On the Jewish holidays we often remember memorable moments with loved ones who are no longer at the table. Despite our mourning, God beckons us to celebrate the gifts we have in our lives.
Yizkor – 8th Day of Pesach 5769 – April 16, 2009
It was exactly a year ago yesterday that I interviewed for this position at the HEA. I don’t know what the date was on the secular calendar, but I know that it was a year ago because I remember it was shvi’it shel pesach (the seventh day of pesach). Last year the 7th day of pesach happened to be on Shabbat. Melanie and I flew in with Hannah and Micah on Friday morning. I distinctly remember being picked up from DIA by Lisa Soicher. She brought us straight to the shul. Due to the Holiday it would have to be an unusual interview schedule so just before Friday night services the search committee did its interview with me. Rabbi Katzan was nice enough to let us stay in his house. I remember giving my sermon on Saturday morning and really feeling good about it. But probably the best thing about that weekend was meeting many of you for the first time. I wasn’t offered the job until a couple of weeks later and I only moved to Denver in July, but in many ways it feels like my anniversary at the HEA. It was a year ago that I began to my relationship to this institution and with the people who come here.
A lot has happened in the last year. Certainly a lot has happened in my family. When we interviewed here a year ago, the babies were just 4 months old. Now they are starting to walk and talk. We told our first big road trip as a family when we moved here from LA in July. Koby had a good transition into his new school. It didn’t take too long for us to find a house and I got through my first High Holy Days as a rabbi. And then things settled down a bit. We started to set up our house and I started learning how to do my job. I remember Hanukah really well because we had our first out of town guests staying with us. I also remember Hanukkah because it was the first time since arriving here that I was called urgently to visit someone in the hospital. I spent quite a bit hannukah at Swedish Hospital with Mira Banker and her family as they sat by the bedside of Mira’s mother Lucie Cohen. I remember it was Hanukkah because Mira and her three girls had brought a menorah to the hospital and each night they pretended to light it with Lucie. Lucie left this world on the last day of Hanukkah. You see, we members of the clergy have the unusual privilege of being allowed entry into some very intimate and sacred places in your lives. Since I first met you all, you’ve honored me as one of your rabbis by letting me be part of your families. You’ve let me be part of your celebrations, the birth of your children, the weddings and bar mitzvahs and the deaths of loved ones. Many of you are celebrating holidays without your loved one for the first time. Jeff Grazi told me last week he set a place at the Seder table for his father Sid who died just before Purim.
It’s interesting how we mark time in Judaism. We mark time by the events in our lives and often our associations with the holidays. The festivals are for many of us poignant reminders of who is no longer sitting around the table this year. It isn’t hard to understand why the holidays are difficult on some level. These are the occasions in life when we gather together. These are often the moments that are so rich with family memories and customs – the way Zeyde used to lead the Seder; the way bubbe made hunukkah latkes; the outrageous costume your brother always concocted for Purim; an uncles favorite joke; an aunts special prayer… and so on. We all have these memories. I’m not telling you anything new and this sermon isn’t just about making you cry.
What isn’t obvious is what the Torah instructs us to do at the festivals. In this morning’s Torah portion, we read about the annual cycle of holidays. It is an appropriate theme for the end of Passover – serving as a reminder of the coming year’s haggim. For example, with regard to the upcoming pilgrimage festival of Shavuot, the Torah says, “Then you shall observe the Feast of Weeks for the Lord your God, offering your freewill contribution according as the Lord your God has blessed you. You shall rejoice before the Lord your God with your son and your daughter, your male and female slave, the Levite in your communities and the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow in your midst…” In other words, everyone has to be there. But what if everyone isn’t there this year? What do we do with that empty chair at the table? And let’s look again at the Torah’s commandment here. “Ve’samachta b’hagecha…” you shall rejoice in your festival. And with regard to Succot, God goes even farther… “v’hayita ach same’ach.” “You shall have nothing but joy!” How is that possible? How can God command an emotion? How can God demand that we be happy? And not just happy… ONLY happy!? For many of us the holidays are a bitter-sweet time.
When I brought this up to Melanie, she made an interesting observation: if it were easy to do, God wouldn’t have to command it. But that still leaves the question: why is God commanding us to be happy today? God reveals the answer to the question in the commandment itself: We are supposed to be joyful because of the gratitude we feel for God’s gifts. Among those gifts is the miracle of life itself. As my mentor, Rabbi Brad Artson says, “without having asked to live, without doing anything to deserve the gift of life, companionship, joy, we are regularly given these gifts in an abundance that is staggering.” Among the many gifts in our lives are the relationships we have with those we love. Those memories they gave us at so many seders, so many Hanukkah parties, so many weddings, and bar mitzvahs – these are their gifts to us. And we owe it to their memory and to their legacy to celebrate those gifts on the holidays. God says, “give back some portion of those gifts.” We owe it to the memories of our loved ones to make sure their legacy lives on. We owe it to them to pass along their traditions and their lessons… to offer them to our children and our grand children with joy and gratitude. We gather this morning of yom tov to joyously celebrate the abundant gifts God has given us. This is God’s will… but, if we should shed a few tears during Yizkor, I think God will forgive us.
Hag Sameach.
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