When we lose someone, there is a list of things to do.
There are “death-logistics”.
There are phone calls to make,
document to find, and sign,
and file,there is a body to collect, and then bury.
There are prayers to say – the shema and vidui and psalms.
There is a funeral or a memorial to arrange –
rabbis and funeral directors and the chevra kaddisha to speak to.
There are too many questions to answer
(some of them will have to wait).
There is a eulogy to write and condolence messages to read.
There is food to provide or be provided,
medications to take, rituals to observe –
clothing to rip, candles to light, mirrors to cover.
There are prayers to say – some of them may mean something
some of them may mean nothing.
There is God to consider.
There are people to speak to or stare through blankly.
There are words to say:
“I wish you long life” or
“I must try to be strong” or
“You must not try to be strong at a time like this”
There are photos and memories to sort through.
There are days to take one day at a time.
There are closets to empty,
personal belongs to sort through and pack up –
mementos to cherish and donations to send off.
There is the Kaddish to be said, and said, and said again. . .
These are the logistics of mourning. We can check them off one by one. Some of them might bring comfort or closure. Others might feel stale or empty, or deepen our pain.
The list of what to do might be similar from one loss to the next, but grief is experienced differently for everyone, every time. What feels helpful in the loss of a parent, might be unbearable in the loss of a child. One time we might want to surround ourselves with others. Another time we might wish to be left alone.
Moving through grief is much more than ticking the boxes after a loss. One of my mentors, the very wise Betsy Stone, told me once that, “grief is the absorption of loss.” It takes a lot longer to move through – long after the shiva ends and the donation boxes have been sent off and people have stopped asking, how are you?
With the real work of living with grief – not the checklist, not even the Kubler-Ross steps that we’re told are linear when we know they actual cycle around time and time again – with the real work of living with grief, there is less to do – But there is a lot to think about.
Because when we grieve a loss, what we are really doing, is learning to understand ourselves without the something or someone who was once a part of our identity and is now gone.
What are we without that person? That job? That community?
That sense of purpose? What are we without the day to day responsibilities of a parent, once our children have moved out of the home? What are we without that career once we retire?
Until we begin to answer these questions, the logistics of grief will only be just that – a list that can be completed, but that may not help us feel more ready to face the world and move forward.
A lot of this grief work, involves how we remember the person or thing we have lost – how we interpret our memories of the role that person or position played in our lives.
When we experience a collective loss, it is even more complicated, because as we begin to do this work individually, as we begin to review and retell our memories we may start to notice
that we are answering the “who are we now?” and the “what now?” and even the “what really happened?” questions differently.
Yehudah Kurtzer, of the Shalom Hartman Institute, who has been, for me, a voice of stability and sanity in this year’s pain and chaos, spoke recently on one of Hartman’s many brilliant and highly recommended podcasts about Jewish identity in Israel and in the Diaspora.
Reflecting on the first anniversary of October 7th, he said: “I’m worried … aware that many of us remember and are processing these events very differently. (When) personal memories get subordinated to a collective official memorial event, it can sometimes feel alienating and wrong. There’s nothing worse than getting memory wrong,” he said.
This morning, I shared a little bit about the harmful impacts of denying the painful histories of others, something which Kurtzer describes as a, “dangerous human instinct that has been bad for the Jewish people and (that also) we shouldn’t (perpetuate). “It’s an instinct,” he says, that, “misunderstands memory entirely.”
“But,” he continues, “there (is also) a less malicious way of getting memory wrong, which lies in questions of timing and ritual and the politics of how we choose to remember something and why.
Kurtzer reminds us that memory is different to history. In his book, “Shuvah”, he argues that “history informs, while memory obligates.” “Memory,” he explains, “is the technology that we use, sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously, to assimilate the past into our present and our future. . . The way that we derive meaning selectively from events in our past will shape how we act and (will) shape our values. . . “
Right now, he points out, we are, “forming the version of our past
that our descendants are (going to retell) one day. And here too,” he says, “there (is) a real risk that we’re (going to) get it wrong. . .
Kurtzer notices, that over the past decades, as we have concretised and ritualized Holocaust remembrance, “we (have) heard a lot of testimonials from survivors … but we (haven’t) narrate(d) much of it ourselves.”
In other words, we intentionally hear, read, and tell the stories, but we don’t integrate them into our own stories with the same conscious intention.
This, Kurtzer says, “would be like having (a) Passover seder where all we did was listen passively to the recorded testimonial of an Israelite (slave) … and not making connections between the story of the Exodus and the stories of our own lives and lived experience.
“Memory,” Kurtzer says, “is supposed to transform an event
that happened to our ancestors (in)to something that happened or is happening to us. . .”
“What’s more”, he continues, “you can see the lack of coherent,
fully formed memory about the Shoah in so much contemporary Jewish infighting…”
Many of us may have experienced the pain of hearing that Reform Judaism, which originated in Germany, was responsible for the Shoah because God was punishing us for “abandoning” the commandments.
This morning I spoke about the positive lessons that we can learn from our trauma. But the ways in which we interpret our collective traumas, if we use them to point blame at others, can also be disastrous.
So what are we supposed to do about an event like October 7th, Kurtzer asks, “which didn’t take place 3000 years ago, or even two generations ago, but just a year ago?
And what about the fact that we’re not yet at a place where there was an event and an aftermath? It’s more like we are still in some ways inhabiting the original event.”
“If memory creates obligation (as opposed to blame),” he suggests, and “if memory forms identity (in positive ways), then it (can be) a really powerful tool.”
Kurtzer references how our Sages famously transformed Hanukkah through narrative, and through religious obligations, “to become something very different than the military holiday that they (had) inherited.” An historical event that might have been used to teach or justify holy war and religious zealotry, instead, now focuses us on miracles and light.
“But how many centuries did it take?” Kurtzer asks.
I wonder: How much distance do we need from a loss? How much time, before our memories lose the sting of grief, anger, despair and regret, and can start to become instructive in positive and productive ways, rather than being weaponized for retribution?
“Meanwhile,” as Kurtzer reflects, “even without any concerted efforts, October 7th is going to flow throughout the religious rituals
of these three weeks in the Jewish calendar . . . Memory making will happen whether we try to engineer it, or whether it simply emerges on its own. . . ”
“Most of all,” he concludes, “I believe in stories. . .Stories about the past, whether we remember the details correctly (or not), those stories appeal to something in our brains and in our souls
that begins the process of translating event(s) (in)to meaning. . .
The stories that we tell are ultimately the bricks that build the castle in our consciousness that is memory,” he writes. “a structure that will stand the test of time.”
Some of you know, that it has because a practice of mine to use this time in the Yiskor service, to reflect on the life-story of someone from Jewish history, or from the history of our own community.
This year, as part of these early attempts for us to translate the memory of October 7th into meaning, it feels only appropriate to share a few of the stories of those who were lost on that day.
But which stories to tell?
1200 lives lost on October 7th, (which is only a fraction of the lives lost in the year since then), means there are 1200 stories and more, to choose from. Each life lost was a universe unto itself.
On the table in front of me, there is a 17 page booklet, listing the names of all those lost on October 7th. And recently, a rabbinic classmate of mine shared a document containing biographies of everyone who died that day. It’s 146 pages long.
From it, I selected just a few stories, mostly at random, but also to try to acknowledge various categories of loss.
Mordechai Amir, known as “Modi” by his loved ones, was 67 when he was murdered by Hamas in his home in Kubbutz Kfar Aza.
His son-in-law Yony, relates that Modi was, “a computer guy in hi-tech companies, an amateur electrician, plumber and carpenter, a man who was quick thinking and who always knew
how to find the most practical solutions.”
His daughter Anat wrote that Modi, “loved to laugh, and was very funny. He wouldn’t tell jokes, but he would tell his stories and his struggles. He had a natural talent for it and a charisma that made him the center of every conversation.”
“He believed in work, and he did everything himself. Both because he was hardworking and enjoyed it, and also because he didn’t trust other professionals who didn’t meet his standards. . He built most of his family home himself. . .” He was smart and resourceful, was an optimist and loved ice cream.
“He was the national champion of incredible hugs, and he loved his children most of all.”
On October 7th, Modi used his own body, to block the entrance to the room where the rest of his family were hiding, saving their lives. He had closed his daughters and granddaughter in, “staying outside the reinforced room, (because) he was unable to lock the door”. The girls were rescued and evacuated almost 24 hours later.
“Modi was buried on October 18th in Tel Aviv. He is survived by his wife, Batya, their children Alon, Anat, Limor and Zohar,
several grandchildren and two sisters.”
Yulia Chaban, 24, from Arad, was murdered by Hamas on Zikim Beach.
A co-worker reported that she had moved to the city only a few years before, “and had a sea of dreams and plans to help others
and to help animals. She was modest and kind and smiling. . . (She) was born in (Israel) and loved (Israel) so much.”
On the morning of October 7th, Yulia, “sent her sisters a voice note describing the chaos from the rocket fire and the Hamas invasion. . . “They came from Gaza on boats,” she told them, “we (can’t) move.”
They never heard from her again.
Yulia was with her boyfriend, Abed Ziyande, who was also slain. She is survived by her parents, Sergei and Ksenia, and her sisters Katya and Olya
Awad Darawshe, 23, was a paramedic, who died while trying to save others at the Nova festival.
His cousin, Mohammad Darawshe, is the Director of Strategy
at the Givat Haviva Center for Shared Society, a leading figure in efforts to bridge gaps between Arabs and Jews.
Awad was, “near the site of the music festival (and) his friends begged him to leave, but he insisted on staying to treat the wounded.”
He is hailed by the Israeli Foreign Ministry as a hero.
The Simon Tov family – Tamar, 35, Yonatan, 36, their 5 year-old twin-daughters Shahar and Arbel, and their son Omer, who was 2,
lived together on Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Tamar, an artist, was from Jerusalem, and Yonatan, known as “Johnny”, was raised on the kibbutz. They met during their army service.
Johnny worked on the kibbutz, where he was the operations manager for the tractors and agricultural tools. “He was an admired figure . . .the one everyone wanted (to love them) . . .The one all the (volunteers) spoke about. He managed everything with a smile and a huge passion for the fields of the kibbutz.” He was also, “a true handyman. Everyone knew that if you needed help, you go to (Johnny), and the answer was always yes.”
Tamar was running to be mayor of the Eshkol region. “She was an educator and a social entrepreneur.” Her sister Noa relates that, “everything she touched was a masterpiece. Everything got a creative treatment. When Yonatan had to explain something to the Thai farm workers (Tamar) would make them drawings
(to bridge) the language barrier.”
Noa spoke of the “great love between (Johnny and Tamar). They had “perfect synergy. With their three children, “they were a happy family.”
On Oct 7th, Johnny and Tamar were shot through the window of their home but managed to keep it closed. When the terrorists tried to smoke them out, they made the impossible choice to die together as a family, from smoke inhalation, rather than risk more violence deaths outside their home.
All six members of the family perished, along with Johnny’s mother, Carol, who was killed in her own home on the kibbutz.
Tamar is survived by her parents Gadi and Reuma. She and Johnny are both survived by siblings.
Baruch Dayan HaEmet
Four stories out of more than a thousand.
A thousand stories out of how many more?
Soldiers and civilians. Israelis and Palestinians.
Citizens, refugees, Bedouins, migrant workers.
Doctors, farmers, politicians and musicians.
Paramedics and police, artists and beach-goers.
What meaning can we make from these memories?
Why do these stories matter?
Each of us will have to determine how to integrate these losses into our lives, and how to do so in a way that points us toward a life of blessing, through inspiration and encouragement, and not for a life filled with bitterness, anger, hatred or revenge.
For me, these stories are a reminder of the preciousness and fragility of life – of all lives; that it doesn’t matter who we are
or what we are doing in our lives – whether we are young or old, parents or children, working with our hands or working with our minds; whether we are Jews or Muslims, Israelis or Arabs, men or women.
It doesn’t matter whether we are sleeping or dancing.
Whether we are peace activists or skeptics.
Whether we love Israel or not.
When the end of our life comes, it comes. It may come violently or peacefully. It may come soon or not for decades. But whatever we are doing with our life, it might end at any time, in any number of ways.
Who by fire and who by water.
Who by plague and who by famine.
This is the message of the Days of Awe.
The message of October 7th.
The message of Life.
Death comes for us all. We can try to break it down into something we cope with through a list of tasks and rituals, or we can accept it, however awful the circumstances, and find a way to turn memory into meaning.
What are we, now that they are gone?
If nothing else, let us be people who remember to live our lives now, to the fullest, and to the best of our ability. If this should be our last year, let us make sure we are living lives that will inspire and encourage others when we are gone. Let us be remembered as happy and loving, as peace-seeking, and brave, as those who aspire to help others, and who strive to make the world a better place.
This is the checklist of our lives.
This is how we remember.
This is how we go on.
Kein Yehi Ratzon
