Rabbi Josh Zweiback

Shabbat Shuvah 5768

    Every year your yahrtzeit comes and we say the same thing: “I can’t believe it’s been” and then we fill in the years. We’re up to eight.  

    And I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it’s been that long since I’ve seen you. Since I heard your voice. Since I held your hand.

    Of course, you are a constant, ever-present part of my life. I think about you every day. We have pictures of you all over the house. But it’s not the same. Pictures and old letters and even the audio recordings of our phone calls that I made so I could listen to you later, after you were gone, are pale, pathetic stand-ins for you.

    No picture or video could possibly capture your vitality, your humor, your energy, your essence.

    Memory is powerful--but it has its short-comings.

    And this is probably both a curse and a blessing. Forgetting does has its advantages. As the years pass it gets harder and harder to remember the almost unbearable heaviness of your last months. When I think of you now, it's almost always of you in good health, in good spirits, in good times.

    And this is a blessing.

    But there's all sorts of good things that I know I've forgotten. And I wish somehow I could have a transcript of the thirty years we had together, Mom. Of the things you told me about your childhood. The advice you gave me when I was a kid. The songs you sang to me to help me go to sleep.

    When you died, part of my childhood died with you. It's not just the things I've forgotten--it's the things that I could never have remembered. The scenes of my growing up that never got saved to my hard drive. But they were in yours, I know.

    All parents to a certain extent remember the key moments in the lives of their children. But there is something about the way a mother remembers or at least the way you remembered that is extraordinary.

    Part of it is just this: you were interested in me and my life in a way that no one else on this earth was. It wasn't until I became a parent that I began to understand this. It wasn't until Jacqueline and I had children of our own to love and hold and nurture and worry about and obsess over that I began to understand your love and your worry.

    And now there are things about my childhood and about our family that I wish I could ask you. When one of my daughters says something funny or does something funny or maddening for that matter, I just want to pick up the phone and tell you about it. And I want to hear that I did the same thing and here's how you responded and here's what I should do.

    And this is the curse of forgetting and the curse of your not being here to remember for me.

    Mom, in shul yesterday I was thinking of you and imagining you sitting beside me, holding my hand like you did when I was little. It was during the Zichronot--the part of the service when we tell ourselves that part of God's majesty is that God never forgets. God remembers and records everything. We say: Kee ein shich'cha lifnei khisee khvodecha: There is no forgetfulness in Your presence.

    And this brings me comfort. There are things Mom that only you know--that no one else remembers or could remember. But maybe the memory is not gone. Maybe that prayer is right. Maybe God remembers. Maybe that's God's job. Maybe that's all God does. God remembers everything so that when people die, the past is not erased.    

    The other day Ariela asked me what happens after we die. It's not the first time I've had this conversation with a kid--or with one of my kids for that matter. And suddenly I remembered having that same conversation with you many years ago.

    And I remember what you told me when I was in grade school. You said, "when you die, you die." And when I asked what that means, you said that you thought that this world was the only world and that when it's over, it's over.

    And for the longest time I agreed with you.

    But gradually my heart began to tell me that it couldn't accept this anymore. And by the time you got sick, I was at a place where faith told me that it's not over--that maybe it's not ever over.

    And I think, in the end, you came to this same place. I remember a conversation we had a few weeks before you died. Early in the summer we'd studied Torah together and I showed you that text from Pirkei Avot in that commentary you liked about how this world is the ante-chamber to the world to come. And you looked at me and you said, "Do you really believe it?" And I looked at you and said, "yes."

    And I do.

    And sometimes this belief is the only thing that makes the grief of your absence bearable.   

    The grief of my daughters being born and your not being there to celebrate with me...

    The grief of not being able to share their first steps with you...

    The grief of not being able to call you and get your advice...

    The grief of knowing that when something good happens or when something bad happens, you're not there to share it with us...

    And sometimes this is almost too much for me to carry.

    But there is this faith, Mom. It doesn't always make sense but it brings me tremendous comfort and, who knows, maybe it's true.

    There is this faith that somehow you know about this. Somehow, you know the names of my daughters and you know what's going on in our lives. You know about Jacq's work and about our travels and you're proud that the girls are speaking Hebrew and making friends and growing up so beautifully.

    And there's this: if it's not over, then I'll see you again. I know you'll understand and agree with me when I say that I hope it's not for a long time. But I will see you again and you will meet those girls and not just in my dreams or in their dreams but you'll hold them in your arms some day--maybe about a century from now.

    But I can be patient and I know you can too--especially now.

    The years will pass and each Rosh Hashana especially I'll think of you on your yahrtzeit. And if I'm lucky and God willing, my health is good, someday I'll find myself saying, "I can't believe it's been fifty years."

    And the day will come--a long, long time from now I hope--when maybe, just maybe we'll see each other again.

    It's what I hope for. It's what I pray for. It's a part of my faith.

    Until then, Mom, I'll be thinking of you and I'll be missing you.

Love,

Josh