Rabbi Janet Marder
Shemini Atzeret Yizkor
October 21, 2008

To Everything There is a Season

            At the end of Sukkot the little booth in our back yard starts to look a bit forlorn. Some of the decorations are falling down now. The branches and colorful berries we draped over the walls are bedraggled and drooping. The dry palm fronds on the roof rattle in the afternoon breeze. The lulav, once bright green and fresh, is all but withered by this time – so fragile that its leaves crumble in your hands when you pick it up.

            Autumn began a month ago, but we can feel the season changing in our bones now. The dark is coming earlier; the nights are chilly again; the leaves are starting to blaze up in their dying colors. The harvest festival has come to an end, and here we are, on a day our Sages called Shemini Atzeret – literally “the 8^th Day of Gathering”; a day for the people to assemble after Sukkot, the seven-day festival of joy.

            The mood of Shemini Atzeret, our Sages say, is bittersweet; Sukkot brought joy but this day brings “sweet sorrow.” They explain this teaching through a parable. God is like a father who invites all his children to visit him and stay in his house. They feast and rejoice together for seven days, and then it is time for them to go home. The father says, “Dear children, I hate to see you go. Please, I beg of you – stay with me just one more day.”

So the ancient Israelites, assembled in Jerusalem for Sukkot, would stay for an extra day – the 8^th day of gathering – feeling the joy of being together, but knowing, with sweet sorrow,  that soon the celebration would end and they would have to say goodbye.

            Two thousand years have passed since this festival began, and we are no longer a community united in Jerusalem . But still we gather on Shemini Atzeret, the festival of lingering before separation; a day that is almost without rituals of its own, centered instead on a particular emotion. In synagogues all over the world, Jews come together for a holiday whose only reason for being is the desire to spend a little more time before saying goodbye. Shemini Atzeret is about the decision to stay an extra day – just to be with the one you love.

            And so we come, in bittersweet sorrow, to Yizkor; we take this time to remember, and to be with the ones we have loved and lost.

            One of our members wrote these words about a loss, and sent them to me:

“I miss you

in no articulate way,

no civilized words for now.

And though my lips

curl around their fastidious sounds,

my heart, through a ragged hole,

howls Why? and

What if? and

I’m lonely!

I’m lonely!

I’m lonely!

Now, there is nothing to do

but put the wailing child

to bed and wait

either for reason or a

numbing sleep to over take

this grief…

grief that is so

unquietly working

over all the little

broken things.                                                      [Noel Beitler]

            These are words written in the pain that mourners know, when the weeping child within you cannot be consoled because it hurts so much; and the empty feeling inside you will not go away.  You lie there, wishing you could fall asleep, while your brain works over all the little broken things that torment you in your grief.          

            How do we move from that kind of searing pain into something more gentle, easier to bear? That is the question we try to answer together as we pass through the four Yizkor services each year, as we walk together on the mourners’ journey.  We hope, somehow, that there is wisdom in the ancient words we read, the melodies we sing, the steady rhythms that have guided generations through their times of loss.

            At the end of Sukkot, our Sages give us these words to read:

            “La-kol z’man v’eit l’chol chefetz tachat hashamayim. To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to be born; a time to die; a time to plant; a time to pluck up that which is planted; ….a time to break down, a time to build up; a time to weep, a time to laugh; a time to mourn, a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, a time to lose; a time to hold on, a time to let go; a time to rend, a time to mend; a time to keep silence, a time to speak.”

            The words of Ecclesiastes, traditionally read at this season, convey not anguish or joy, but quiet resignation, acceptance of the way things are in this world. The young man in love, dancing with his sweetheart; the big brother laughing and joking with his little sister; the daughter kissing her daddy goodnight; the couple busy with planting and building a business and a home – all these are part of human life. So also are the widower alone in his bed; the brother whose sister grew old and passed away; the daughter bereft of her daddy; the couple whose home and business are gone – they, too, are part of the human lot.

            There is no joy without sorrow, no building up without breaking down; no holding tight without letting go. Every celebration comes to an end; sooner or later, you have to say goodbye. Brilliant blossoms always crumble into dust, and autumn’s colors would not blaze without the chilly nights and the death of the leaves. We cannot have beauty unless we are willing to suffer; we cannot have love unless we are willing to cry.  Steady and reassuring in their rhythm, the words of Ecclesiastes tell us that others have walked this human path before us. They did it, and so can we.

            One verse in our passage always leaves me wondering. What does it mean to cast away stones, to gather stones together? Many commentators have puzzled over the meaning. Some believe the original reference was to sexual relations – there is a time for intimacy and a time to abstain. Others think it refers to the act of throwing stones into a field to destroy its fertility; gathering up the stones would mean clearing the land to restore productivity. And one midrash sees these words as a veiled reference to the dispersal of the Jews in exile, followed by our eventual ingathering in the days of the Messiah.

            But the best interpretation I’ve heard is meant for mourners. The time when we gather stones together is the time we go to visit the graves of our loved ones. We spend some peaceful time there, alone or with others, and before we leave we place on each grave a stone. Flowers quickly grow old; they wither and crumble in our hands. But the stone symbolizes eternity and strength: memories that never die, love that lasts forever.

            And what does it mean to cast away stones? Sometimes, when we think of the ones we’ve lost, we’re weighed down by heavy stones – huge boulders of anger and resentment; anguish and disappointment; guilt and remorse for all the things we did and said, or failed to do and say. To cast away stones is to let go of these punishing emotions, for all they do is drag us down and pull us under. Ecclesiastes speaks to all those who lie awake at night, unable to sleep; brooding over all the little broken things, buried under a pile of punishing stones. To all who suffer in this way, Ecclesiastes offers a message of life: until you cast away these stones, you cannot heal.

            To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. This is our season of remembrance; and our purpose at this time is to do the work of mourners: to walk the path from raw and painful grief to something quieter, gentler, easier to bear. Today the lonely child inside us still weeps for the one who is gone, still longs for one more day together, still aches at the thought of goodbye. But seasons pass – we know it in our bones – and so, too, will this season of deepest grief. Let us draw strength from one another, to move from a time of sorrow and pain to a time of healing and peace.

Others before us have done it, and so can we.