Yizkor 5783 ~ Oct. 5, 2022

Six Words

David Brooks, in his NY Times Opinion column “The Moral Bucket List  writes: “It occurred to me that there were two sets of virtues, the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. The résumé virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral — whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful. Were you capable of deep love?” Brooks continues:  “We all know that the eulogy virtues are more important than the résumé ones. But our culture and our educational systems spend more time teaching the skills and strategies you need for career success than the qualities you need to radiate that sort of inner light. Many of us are clearer on how to build an external career than on how to build inner character.”

There are individuals who have lived their lives with the uncanny ability to transform their career resume into their eulogy resume as well. Arthur Pascal from Montreal, Canada, was one such individual.  I only learned about Pascal just a couple of days ago from my college roommate and colleague Rabbi Arthur Lavinsky, who is spending the High Holy Days and Sukkot as the rabbi on several cruise ships. Currently he and his wife Debbi are traveling aboard the cruise ship, The Queen Elizabeth, where just the other morning he learned about Pascal.

Just before Rosh Hashanah, Rabbi Lavinsky woke up early and decided to go to the buffet wearing a tee shirt that read “Cruise Rabbi” imposed on the image of a cruise ship surrounded by a pair of Jewish stars. He was wearing it hoping that Jewish guests will see it and ask about services.

“As it turns out, an elderly gentleman named Jim decided to sit across from me and proceeded to tell me his life’s story.  He was a retired parks service worker from Ottawa, Canada, recently widowed by the love of his life.

He grew up poor in Montreal, lost his father when he was six years old, and his mother worked multiple jobs as a maid to provide shelter and food for herself and many children.  He was an honors student at a local Catholic school and excelled in his studies.  In fact, he was offered a full scholarship to study at Catholic middle schools, but his family needed the money so he went to work doing menial jobs for $15-20 a week after he completed sixth grade, as every dollar counted.

Jim said that he has loved Jewish people ever since he was a little boy.  Why?  He said that his landlord, a man named Arthur Pascal from a wealthy Jewish family in Montreal (where he grew up) that owned several hardware stores, would always personally visit his tenants on the first day of the month if he hadn’t received the rent.  But instead of demanding the money, Mr. Pascal inquired to make sure that the family was alright.

One day, Mr. Pascal came by as the rent was overdue.  His mother explained that they had been going through a rough patch and couldn’t  even afford to pay for the coal to heat their home during the cold Canadian winter.  He told them not to worry about it and that they could pay when they had the money. If that wasn’t enough, the next day the family awoke to the sound of the delivery of  TON of coal to get them through the winter!”

Rabbi Lavinsky commented: “Would that everyone’s first memory of a Jew was so sweet and inspiring!”

In 1976, Pascal was awarded The Order of Canada for all of his communal activity. Mr. Pascal passed away in 1994, and I am quite certain, after doing a Google search, that his career resume and his eulogy resume, were one and the same.

Have you ever thought about how people might actually eulogize you? What might they say? What do you want them to say? How might the two be similar, and how might they be divergent? As I sit with families, as we prepare for the funeral service of a parent, I get to hear some most wonderful stories, and then I get to hear the real doozies. It is the latter that  I remember for a lifetime. Unless you have already written your eulogy, which I pray you have not, since I cherish your being a part of all of our lives…if asked, how would you list your accomplishments, your regrets, your love, your eulogy virtues?

Often, as I listen to the stories, some quite embellished, I find that children do not always understand a parent’s life. Some never knew the childhood experiences of their parent, that perhaps shaped and encompassed their parent’s life. Some might be moments of joy and celebrations, such as successes at school, friendships that are still sustained  today, accolades on the sports field, the dance, art or gymnastic studio or at a music recital.  Others might be those of loneliness, being misunderstood, having been bullied, or mistakes and regrets in younger life. Parents who had no idea how to parent, or the absent parent, sexual abuse, or being the one kid who stood out like a sore thumb.

A while back I heard a rabbi ask the following question: If there were six words that you could use to sum up your life until now what might they be?  Why six words? I tried to figure that one out as well, too. I came up with that, in Hebrew, the Shema is six words in length: “Shema, Yisrael Adonai Eloheynu, Adonai Echad.”

Think about it for a moment…what might your six words be? If it wasn’t Yom Kippur morning, I might have had pens and cards dispersed to you, or placed under your chair, that you could easily retrieve and write those six words on that card.

No need to raise your hand or shake your head in acknowledgment; I tried to come up with a few that might be some of our six words. How many of you might put something like this down:

1. Cancer survivor; thankful for every day since
2. Enjoyed my job; now my family
3. Wish I had listened to my parents
4. Found life’s satisfaction in helping others
5. Don’t you just love a bargain!
6. Shouldn’t have done that….now what?
7. Barukh Hashem yom yom. Amen Selah. Blessed is God daily. Amen selah. (Selah meaning God is my rock.)
8. I’m sorry;  I wasn’t the best
9. Thanks for the memories, all fantastic
10. As Frank Sinatra made famous and Paul Anka wrote: “And, I did it my way!”

As I shared this question with a 97-year-old congregant during a visit this past Friday, she answered: “I am an old Jewish woman!” The emphasis in our discussion that followed was both about being Jewish and old; celebrating both.

When I shared the list with my wife Lisa, she added: “I still love to eat chocolate.”

Did you connect and find yourself in one of those six-word phrases? I am sure there are many others that you might find appropriate. So here is what I would like you to do: after the Break the Fast today, when you get home, take a card and write down those six words. I would love to read them, and perhaps leaving out identifiers, perhaps we can join together and talk about them, as a form or our talking out our virtues of life, rather than our resumes of yizkor.

When I got to this point, writing this sermon, I paused and contacted my friend and colleague who gave me this thought. I wanted to find out if he took the step of asking congregants to write down their six words and had any of them actually returned a card. He said to me, “Earl, it wasn’t my thought; it was the thought of two other rabbis in two other congregations.”  And he shared with me some of the six-word responses they received.

Today being yizkor, I thought I would share with you three responses from those rabbis’ congregants, with my own derash.

The first was: “I still make coffee for two.” I am quite certain that some of you have experienced the same.  Just recently, I officiated at the funeral of a member of my previous shul. They were married for almost 64 years. Since his funeral, his widow often calls me just to tell me what she is thinking and how she is going through the moments of loss. And it always begins with, “I miss Jerry so much. I tell my kids that and they say they understand. But rabbi, they don’t understand. It is different between a parent and that of a wife and husband. We loved each other; we never separated from each other. I just went out and bought a new bed, because we had one of those sleep number California kings. I just was lying there and he wasn’t.” It is still too fresh for her. And I can only imagine what this Yom Kippur is like for her. But I wonder about you… and how you are remembering a spouse. What is the memory for you today that is their eulogy resume? What does it mean to you: “I still make coffee for two.”

A second were words of a Holocaust survivor: “Reborn in hope after unimaginable horror.” We all know how true these words are. We all have or know individuals who came out of the Shoah and became successful in their lives, in their careers and businesses and in their life’s experiences.  At the same time, we are aware of those  survivors who went through the unimaginable horror, and experienced a continuing trauma throughout their lifetime, in one way or another.

A third: “For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Worn.” As an adoptive parent, I understand. I understand the trials and travails of infertility. As a rabbi, I have witnessed the pain of families when a child passes away at birth or at a young age.  And I cried with each family.  For some in our community, you live that pain each and every day. And on this Yom Kippur, as we recite Yikzor, none of us but you can understand that six-word phrase on the card of the parent. And it is not our place to. Its only our place to acknowledge your loss and your pain at moments when you remember.

Many of us are remembering parents. During the Penitential season we read Psalm 27. And within the Psalm there are six words in Hebrew that are about our parents that always cofounded me. The six words in Hebrew are: כי אבי ואמי עזבוני, וה׳ יאספוני, “Though my father and mother abandon me, Adonai will gather me in.” The commentary Ibn Ezra, in my interpretation of his words, states “They were with me at birth, but at death, it is their physical presence that alludes me.”  I might rephrase the words to more of the translation of Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi, z”l.   When my parents  passed away, I was embraced by God’s presence to help me walk through the valley of the shadow. And in this season of repentance, I look for their guidance in their eulogy resume, to continue to find meaning and comfort through my life.  I will always have them in my thoughts and in my values. And I pray that I have imparted them forward.

But there is also a new reality today of the memories we share with our parents and the meaning of the Psalm’s words, “though my mother and father abandon me.”  Tish Harrison Warren recently wrote an opinion piece in the NY Times describing the memories that her mother no longer be able to hold onto due the middle stages of Alzheimer’s disease and those she will.  “She knows who we are and remembers everyone’s names. She can tell you who her third-grade teacher was, but not what happened a week ago or a month ago or 10 minutes ago.” But she also is keenly aware that soon that may all be gone, too.  

And then she adds her own take of what I believe is another context of what the Psalmist declares and how we must deal with the reality of members of our families where memory loss has taken them away from us, in the cognitive way.  As an ordained Anglican priest, she shares what I believe as well: “But dementia cannot erase our inherent dignity or value. It does not erase the image of God in us.” And she concludes with this beautiful thought:

“My mother may eventually forget me, her daughter whom she deeply loves. But God will not forget my mother…...” John Swinton, a Scottish pastor maintains “For God to remember someone, then, means that they are present to God, and therefore their existence and worth are safe, fixed and undiminished.” And she urges us to continue to make the memories with them, even if the memory for them may be temporary.

Just the other day I experienced that actual love of a daughter with her mother and for her mother, when I visited with them to blow shofar. Being a part of a happy moment for a parent, no matter what their cognitive reality, is important not only for them, but for us as well. Yizkor, while a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease may not remember, God does and will remain in God’s eternal memory.

Lastly,  I reflected upon six words that we all reflect and  sing at the end of the Adon Olam, בידו אפקיד רוחי בעת אישן ואעירה, I am grateful for my life and for what lies ahead, no matter how old I am, or how young I feel.  I will always have the presence of the life lessons and soul of my loved one with me.  As I was taught as a child and continue to believe through these six words in Hebrew, that translate as “when I wake and when I sleep, I place my spirit in God’s care.” And I will find meaning through the six words that represent God’s hand protecting me and holding on to me.

David Brooks in his article suggests that a good exercise in life is to keep a journal or create a piece of artwork depicting our virtue resume.  Another thought might be that as we reach our ages, rather than a journal, it simply might be that we   continue to rewrite or edit our six words bringing a defining thought of who we are in our virtue resume. In that regard, our six words come with a life of understanding of pain and suffering, joy and celebration. And they are ours alone.

In his last broadcast in 2016, after announcing Dodgers baseball games for 67 years, the late Vin Scully shared his final thoughts as a prayer and words of reassurance as we reflect upon our six words.

May God give you, for every storm, a rainbow,

For every tear, a smile,

For every care, a promise,

And a blessing in each trial.

For every problem life sends,

A faithful friend to share,

For every sigh, a sweet song,

And an answer for each prayer.

You and I have been friends for a long time, but I know in my heart that I’ve always needed you more than you’ve needed me, and I’ll miss our time together more I can say.

But you know what – there will be a new day, and eventually a new year. And when the upcoming winter gives way to spring, rest assured it will be time for Dodger baseball.

A commentator stated in tribute: “And with that, a day’s work, a season’s work, and a lifetime’s worth of work had come to an end.”

We know whom we have become and who we are as we continue to write our own virtue resume of life, patterned in one way or another through the eulogy resume of those we remember today. May their memories be a blessing.  And as Vin Scully wished: May we find “an answer to our prayers.”

Finally, to my bride of 39 years this coming Sunday, who arrived into this world on Yom Kippur, and showed up into my life on Kol Nidre night 40 years ago at my student pulpit as I looked down from the bimah, we celebrated our 25^th anniversary on Yom Kippur day, and today being your secular and Jewish birthday, here are my six words to you on this day: Happy 65^th; best still to come. And I hope you can always live your life in such a way that you can always say: “I still love to eat chocolate.”