 | Our #StrongerTogether journey enters the valley of the shadow: touching mortality can impel us to live now, love now, take leaps of faith now. There is power in memory, and there also is a power transcending memory, transcending time and place, that suddenly can rivet us in the infinite of now. Now is one of those moments. |
By Rabbi David Evan Markus
Yizkor 5786
Gut yontif on this holy afternoon of meaning and memory. We are #StrongerTogether, with loved ones forever in heart and memory.
My friend Jack Moline is a pulpit rabbi who recently retired as executive director of the U.S. Interfaith Alliance. A few years ago, Jack sent a fundraising appeal for the Interfaith Alliance, and many letters came back undeliverable. The recipients had died, many from covid. One letter came back with a handwritten message:
"DIED – Left no forwarding address."
Poignant: after we die, what is our forwarding address? And personal: looking through the black splotch on the envelope, I saw that this recipient's name was "David." It could have been me.
It could have been my mom, whom many of you know was very ill this year. On day 50 she was in rehab, and my dad and I stepped out to buy gravesites. The plots were at Block 1 on Paradise Street. For the rest of my life, I will remember standing there, hugging my dad atop the place where someday I will bury him – his literal forwarding address, even if not his spiritual one.
Just then, my phone rang. It was a congregant whose mother just died, after a long illness, in rehab. I switched gears to prepare her funeral. Where was the funeral? In sight of the graves I had just purchased moments earlier for my own parents on Paradise Street.
Repeatedly I've returned to that place in my mind, knowing that my parents' time will come. Time has a place to go, and all of us will go there at some future time we cannot predict. So Talmud (Shabbat 153a) urges, "Do teshuvah one day before you die," which means today because we never know when: it could be tomorrow. So Yom Kippur urges, "Return today to your best self, even if you haven't met your best self yet. Love that way. Live that way. Make memories that way. Take leaps of faith that way. Don't wait. Do it now."
Our beloveds beyond this life swim in our bones. In body their forwarding address might be a physical place like Paradise Street. In spirit, love and memory, their forwarding address is both far beyond and ever present, right here. How many of us have invoked them? had a conversation with them? How many of us suddenly sensed them in a smell, a bird, a butterfly, a knowing so real that no words can explain?
Some 15 months into the pandemic, CNN reported a sharp rise in reported "after death communications" from beloveds who died:
Yizkor 5786
Gut yontif on this holy afternoon of meaning and memory. We are #StrongerTogether, with loved ones forever in heart and memory.
My friend Jack Moline is a pulpit rabbi who recently retired as executive director of the U.S. Interfaith Alliance. A few years ago, Jack sent a fundraising appeal for the Interfaith Alliance, and many letters came back undeliverable. The recipients had died, many from covid. One letter came back with a handwritten message:
"DIED – Left no forwarding address."
Poignant: after we die, what is our forwarding address? And personal: looking through the black splotch on the envelope, I saw that this recipient's name was "David." It could have been me.
It could have been my mom, whom many of you know was very ill this year. On day 50 she was in rehab, and my dad and I stepped out to buy gravesites. The plots were at Block 1 on Paradise Street. For the rest of my life, I will remember standing there, hugging my dad atop the place where someday I will bury him – his literal forwarding address, even if not his spiritual one.
Just then, my phone rang. It was a congregant whose mother just died, after a long illness, in rehab. I switched gears to prepare her funeral. Where was the funeral? In sight of the graves I had just purchased moments earlier for my own parents on Paradise Street.
Repeatedly I've returned to that place in my mind, knowing that my parents' time will come. Time has a place to go, and all of us will go there at some future time we cannot predict. So Talmud (Shabbat 153a) urges, "Do teshuvah one day before you die," which means today because we never know when: it could be tomorrow. So Yom Kippur urges, "Return today to your best self, even if you haven't met your best self yet. Love that way. Live that way. Make memories that way. Take leaps of faith that way. Don't wait. Do it now."
Our beloveds beyond this life swim in our bones. In body their forwarding address might be a physical place like Paradise Street. In spirit, love and memory, their forwarding address is both far beyond and ever present, right here. How many of us have invoked them? had a conversation with them? How many of us suddenly sensed them in a smell, a bird, a butterfly, a knowing so real that no words can explain?
Some 15 months into the pandemic, CNN reported a sharp rise in reported "after death communications" from beloveds who died:
"These experiences can be subtle: relatives appearing in hyper-real dreams, a sudden whiff of fragrance worn by a departed loved one, or unusual behavior by animals. Other encounters are more dramatic: feeling a touch on your shoulder at night, hearing a sudden warning from a loved one, or seeing the full-bodied form of a recently departed relative at the foot of your bed."
These experiences extend across all societies and all religions. But, the report continued, some moments have more than others. The 1918 influenza epidemic, 9/11, the 2011 tsunami in Japan, the covid-19 pandemic, all coincided with huge spikes in these reports.
Why? Researchers coalesced on one idea: there was no time or way to say goodbye. Something about the lack of closure, the suddenness, or both, made these reports far more likely.
Many who believe that the soul transcends life also believe that loved ones reach out after death. Maybe souls reach out differently after a sudden death. Maybe it's we who are different, opened by the sudden intrusion of life's fragility. We don't know. And science cannot tell us if any of this is objective or subjective, transcendent reality or our own hearts and minds – but it doesn't matter. Either way, the potency, the memory, the love – they are real, all telescoping into this sacred hour.
There is power in memory, and there also is a power transcending memory, transcending time and place, that can rivet us in the infinite of now.
Now is one of those moments.
As we shift into Yizkor, we become conduits to our loved ones and their forwarding address, and our forwarding address. We do it for them, and for us, to honor their eternal best and our own, to rouse us to love and live our very best now. With eternity in our bones, may our descent into the valley of the shadow rouse us to rise into new life, with new strength of spirit for this next turning of our journey of soul.
Why? Researchers coalesced on one idea: there was no time or way to say goodbye. Something about the lack of closure, the suddenness, or both, made these reports far more likely.
Many who believe that the soul transcends life also believe that loved ones reach out after death. Maybe souls reach out differently after a sudden death. Maybe it's we who are different, opened by the sudden intrusion of life's fragility. We don't know. And science cannot tell us if any of this is objective or subjective, transcendent reality or our own hearts and minds – but it doesn't matter. Either way, the potency, the memory, the love – they are real, all telescoping into this sacred hour.
There is power in memory, and there also is a power transcending memory, transcending time and place, that can rivet us in the infinite of now.
Now is one of those moments.
As we shift into Yizkor, we become conduits to our loved ones and their forwarding address, and our forwarding address. We do it for them, and for us, to honor their eternal best and our own, to rouse us to love and live our very best now. With eternity in our bones, may our descent into the valley of the shadow rouse us to rise into new life, with new strength of spirit for this next turning of our journey of soul.
RSS Feed