YK yizkor 5783

Blessings, brachot.

We have LOTS of blessings in our Jewish lives! There’s a bracha for nearly everything.

ritual: leisheiv basukka, for sitting in the sukkah

eating: shehakol nihye bidvaro, for foods that don’t fit the categories of vegetable, fruit, bread or other baked goods.

bodily function: asher yatzar, that our digestive system works the way it should.

We have brachot for hearing bad news or good news, seeing the ocean, for being present at a particular moment, smelling fragrant blossoms… and, of course, for the specifically Jewish things we do, such as lighting candles for Shabbat or Chanuka.

We have so many brachot, for so many different things, that I am offering a bracha-of-the-month- club membership, free to everyone on the Shirat Hayam Constant Contact email list. (If you’d like to be on it, let me know.)
What does it mean, to have a bracha of the the month? At very least, it means focusing on one bracha each month, learning what it means and how to recite it, when it’s appropriate to use, and anything more that it can teach us. Then, of course, it’s a matter of making space for that bracha in the broader scheme of your life.

For the month of Tishrei, the bracha is “shehecheyyanu,” the one we recite at moments, at events, of positive energy. Naming for a new baby? “shehecheyyanu.” Grandchild’s b’ mitzvah? Wedding? “shehecheyyanu.”

Sold the house and moved into a condo? “shehecheyyanu.”
Thank you Adonai our God for enabling me to be here at this time.

There are enough brachot — in daily life, in prayer — that your subscription to the Shirat Hayam bracha-of-the-month club could run for years! But we’ll take them one at a time, enjoying the broad range of events, rituals or circumstances, foods and other sensory experiences, that our sages determined warrant a few words of acknowledgement and/ or gratitude.

Yes, we have plenty of brachot for many of the things we do, but there are some curious omissions. For example, we have no bracha for the mitzvah of tzedaka, giving of ourselves, whether volunteering or making charitable contributions, nor is there a bracha for the tsedaka of seeking justice for those denied it.

Maybe this is our tradition’s way of saying that doing those kinds of good deeds is not something that calls for a bracha because it’s something that should never be special; it should be part of who you are.

Perhaps tzedaka doesn’t have a bracha because giving can be so vastly different for different people, and it can have widely varying effects on those who receive it.

There is another important Jewish practice that can be vastly different for different people: mourning. We have no blessing for mourning.

One moment, Rabbi! Enough of us have been through it, and we do have a blessing for the act of tearing fabric at the beginning of our ritual of saying “goodbye” to someone we’ve loved and lost. We remember the feeling of pinching the ribbon or other fabric and tearing it, or at least we remember the sound of the ripping.

The beginning of a funeral with tearing fabric is often a blur, though some of us who’ve been mourners may recall reciting an enigmatic blessing acknowledging Adonai our God as “dayyan ha’emet / the Judge of Truth.” However, this is not a blessing about mourning, it’s the beginning of the ritual of burial.

My explanation of that bracha is this: To our sages, the rending of cloth as a sign of grief is an intimate, historical connection to our biblical patriarch Jacob/Yaakov. How could the sages let that go by without a blessing? But when they sought wording appropriate to the moment, they threw up their hands. Nothing felt right — the bracha couldn’t be about the hard reality of the fabric, not about the depth of grieving, not about expressing anger at Adonai our God for this death.

To me, acknowledging Adonai our God as “dayyan ha’emet / the Judge of Truth,” is basically saying, we don’t know enough about the beginning and end of life, so all we can do is acknowledge Adonai our God as beyond knowing.

We do know that consoling mourners is a mitzvah, one of the most important for personal and community reasons. Yet there is no bracha for that, either. Our tradition has it that at shiva, we enter the space where the mourner sits, and we say … nothing. We are expected only to be ears to whatever the mourner wishes to say.

Ellie and I have experienced shiva visits where we have entered a room and sat facing the mourner who was engaged in conversation with others. After some time, when we felt the moment was right, we stood, approached the mourner and offered the traditional eight-word formula of consolation: “hamakom y’nachem…” And we went home.

Perhaps we use the term “shiva call” because we are called upon to offer consolation in this way: no pressure on the mourner to play host, to engage in conversation, to feed anyone. All the mourner should need to do is accept the blessing of your presence.

Over the course of shiva, then shloshim, the first thirty days after burial, the first year, the rest of our lives, we allow the cloud of grief to dissipate some, just enough to allow us — we hope — to remember and appreciate the blessings our now-gone loved one brought to our lives. It may have been a parent who supported us through ups and downs; we may remember a grandparent who enriched our celebrations, who listened when no one else would, who made us feel like THE favorite even though we knew better; we may recall a sibling with whom we had a challenging relationship but who, nonetheless, was a constant touchstone in our lives.

On Rosh Hashana, we sang together a prayer for healing. The text from Psalms reads “Harofei lishvurei leiv un’chabeish l’atzvotam / Adonai, the Healer mends the broken hearted and tends their wounds.” We know that after the death of someone close to us, after the sharp pain recedes, there will always be a scar, and there will be trigger moments of wistfulness, of appreciation.

At weekday morning services, we read a list of those close to our congregation who passed in the previous eleven months. And at every morning service, the names of those with yahrzeits on that day are also read aloud. The memorial prayer “eil malei rachamim” is chanted, and we invite the mourner to share a few words about the one being remembered.
For the first year or two or three after a passing, if the mourner/rememberer is able to share, the first things are usually about the dying: how long ago, the duration of an illness… the pain of passing is still raw.

• My uncle was murdered by a Nazi officer in front of his brother, my father.
• She was too young, it’s not right.
• He fought his cancer for years, until he couldn’t any longer.
  After some years, we begin to learn a little about the life, the relationship:

   

• I was only 9 when my grandmother died, I remember her as what I now know is classic bubbe: the kitchen was her domain, food was her currency and she was a big spender. There was always a full table, a full meal and a full heart.
• We shared laughter and love until she didn’t wake up one morning.
• He was the life of the party, the mayor of our block.

If we remember only the sadness of passing, or the regrets of some relationships, we might be doing a disservice to those we’ve loved.
With what brachot did they bless your life? Words of wisdom? teaching by example? modeling generosity? bestowing boundless love?

In rabbinical school, it was suggested that, for the four yizkor talks a year, the rabbi’s goal is to bring a tear to the eye, to create a brief emotional zone for grieving, unburdening or sadness. And I’ve tried to achieve that goal some 32 times since you allowed me to be your rabbi.

Today, I’d like to reorient the compass a bit, and encourage you to — yes! — to remember with whatever sadness those memories evoke, but also to recall, to acknowledge and appreciate the blessings those relatives or friends brought to your life.

And after yizkor, the hard part begins: How are you now — or how can you be — a blessing to others? What can you give that, many years from now, at a service like this one, will bring a tear to their eyes that will be eclipsed by the smiles on their lips.

RABBI STEVE LEDER wrote:

We should live our lives as good ancestors. We should live our lives as good ancestors.

Each of us is a connection of past to present, some of us are forebears to a future. We are responsible for — and to — generations to come,

generations we will not know. The choices we make will make a difference.
Let us acknowledge the blessings in our lives, and choose to bring blessing to the lives of others.

Let’s be the best ancestors we can be.