Why are We Here? Yizkor 5772

October 8, 2011

Sat, October 8, 2011

dedicated to my friends CM and MS

I spent a glorious two days with dear friends this summer, one of whom I’ve known since before my children were born – 28 years now. Long by some standards in today’s fast moving, transient world, but not so long by others. Older, wiser, we sat for days talking about life at that deep level – not the superficial, out-to-dinner details of daily life, or trips taken – the deeper level of life: God, the universe, happiness, health or lack there of, love… and the existential question that seems to consume me these days, “Why are we here?”

And when my friends left, they cried, and so did I. We cried, because our time together filled with so much meaning was so brief. We cried, because the visit had made them as guests, and me as host, feel loved, nurtured, spoiled, and treasured. When they drove away, and I went back inside, I glowed with the gifts – hand made scarves, treasures, and abundance of loving care they gave me. So much love – genuine and pure, deep and as clear as a brook in a hidden mountain pass.

“T’aint about money, life,” my friend had said at breakfast that morning. The world is divided into the have and have-nots. We focus on economics and often pay lip service to the more important riches of life. But, we too often forget that we are not here to accumulate things, or wealth, or stuff.

My friends are wealthy in the spiritual sense of the word. They have a true and lasting love. They are amazing and caring human beings. They care deeply about nature, animals, and all living things. They have experienced the worst of institutional religion and still have hope and faith in that which makes us human and divine. And they are at a time in their lives, over 60, where they are generously giving their treasures away, so that if or when they die, their memories will carry on in the homes and hands and hearts of someone who will caress the “thing” of it and its greater meaning.

I became the proud owner of a one of their mother’s crystal vases. She only had two in her life, and one is now mine. It is one of the most special gifts I have ever received, filled with meaning. Her mother gone, my friend’s children didn’t have any need for Grandma’s crystal, but on my mantle it will be so much more. Like a visual Kaddish for a Catholic woman who never met a rabbi, I hold a piece of her family worth remembering, even long after I am gone.

And then there was the bell, handmade in Jerusalem, by an artist who visited the Smithsonian. Tile work and treasured, it reminds my friend of her time in Israel and there is no one in her Christian world who will know what that meant to her. For now, it has a treasured place in my life, until someday, I pass it on to one of my children with its story and this sermon—the story of my friend, a woman who was a survivor, not just of aggressive breast cancer, but of a hard life, filled with love and loss and unfairness and darkness and joy, a life photographed and cherished for what it meant and for the whos and whys that made it rich.

I knew I would share this all with you, when my friends told me about how they have opened up their home, filled with country treasures to their friends and family, most recently and to their daughter’s family, before she moved with her two children from Pennsylvania to North Carolina. Whenever they have visitors, they encourage them to take something, some treasure, paying forward the joy of things in life whose time has come to move on.

Their son-in-law, who comes from Africa, took a washboard that hung near the laundry room. He had never seen one before he came to America. To him, it symbolized their loving and accepting home.

And then their little granddaughter, Anna, perused the whole house with great intent. She walked the entire house and then honed in on her Meemaw’s three little cats, “Hear no evil, See no evil and Speak no evil,” bought for $2 at a yard sale, but one of Meemaw’s treasures for decades. My friend tells the story that as this beautiful little girl reached for her three little cats she screamed inside, “Oh no! Not my cats!!!! I love those cats! But, she knew that Anna was choosing those cats as a way of taking Meemaw’s love with her to her new home, many miles from the only “home away from home” she’d ever known, Meemaw’s home filled with cats.

I thought about that seen, described so vividly for me. Would you open your home and say, “Take whatever you want to remember me. Take one of my treasures to treasure now, while I am alive and to remember me when I am gone. It’s just stuff, after all. My wonderful friends are giving their stuff away in life, rather than imagine that it is all sold for pennies to people who won’t know what treasures they were and the meaning behind each thing, when they are gone.

Why are we here? It isn’t to collect things. It is to create memories and to have souvenirs of life to help us hold on to the places and people long after they are gone from sight.

We channel love ones through things – the prayerbook from a grandfather or great-grandfather you never knew, or his tallis, yellow, worn, filled with family love and history for you, but not for anyone else. The candlesticks from a grandmother, or the baseball from and uncle or brother… merely touching the objects brings back moment of love and … tears or a smile.

I have my Bubby’s beat up metal plate that reminds me of her little Brooklyn apartment, but doesn’t look like anything else in my house… and I have her little beige jewelry box, with the bracelet I thought was the most beautiful treasure in the world- costume jewelry, but to me as a child, worthy of Miss America. No one can touch my memories, but me. And those “things” will have a different meaning when I am gone.

Why are we here? People ask this question as they outgrow a house that was perfect for raising a family, but too difficult to navigate once the body becomes frail. We call it downsizing – getting rid of the things that won’t fit when you move. How much better to give it away long before that time comes. How often, in the end, do loved ones fight over what remains, the stuff of life, scrambling to divide up what is left. How wise are those who share the stories woven into the fabrics, or tiles, or tchachkas while they are alive and who give them away before any tug of war begins.

Why are we here? We are here to celebrate what we have in life, not what we have not. My friends taught me by their goodness that they may not have wealth or health, but they have so many memories, and they cherish making new memories with those they love every day.

We have family, faith, friendship, health or wealth or wisdom, memories, community, someone to remember who loved us, and someone who will remember us long after we are gone. We are the “haves.”

We don’t want to be here on earth as a “have not” – lonely, lost, alone, sad, sick, memories long gone, with no one to remember, no one to say Kaddish or Yizkor, a name, a life, forgotten. That can’t be why we are here.

Some are here with pain, because we remember those who hurt or harmed us, and those memories too will be with us until we die. The painful memories never leave … no one wants them as they walk through our lives and become caretakers of our past. We are here to mourn not just loved ones, but all those moments of grief and loss that have become a part of who we are and a part of every loss we have.

This Yom Kippur Yizkor is a “have” moment, for us and for our loved ones. Judaism beckons us here to be in community – never alone- to remember, to ritualize with words and song and silence the life, the lives – to savor what we had, the treasures that last and are never lost. For love never dies, feelings do not disappear, moments remembered are not lost just because someone dies. The connection of love is forever.

Why are we here? We are here to love and be loved. To remember and to pray that we will be remembered. We are here because we have:

We have loved

We have cared

We have cherished

We have memories

We have each other

We had each other

We had stuff

We have the words

We have the memories

We have the time

We have the treasures.

“Come into my house,” says God. “Take whatever you want. You are here to remember.”

by Rabbi Amy R. Perlin, D.D.