Yizkor Sermon 5771

Yizkor 5771

The essence of Mitch Albom “Have a Little Faith” is his relationship and preparations with Rabbi Al Lewis to deliver his eulogy after his impending death, even though it took amazing eight years journey. The creation of a eulogy is one of the sacred acts that a rabbi or anyone can experience.

This is the 30th Year since I was ordained. I would guestimate that I’ve delivered 390 eulogies (133 in 14 years at KS). Each … was a moment of trying to understand the story of a loved ones life, to articulate its central ideals through the story and to provide an avenue of comfort which is found in the truth that a person’s goodness does not end when their physical being goes to the other dimension.

Over the years I’ve developed a routine to prepare a eulogy that seems to work for me. Hopefully I can meet with the family the day before the funeral. Most of the time the mourners have had a chance to reflect on the death of their loved one and are ready to share stories and laughs and tears. Before going to bed, I organize the stories and themes of the life – and leave an outline on my computer. Also before going to sleep, I search for a text from the tradition that articulates and connects with the goodness of the loved one’s life. Then, I sleep on it. I wake up normally an hour earlier than usual – 6 instead of 7 am (thank God I have a morning biorhythm). And it almost always flows.

If I’ve done my prep right then I am able to answer some essential questions:
What’s this person’s story?
How do their loved ones remember him or her?
What did the person love?
What do the living most cherish about their life?
What lives on from what everyone talked about?

There have been some really tough losses in our community this year and several people have shared after my sermon on the 1st Day RH – other tragic passings of friends and loved ones in recent months.

So before I turn back to Mitch Albom’s eulogy journey, I ask each of you: What’s your own eulogy about? What are we writing every day in our Book of Life as we live?
How do you want to be remembered?
I hope the words will not be spoken for many, many years but …
How do you think you will be remembered?

If you’re not sure you know the answer to any of these questions… then I have a strong suggestion for you. Right after Yom Kippur – compose an ethical will. I assume everyone has a legal will for your property, a power of attorney if you’re not able to address your business of life needs and a living will and health care proxy if you were incapacitated. (Everyone who has any responsibility for other people, must have these documents) If you don’t have these documents – please do it online or contact legal help soon. And if you can: please leave instructions about your funeral. I’ve spoken in workshops but never previously from the pulpit about an experience almost 25 years ago. Mike, a wonderful member of the Temple Israel choir, was dying of brain cancer. He was sometimes lucid and other times not. About two weeks before his death I visited him at his sick bed at home. I asked several questions but then I asked him about his funeral. He said: rabbi, I don’t want to be buried in the synagogue cemetery. I want to be buried in the little cemetery because it’s close to my home and I’ll be close to my wife and children. I can’t even begin to tell you how much this meant and continued to mean to his family… let your loved ones know what you might want … it will be a comfort to you and to them. But about leaving our spiritual legacy – consider seriously an ethical will.

What’s an ethical will? It’s a document or just a letter talking about who we are, what we really wanted out of life and what dreams we realized and those that did not come to fruition. It articulates the values that were central to our life quest and frames the hopes and regrets that are part of our lives. I recently updated my ethical will and it always gives me perspective on my journey professional and with my loved ones and trying to make sure what’s really important is where I put my time and energy.

I’ve heard of people who instead of leaving their ethical will on the computer or in the safe deposit box – read it to their family while their still alive. If we actually expressed our innermost thoughts and feelings – we might truly touch our loved ones and maybe open our closest relationships in new and significant ways.

In recent years I’ve been video recording my father and I need to start doing the same with my mother. There something precious about hearing a loved one’s stories in their own words. With our technology today – make the time and get the stories … to record and remember generations that will not be here forever.

Now writing your own ethical will is not easy. It means you have to accept the fact that we are all mortal – and it’s not something any of us like to think about. But it is being realistic about what it means to be a human being, especially to leave behind our spirit and our goodness. Composing an ethical will is also hard because it forces to think about our values, what is right in our lives and what is wrong. That’s hard to do especially in our culture that says – what ever you feel is OK. But conveying our sense of right and wrong – even if we weren’t always consistent is a responsibility and moral imperative of our tradition. So I urge you to write an ethical will, If you do, you will leave a gift to the future, to children and perhaps several generation more, who will thank you and bless you for it. //

Well, in case you’re wondering, Mitch Albom did do the eulogy. He spoke about the eight years that Rabbi Lewis and he had together. He spoke about having his faith rekindled by witnessing a man who practiced it quietly and purely every day of his life.

He never did find out, why the Rab, as he called him, asked him to do his eulogy. Especially because Albom always knew the Rabbi could do it better than the writer could. When he finished his beautiful remarks which are in the book Albom sat down, the Rab’s grandson walked up to the pulpit holding a cassette tape, and put it in the player and pressed the button.

And one last time a familiar voice rang out over the loudspeakers, and it said, “Hello my friends, this is the voice of your past rabbi speaking!” He made a tape and hadn’t told anyone. It was very short, maybe a minute, but in it he answered the two questions he said he had been asked the most in his life as a man of faith. One was, “Do you believe in God?” He said he did. The other was, “What happens when we die?” To this he said, “My friends, the good news is by the time you hear this, I’ll know. The bad news is, now that I know, I can’t even tell you. You’re going to have to figure it out for yourselves.”

Albom continued: I think what he was saying and what I’m trying to say to you, was simple. You have to have a little faith. It is what will get you through the darkness, the sad times, the craziness, the maddening turn of events. Have a little faith and one day we may indeed figure it out for ourselves.

By the way, he did open that file on God. Albom went back a few months after the Rab had passed, stood on a chair, took it down in his arms and held it. He paused for a moment because the author was flashing on that Indiana Jones movie where they open the arc and he didn’t want his face to melt off. He writes: I really wished that the rabbi was there with me. But when I opened that file, he was. He was, because in it, were hundreds of pages of quotations and stories and articles, and questions written in the Rab’s handwriting, all about God. And I realized that I was holding what he’d always been trying to teach me. That it is not about having the answer, as many of you want to have right now. It’s about the search for the answer. You cannot fit God in a file. If you could, there would be no reason to believe in Him. You could take Him off the shelf any time you needed Him, like coffee.

It’s the choosing to believe in that which you cannot fit in a file. It’s the choosing to believe in that which you cannot see or touch. It’s the choosing to believe that we are here for something other than just taking what we want and turning into worm food. It’s the choosing to believe that there is a divine spark in every single person in this room; that can be touched and used to bring people together. It’s the choosing to believe that makes the whole thing, the maddening, crazy, wonderful, but always ultimately satisfying journey of faith. Don’t walk away from it, like Albom did for many years. Embrace it.

In the beginning, there was a question for Mitch Albom. Will you do my eulogy? In the end, that question and all the others will get answered. I believe, like the Rabbi, God sings and we all hum along. And there are many, many melodies, and we are all witness to it, but its all one song. All one song, one same, wonderful, human song.

So, as we prepare to recite the Yizkor prayers, let us ponder our legacies, those that have been passed along to us and those we are writing today for our posterity. Let the wonderful acts of our forebears ennoble us to act with kindness, care, love and devotion to one another. And if the memories or legacies are not so inspiring, let us pledge to do better and to seed inspiring legacies ourselves, because we are committed to changing the world for the better, one step at a time. Let us find comfort in our sacred task of remembering those who are no longer next to us physically, but who remain in our hearts, and therefore continue in our Book of Life.