When I had come to my parents' home that Sunday of Mothers Day 1991, I saw my father's condition, summoned my brother from Boston, and kept vigil.  It was among the most difficult days of my life.  I confess to being very scared and frightened.  I had never before been with someone while they were dying.  They told us that the last sense to close is that of hearing.  So all day and through the night I spoke and cried to my father.  I asked him for forgiveness for things I said and did.  I wanted to have a father and not let him go.  And when he died, together we cried our good-byes.  To his last minute here in Olam HaZeh, my father heard our voices, knew our touches and our love.

 

Since that day I have had the privilege-the acute mitzvah-of being with others in the moment of death-B'sha-at yetziat ha-neshamah.  It is an awesome moment that I have come to embrace and not dread.  That doesn't make it easy.  My father just taught me the way as he had done so many earlier times for easier things.

 

After my father died at home in his own bed, I shut off the oxygen pump and took the plastic piece away from his nose.  His eyes were shut and body straight.  Out of respect I covered him with the sheet and poured out any standing water.  We then called hospice and the funeral home.

 

What would happen next to my father?  Just because he had died didn't mean I didn't care about his body.  My father and his body were inseparable.  I remember that body giving me showers and drying my body as I stood on a stool as a little boy.  That body stood with me at all the important moments of my life.  I leaned on that body even in my adulthood, even after I became a father.  What would happen to my father's body?

 

When I had a student pulpit in New Jersey I had worked with the Menorah Chapel.  The men came and in a process with which I am now familiar, took my father's body from the house that he had painted, plastered and repaired every room.  All the memories of my youth in that house washed over me as I watched them.  It was another doorway through which my father and I both passed.

 

We had made arrangements with the funeral home that two things would now occur.  My father would never be left alone and his body would be prepared for burial by a most special group of people called the Chevrah Kaddishah.  It is of these that I speak this day.

 

I.

As difficult as it is, I learned and understood that birth and death are twin processes, the bookends to my mortal life.  There is a great midrash about twins before they are born. One looks expectantly to the moment of birth. The other says that there is nothing outside the womb other than dark nothingness. As the contractions occur and the first twin exits, the other only hears a great noise. It then believes that its worst fears are confirmed. Then more contractions occur and now its time to exit. Of course we know that the noise its hears is the cries of "mazal tov" by those in the delivery room.

 

It is the Judaic/Rabbinic perception that there is life even before birth and that the about-to-be-born, comfortable in the womb fears that there is nothing afterwards outside the womb. It is wrong.  Similarly, our belief on the continual existence of the neshama affirms the belief that there is an existence, metaphysical, after the death of the body.  The body is a kelipah-a shell, the home of the nefesh.  It is a keli-a vessel.  The kelipah/keli is limited.  The nefesh is eternal.  All the while the nefesh/neshamah is housed in the body, it transfers and endows-Kidushah-holiness, to the body.  My father's body was holy, from before birth to after death.  I wanted to make sure that it was handled and touched with holiness, with kindness, and with love.

 

When a baby is born, we hardly leave it alone.  Upon its emergence it is embraced by loving hands.  It is washed and cleansed into a pristine beauty, swaddled to keep it warm and secure and lovingly presented to its mother and father.  And when they come home and place it in the crib, they check on the newborn incessantly, in fact often have it sleeping in the same room.  I didn't want my father to be alone.  It didn't matter that the body no longer breathed.  This was still my father-it was the home of his soul.  It was holy and if the Gemara's teaching is true, that the neshama hovers near the body, then I didn't want my father's neshama to be alone either.  His parents had tended to him from birth.  My mother had protected and tended to him for forty-six years of marriage, and we had kept vigil for the last 15 hours.  He would not be alone now.  Like the entrance, so too the exit.

 

A most honored mitzvah in Judaism is to be a shomer or shomeret-a man or woman who remains in proximity to the deceased.  They may be in the next room or nearby.  Traditionally they read Psalms, our devotional literature, referring to God's presence.  The shomrim, or shomrot may read secular material, but always mindful of where they are and why they are there.  Shemirah is usually done in shifts.  In larger cities, they receive a token remuneration for their time.

 

I didn't ask how much it would cost.  We arranged for shomrim to be with my father.  They would do so until he was brought to the service.  Except for the journey from our house to the funeral home my father was never alone.  Amidst our grief this gave me comfort. This was done for our grandmothers, my mother-in-law, and for my uncle as well.  Though I never met them and they didn't know my family members, I appreciated the sanctity and devotion that brought them to keep my father company through the day and night.

 

II.

The word "chevrah" means a "company," "society" or "group," but has a warmer and deeper connotation.  There are many "chevrahs" in Judaism: Chevrah Bikur Cholim-they visit the sick.  Chevrah Mishna and Chevrah Shas-they study Mishna or Talmud-my Tuesday noontime class is a Chevrah Shas.  Chevrah Tehilim-a group dedicated to reciting Psalms.  And there is one more: Chevrah Kaddishah-"The Holy Society,"  "The Society of Holiness," which are better terms than Burial Society, because these people don't bury.  It is they who, in parallel to the nurses that tend to our body at the beginning of life, tend to the body at its end, and prepare it for burial.

 

The Chevrah Kaddishah is really two groups.  Men take care of men.  Women take care of women.  This preserves modesty and propriety.  There are detailed rituals that are lovingly done accompanied by words of prayer and citations from the Bible.  There is no higher mitzvah than to prepare a person for burial.  Members of our Chevrah Kaddisha tell me of the spiritual "high" they have experienced.  It is called chesed shel emet, for there is no higher truth.

 

How we take care of the dead tells us how we consider life.  And there is no payment nor repayment-the dead cannot thank nor pay the living.  All the living know is that when they die, others will handle them with the same love with which they are tending to others.

 

Perhaps this mitzvah is most cherished because it reveals how we are concerned with strangers, that we fulfill the core Torah teaching, "Love they neighbor-the stranger-as yourself."  In time we will be so loved. Maybe through our loving we won't be strangers.

 

Perhaps this mitzvah is so central because it defines us.  I'm not sure what you thought when you joined Temple Beth-El. We are a kehilah kedoshah, a holy assemblage.  We are not lines on the membership list or accounts for the bookkeeper.  In synagogue we are not statistics.  We are a community.  We are a sacred fellowship.  For each other we must be prepared to sacrifice.  To each other we open heart and hand.  We hold each other's babies.  We kvell and shep naches in each other's simchas.  And we tend to each other's dead. Especially in a world where we are separated from our blood relations here we assume that relationship, in life and in death.

 

Perhaps this mitzvah is so precious because it is the ultimate expression of our responsibility of one generation to another.  Here it is not a cliché.  Perhaps in this mitzvah we most closely emulate God.  While the Torah is very scarce about details about Moses' death, the midrash informs us that it was God Himself who prepared Moses' body with rain from the sky, who dressed him in shrouds from the clouds, dug his grave and laid him there to rest.  In how we care for and handle our dead is found the expression of our divinity.

 

For this reason higher than any committee chair, officer, educator, cantor, or rabbi is the position, held in quiet and unmentioned dignity of membership in the Chevrah Kaddishah.

 

III.

Last June several members of our congregation and I attended the first nation wide assembly of Chevrah Kaddishahs in Rockville, MD, called "Kavod v'nichum"-"Honor and Comfort."  We gathered to learn more about proper procedures and the meaning of our customs and rituals.  It was a profound and moving experience.

 

And as I sat there and listened and learned about something I had never done, two thoughts crossed my mind.

First, that I would ultimately have to become a member of the Chevrah Kaddishah.  I hadn't really thought about that before, to do the detail rituals and handle a body.  It was a daunting thought and became a personal commitment.

Secondly, who would handle my body?  Who will be the Chevrah Kaddishah when I die, a time known only to God.  I hope that it will be someone who knew me, who perhaps had heard some of my sermons.  I want someone who shares my faith in our loving God, perhaps someone I've prayed with or studied with, or whom I hugged at the entrance to shul, for whose children I named or attended the bris or officiated at Bar or Bat Mitzvah, or a wedding.  I don't want an impersonal stranger to be the last touch.  What will they think as they fulfill the rituals and purify my body?  Will they remember special events and celebrations with a smile or a tear?  I have faith that my neshama will enjoy hearing their prayers and knowing that my journey began with loving hands in Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, and concludes in the loving hands of the Chevrah Kaddishah.  There is no greater loving gift.

 

IV.

It is a duty, privilege,  and responsibility-a mitzvah min hamuvchar-the choicest mitzvah, to be a member of the Chevrah Kaddishah.  This past year the women's group has reconstituted itself, added members, improved their skills, and performed their tasks with honor, devotion, and diligence.  It is now time to do the same for the men's group.  Here and now I announce that I will hold a session to teach about these matters so that others can make the informed and difficult decision to join the Chevrah Kaddishah.  Given the nature of this subject I don't expect huge numbers.  But I have faith in you, that a respectable number of motivated, honorable and spiritually moved men will step forward. We are also seeking to further augment the women's Chevrah Kaddisah and want other women who might consider joining to come as well to this meeting. The session will be on Wednesday, October 22^nd at 7:30pm in the Kiddush Room.  You need not inform me in advance, but it could be helpful in preparing the right quantity of material. Coming to this session is not a commitment but rather an exploration of the possibility. Lastly, members of the Chevrah Kaddishah realize the privacy of their service, their avodah. For this reason I have not mentioned names. We do not publicize those who are members of the Chevrah Kaddishah as a matter of sensitivity and honor.

 

I also call for a cadre of men, women, and also teenagers, who will enroll in a Shomrim Society, to be available to join with those who already volunteer so that every person who dies in our synagogue community will be properly attended.  Though there is a time commitment, this is an easier mitzvah to fulfill. No one should be alone. Not in life. Not in death.

 

You and I-we can do this.

 

Conclusion

 

In Jewish life, before a synagogue or school-house was built, cemetery land was acquired and a Chevrah Kaddishah was established.  We have built our gorgeous buildings and bought our cemetery land.  It is now time to enlist sufficient volunteers, more men and women, to fulfill these mitzvot properly, with dignity and sanctity.  I ask you to join me in the most sublime and spiritual deed we can humanly do.

 

At the conference we learned a slight play on words.  A deceased person is nireh-seen, v'lo roeh, but does not see.  God is called ha-roeh, the One who sees, v'lo nireh, and is not seen. When I visit the earth that embraces my father's purified body at the cemetery I pray to God that He has protected my father's neshama. Maybe after death we are also roeh-see-ers, v'lo nireh, while not being seen.  If so, I hope I have my father's blessing.  And to God, the unseen see-er, I ask for His blessings upon you, upon my family, upon Israel, and all humanity for life and for peace.

 

Let us bring love to the living and grace to our dead. 

May we be known as the community that rose to fulfill its obligations with dignity and devotion.

May we care tenderly and personally with those who die, so that the living will care likewise for us.

May our holiness shine forth in this world and the next as a great illumination.

 

Amen