The very fact that we are gathered here this morning to worship a Living and Eternal God, and also to ask Him to remember the souls of dear departed relatives, is in itself an expression of an age-old Jewish belief – the Immortality of the human soul. We pray to God Who is Eternal, and since He created Man in His image, then Man is immortal. We ask God to remember the soul, and therefore, the soul must still exist before God; for if not, what is the use of remembering it? So that our presence here presumes our profound though unarticulated belief that Man can achieve immortality. Though the body is perishable, the soul can live on. However, I feel sure that there is one question that must disturb many of us. Granted that immortality can be a fact. Obviously, some people achieve it. No one will deny the immortality of a Moses or a Rabbi Akiva or a Maimonides. Rembrandt, Shakespeare, and Einstein, in their respective fields, have achieved this deathlessness. Dr. Jonas Salk is probably the latest star in this galaxy of Immortals. But that is true of people of worldwide fame, people of extraordinary ability and achievement, people of genius or power. What, however, of us common folk? What of those we memorialize this morning, and what of ourselves? – talented, perhaps, but not geniuses. Well-liked, yes, but world-famous, no. People who are good, kind, but largely undistinguished in the course of usual, uneventful lives. Can they be said to be able to achieve immortality? Are they not swallowed up at once into this vast, anonymous army of the dead, ultimately receding into eternal obscurity with the relentless passage of time? Can anyone achieve immortality?
And the answer is yes, anyone can achieve immortality. We can assure it for those we loved and have departed. We can assure it for ourselves. And the formula for the attainment of immortality by us unpretentious and unassuming common folk, was given in symbolic form by a man who himself was certain of eternal reverence and fame. That man was the great Sage, Rabbi Judah the Prince, the man who redacted the Mishna, the great and sacred body of Jewish Oral Law, who lived about 1800 years ago as both the spiritual and political leader of Judea of his day, beloved by all his people and revered as well by the Roman Emperor Antoninus. Certainly, he himself knew that his fame would last forever. Yet he was anxious to teach that immortality is not only for the few but for the many. He wanted to show those who live how to live on. And so he gave us a four-fold formula for Immortality.
The Talmud relates (Ketubot 103a) that the beloved Sage was on his deathbed, while in the next room was gathered his entire family. And suddenly, as the end was approaching, the great Rabbi said, le’vanai ani tzarich, call in my children. I want to tell them something of how to overcome the utter hopelessness and despair of death. I want to tell them how to take out its sting, how to remove the fear, how to recapture Life even as it wanes. And as they gathered about him, he gave them four commands or last wishes as his final legacy. He said: Hizaharu bi’chvod imchem, neir yehei daluk bi’mkomo, shulchan yehei aruch bi’mkomo, mitah tehei mutza’as bi’mkomah. Be careful to honor your mother; let the candle be kindled in its place; let the table be set in its place; let the bed be made in its place. Let all these things be as when I lived. Take these four steps, my children, and you will assure immortality for me as well as for you. You will learn how those who live should live in order to live on.
The first thing he told them – and us – was hizaharu bi’chvod imchem, always be careful to honor your mother. My sons, if you would have me live on with you, give all the respect in the world to your mother, for it was she who was the recipient of my love and will forever remain the repository of my fondest, profoundest, and most imperishable affections. Give honor to your mother, because she will be the symbol to you of the first great ingredient in this prescription: Love.
How did Solomon put it many years before? – Ki azah ka’mavess ahavah, Love is as strong as Death. A true, deep, and genuine love is not subject to the terrors of death. It can outlast it and vanquish it.
A sincere love, without ulterior motive, as our Sages of Pirkei Avot taught, is everlasting.
I am sure that there are a number of people with us here this morning who can testify to the truth of that statement. Those who have loved deeply and have lost a partner in life, know that after the first bitter pangs of grief have worn away, there comes a warm feeling to fill the void, a warm feeling of the presence of whomever it is we loved. The presence of the beloved person is then no longer subject to illness and disease, to long or short periods of absence. As I look about me, I can see some of you whom I have in mind. I know that every time I meet one of you, I immediately think of the one whom you loved. It is not only that love itself is immortal; more than that, it confers immortality upon them who practice it. Hizaharu bi’chvod imchem, R. Judah the Prince told his children. Honor Mother, and you will be honoring me, for I live on through her.
A second step in the formula he taught his children was mitah tehei mutza’as bi’mkomah, the bed should be made as always, in its place. The mitah, or bed, is in the language of the Rabbis a symbol for the word “family.” A person’s children are their second guarantee of Immortality. A child is, in a way, a recapitulation of the parent. Heredity is more than another science; it is a vehicle for the extension of life even after death. A parent lives on in the person of a child who lives.
We must, however, distinguish between just having children and what kind of children one has. Merely having children does not assure one of deathlessness, any more than not having children automatically rules it out. Certainly, biological continuity is not the same as immortality. If it were, then an elephant or Japanese beetle that lived a thousand years ago would be as immortal as the greatest human. Family and children as a vehicle of Immortality derive not from the biological gift of father to son, but from the fact that the parent molds the personality of the child, and the child’s behavior and life are then a reflection on the parent and a mirror of the kind of immortality he achieves. It is ridiculous to speak of immortality for a parent whose child becomes a wicked destroyer of all that is good. One cannot speak of immortality for a father whose child is godless and himself conceives of life as only a cruel accident of biology, as nothing more than a change configuration of molecules, as a desperate, meaningless, hopeless struggle between competing brutes, in which the fittest, most brutal brute wins, but which ultimately results in both winners and losers vanishing in obscurity.
Mitah tehei mutza’as hi’mkomah, let the bed be in its place, let the family be the right kind of family, my sons, and then I know that I will be blessed with Immortality – the right kind of Immortality. When a father and mother pass on and leave children who come to pour out their hearts to God only three or four times a year, and thereby remember them, that is a measure of immortality, certainly more than nothing. But it is not enough. Immortality is not magically achieved by a superstitious visit to a certain building. It means developing the kind of religious, godly character that reflects upon a parent and upon the self. That is the second of R. Judah’s suggestions: you live the right kind of life to grant your parents immortality and train your children to live full, Jewish lives if you desire this blessed gift of Immortality for yourselves.
The third thing he told his children gathered around his bed was: shulchan yehei aruch bi’mkomo, let the table be set and prepared as always. The Table in Jewish life was never only a place at which to stuff one’s stomach in privacy and greed. The Table was always a Mizbeiach, an altar. About it were seated not only the family, but also the poor and the weary, the stranger and the needy. The Table was the altar, the spiritual piece of furniture at which one put into practice all the beautiful precepts of charity and hospitality and neighborliness. The Shulchan has become the work table of Jewish charitableness. It is the symbol of benevolence, generosity, and kindliness. No wonder the great code-book of Jewish Law, that Divine book of humaneness, is called Shulchan Aruch, the “Prepared Table.”
So that when R. Judah told his sons not to disturb the position of his Table, he meant that the prominence he had given charity and hospitality and help to others in his lifetime should be continued after his death, and that would be one way of immortalizing him.
Indeed, part of the Yizkor prayer we soon will recite includes the statement that we promise to make a contribution to charity in memory of the soul we memorialize. What does that signify? It signifies that by performing this act of goodness in the name of someone we loved, he lives on in that act of goodness, for goodness outlives death. When you leave the Synagogue, look at the plaques and at the stained windows, at the Torah covers and the pulpits. The names on them are more than names – they are people who are immortalized in an act of goodness performed by themselves or by someone else on their behalf. What better way of living on than through goodness! I know that for a number of years, during my schooling at Yeshiva University, I benefited from a fund set up by the children of one Mendel Gottesman. I never knew him. But I shall never forget him. There was one time that I received what is called the Riva Sarah Kadin Award. I never knew her either. But neither shall I ever forget her. I know that those wonderful souls who showed goodness and charitableness to the Day School, where I received my early education, and the University, where I received my higher education, will live on in my heart. If ever I studied a folio of the Talmud, if ever I delved into the heart of a verse of the Torah, if ever the Good Lord in His way gives me any reward for these, they – those whose goodness made it possible – have an even greater share in it than I do. I ate at their Table. Even after they left, the Table at which they lived was set – and in its place. What a noble way to live on!
Finally, R. Judah told his sons ner yehei daluk bi’mkomo, let the light be kindled in its place. No man, no matter how humble and ordinary, ever leaves this world without kindling some kind of lamp, without achieving some bit of good in some way. That candle, that special individual achievement, is his memorial, his path to immortality. Some people, like R. Judah himself, leave powerhouses. Others leave chandeliers of tremendous illuminating power. Others leave bright lights. But every man, no matter how small, leaves at least a candle. Every one of us can think back to those we loved and whom we memorialize, and out of the darkness that shrouds the years, we will notice the flickering rays of that candle, that special act of goodness which was the constant specialty of that person. Speaking again from my own personal experiences, there is one old lady who still works at her specialty, and may she continue to do so for the full measure of her days, who is in my eyes already an immortal. Her specialty was the lunchroom of the Yeshiva in which I studied as a youngster. She never missed a day. It was her concern that every boy eat his lunch, whether home-packed or school-served. Men darf zein gesundt tzu dinen Gott. She encouraged the brachah, she encouraged the eating, she encouraged the blessing afterwards. And she has, in this way, assured herself of blessings afterwards – for all eternity. It was her candle, and I hope that there will always be someone to keep it kindled in its place.
As you, who are here to remember loved ones, recite the Yizkor, think about his or her special candle, and remember to keep it lit – whether it is a special charity, or special act, or special Mitzvah. It is a candle which burns forever. And then choose and light a candle of your own – it burns bright, and very long.
And after he passed away, the Talmud relates, R. Judah the Prince became an immortal. And he would visit his home every Bei Shimsha, every Friday night. At the table, his family would unastonishingly be aware of the fact that Father was there with them. For there, at the Sabbath table, he would see the four steps to Immortality which he had taught his children.
There was his beloved wife, reigning like a Queen with the Sabbath candles as her scepters and the radiance of love filling her face and her home.
And there was his mitah mutza’as, his family, his children, gathered about the table and making of eating a worship and of feasting a mitzvah; children of whom he could be eternally proud.
And then there was the Shulchan Aruch, the Table, undisturbed; for there, together with his wealthy and aristocratic and scholarly sons, were the poor and the indigent, travellers and strangers – common and ignorant as well as wise – all together enjoying and hallowing the sacred Sabbath.
And finally, after the meal was done, he saw the lamp he had kindled burn ever brighter. For the legacy he left to eternity was not neglected. There were his sons assiduously studying the Mishna, the book their father edited, delving into the Torah, the realm where he, in his life, had found meaning and joy and creativity. Yes, he was truly immortalized.
As we, therefore, begin to recite the Yizkor prayers, let us, too, remember that all those who live can live on. With the right kind of Love, the right kind of Family, the right kind of Charitableness, and the right kind of special, personalized, creative Goodness, we can even now endow those we loved with the blessing of ever-continuing life; and we can assure ourselves, no matter how humble and undistinguished, of true Immortality.
Ki v’yadcha nafshos ha’chayyim ve’ba’meisim, for in Thy hand, O God, are the souls of the living and the dead, and only by commending ourselves to the Hand of God can we be certain of eternal life, so that both those who live and those who lived may live on.
