Rabbi Janet Marder

Yizkor Shemini Atzeret 5766

End With a Blessing

            A great Sage once asked his student a question: “Tell me – what are you watching when you sit on a hillside in the late afternoon watching the sky turn from orange to rose, then to deep purple and finally to darkness?” ‘That’s obvious,” said the student. “You are watching the sunset."

            It’s a striking phenomenon in nature – the way the colors blaze up at the end. Not only the colors of the sky, which take on vivid hues as the day comes to a close, but also the colors of the leaves, which burst into their most intense shades just as they prepare for death.

            If life were fair, it would be the same way with human beings. We would become more beautiful, more loving and kind, the older we got, and our last days would be the loveliest days, leaving our survivors with sweet and vivid memories forever.

            Some stories do indeed end this way. Courage, dignity, unselfishness and tenderness are present at the deathbed; emotional wounds are healed; words of love and forgiveness are spoken; the dying person rises to his or her finest hour, and so do the people who gather around to say goodbye. Death comes without pain or fear, as quietly and gently as a sigh – the soul departs, as the Talmud says, “with a kiss from God.”

            Sometimes, sadly, the story takes a different turn. Death comes in a way that is neither beautiful nor gentle, and leaves in its wake painful and wrenching emotions.

            Today all our stories come together; today we gather for Yizkor, when stories are remembered and cherished for the lessons they impart.

            We prepare tonight to come to the end of the reading of the Torah. It, too, concludes in beauty, with a holiday of festive rejoicing – Simchat Torah. But before the dancing and the singing and the celebrating we pause for this morning of quiet remembrance.

            Let us remember together a story from the Torah – a story about coming to the end in beauty:

            “It came to pass after all these things that word was sent to Joseph: “Behold, your father is ill” [Gen.48:1]. Behold, your father is ill. Behold, your mother has cancer. Behold -- your husband, your wife, a person who is as close to you as your own body – behold, something has happened to someone you love.

            The Midrash says that Joseph was shocked to hear that his father, Jacob, was ill. He hadn’t been in very close touch with him lately; he had been busy with his own life, his work, his family, his wife and their two sons. And this is the first time that a character in the Torah has an illness. Jacob received his illness, says the Midrash, as a gift from God. But what kind of a gift is an illness? Surely God could have come up with something better than that.

            It was a gift, our Sages said, because his illness was a warning that his death was near. Jacob knew it was coming. He knew that no matter how good and faithful a man he was, God could not keep him alive forever. He knew that his life would end – and so he was able to prepare for death. To depart from life in a conscious and thoughtful way, our Sages said, is a blessing.

            “And Joseph was told: Behold, your father is ill. So he took with him his two sons, Menashe and Ephraim. It was reported to Jacob, “Your son Joseph has come to see you. So Israel summoned his strength and he sat up in bed. ” [Gen.48:1-2].

            Here Jacob is called Israel , his other name, the name that identifies him as patriarch of the tribes, as father and founder of the people Israel . He is a powerful figure – but the Torah reminds us now that he is an old man, frail and tired, a shadow of himself. He summons the last of his strength to say goodbye. 

            When Joseph saw what had become of his father, his heart began to pound; his throat ached from what he could not say. Jacob looked at his son, but he did not see him. His eyes were on the past. “When I…when I was on the road,” he said. “When I was on the road, returning from Paddan, journeying to the land of Canaan , Rachel died, to my sorrow. And I buried her there on the road….” His voice breaks off. Why does he speak of Rachel, now, at the end?

            She is the wife he loved best. She died young, in childbirth, a long time ago. Why does her memory rise now, when he himself is facing death?

            Perhaps, as some sages say, he is feeling guilt. Why couldn’t he help her in her agony? Why couldn’t he save her? Why, confused and crazy with grief, did he leave her by the side of the road instead of giving her a proper burial in the ancestral plot?

            Perhaps, after all these years, he is thinking of Rachel as the end draws near because he yearns to be with her again.

            Or perhaps it is not so strange that he speaks of her now. Perhaps he has thought about her every day, spoken to her in his heart, held her close to him; a secret he tells no one else. Perhaps he has kept her all these years, and loved her, and seen her face, still beautiful and young, and struggled to hold on to the sound of her voice. It is only natural that Rachel is with him now; she is always with him.

            Jacob opens his eyes. Through his tears, he sees his son, and two young boys by his side. “Who are these boys?” he says. The commentators say he is partially blind from age, and cannot see their faces. But perhaps he is saying something more. Who are these boys, really? What do they mean to me? What do I mean to them, really?

            Joseph brings them close to their grandfather. “They are my sons,” he says. “My sons, whom God has given to me here in Egypt .” Ephraim and Menashe. Jacob looks at them. They look like Egyptians – their haircuts, their clothes – but they are good boys, he knows.  He is in them, and so is Rachel, his beloved.

            He kisses them and hugs them close with his thin frail arms. “My son,” he says to Joseph. “I never expected to see your face again – I thought you were lost to me – and now God has let me see your children, as well.”

            He places his hands on the children’s heads. He blesses them. He says goodbye. “I am about to die,” he says. “But God will be with you and bring you back to the land of your fathers. Do not forget my words. Do not forget who you are, and where you came from.”

            And Jacob drew his feet into the bed, to travel no more; and breathing his last, he was gathered to his people. Joseph flung himself on his father’s face, and wept over him and kissed him, and he mourned for his father many days.

            That is Jacob’s story, and Israel ’s story; the story of a patriarch, and how he came to the end of his life with beauty. He faces the truth; he knows that he will die. He does not pretend, he does not rage; he does not withdraw; he is not afraid. He spends his last days with the people he loves most. He uses the last of his strength to give strength to them. He stretches out his hands and offers them a blessing; he knows that even though he is weak and frail, what he has to give is powerful, and will never be forgotten.

            It is Jacob’s story, it is Joseph’s story, and it is our story as well.  We who hear with shock that something has happened to someone we love; we who sit by the bed for hours, trying to give comfort; watching as they grow weaker, day by day; and who watch them wander back, in memory, to long, long ago; and who promise them, hoping they can hear, that there are people who love them and children who will remember them. We who long for some loving words at the end, when we have to say goodbye.

            The Torah’s story ends with the children – with Joseph, who mourns for his father and honors him as best he can, and with his own children who grow up in Egypt, but who never forget their grandfather and the lessons he taught, and who, in the end, do come home to the land of their fathers.

            The story ends with the children, because the only thing that is truly beautiful about death is that it ensures the emergence of new life. The old leaves turn red and gold and fall from the tree so that fresh buds can pop out in the spring. One generation passes away so that another can have its turn at living in this world and creating new stories. Death makes possible the adventure of birth.

            A great Sage once asked his student a question: “Tell me – what are you watching when you sit on a hillside in the late afternoon watching the sky turn from yellow to orange, then to deep purple and finally to darkness?” ‘That’s obvious,” said the student. “You are watching the sunset." “No,” said the Sage. “You are wrong. You are not watching the sun set. You are watching the world turn.”

            The world has turned; time has taken from us the ones we love. They have breathed their last and been gathered to their people in a story that is painful and beautiful and as old as the world. Let us hold them close in memory now; let us keep them forever in our hearts.

            - Story adapted from Jeremy Kagan, The Jewish Self: Recovering Spirituality in the Modern World.