On the last day of Passover this year, I attended synagogue and participated in the Yizkor service, the special memorial prayer that is recited on Yom Kippur, Shemini Atzeret, Shavuot, and Passover.
Rabbi Sarah Graf (Congregation Kol Emeth) suggested that the fact that the Yizkor prayers are recited on four different holidays invites us to use the themes of the holiday as tools for remembering the loves one that we are commemorating.
So she selected some themes from the Haggadah, the book that we use to tell the Passover story during the Seder, to use as prompts for our reflections.
Kadesh – Sanctifying the day: When was your loved one born? When did they die? How long has it been? What kinds of days did they live through? What periods of history? What personal periods of time?
I always think of my father at Passover, because he died the second night of the 8 day Passover holiday. While buying supplies for the Passover Seder, I also buy a yarzeit candle, the special memorial candle in a glass that they sell in the kosher section of many grocery stores. It burns for 24 hours. On Shabbat morning, my synagogue announces his name together with others in the list of people that members of the congregation are commemorating as we recite the Mourners Kaddish after the torah service. My father was also born during Passover, yet another reason to think of him at this time. It’s been ten years since my father passed away. He was just a few days short of his 90th birthday. We had planned to fly across the coast to Florida to celebrate his birthday and had to attend his funeral instead.
My father lived through the period of the two world wars. But his life was probably most impacted by the Depression. He was also very influenced by the establishment of the State of Israel. An ardent Zionist. Almost all the books that he read were about Israel. He sent letters of support to multiple Israeli leaders and prime ministers and wrote fervent letters to the editor of local American papers in defense of Israel.
Shehechiyanu over the first cup of wine: What shehechiyanus did you share – in their life, and in yours?
One of my favorite prayers is the shehechiyanu blessing that is said to celebrate special occasions and in thanks for new or unusual experiences. Happily, I mulled over dancing with my father after my wedding and at the bat-mitzvahs of my three daughters. One of my favorite pictures shows me dancing with my father at the bat-mitzvah of my youngest daughter, Keren. He was 84 years old and still seemed to be in his prime. Another shehechiyanu that I didn’t think of during the service but that comes to me now is that thanks to my living in Israel, my father finally got to go there. It was in 1973, shortly after the Yom Kippur War, that my parents came to Israel for the first time in their lives. I was teaching at Haifa University and they came on one of the first organized tours – maybe through the Jewish Federation—that was allowed into the country. Many of the soldiers were still mobilized and I took some time off to travel around the country a bit with them. My parents were able to come back two times after that to visit while I was living in Haifa with my husband and small children.
The Four Questions: What were the questions of this person’s life? Their worries? Their doubts? Their curiosities? Their passions?
Throughout his childhood and most of his adulthood, my father worried about supporting his family. He loved foreign languages and enjoyed practicing the smatterings of other languages that he knew – a few words of Chinese that he picked up in his neighborhood growing up, his high school French. He never forgot the Yiddish that he spoke to his own parents. He loved to sketch and paint. He loved Israel. He loved children. He loved my mother.
Avadim Hayinu: We were slaves in Egypt. What were their struggles? Their slaveries? Their oppressors? Their narrow places?
My father grew up in a tenement in Boston’s West End. He started working at a young age doing whatever he could to help his family. I think he would have loved to study literature, history, and foreign languages, but he never had a chance to go to college. He worked two jobs for much of the time when my brother and I were children. He was rarely at home during family mealtimes. My grandfather, Papa, was at our Friday night dinners more often than Dad was. Papa also led the Passover Seders in our house until he passed away when I was a teenager. After that, my mother’s brother, Uncle Sol took over as leader and the Seders moved to his house. Did my father feel bad, I wonder now, that he did not lead the Seder, himself?
Yad Chazaka and a Zroa Netuya: Were their times that they experienced a strong hand and an outstretched arm?
There were times that my parents got some help from family. Perhaps the best change in their lives came from circumstances that at first glance seemed bad, but had some beneficial consequences. My mother had developed a heart condition in her fifties and both my parents worried about her delicate health. When a couple of friends decided to leave the Boston area and move to retirement village in Deerfield Beach, Florida, they encouraged by parents to join them. My father might have preferred to keep working longer, but he also wanted to spend more time with my mother. They managed to buy an inexpensive one-bedroom condo in Century Village. My mother was thrilled to have their own place with a modern electric kitchen and 1 ½ baths after multiple years of renting an apartment in an old fashioned building. Without the stress of his jobs, my father was so much more relaxed. The next twenty years (before my father’s health began to deteriorate) were probably the best years of their marriage.
Dayenu: What were the blessings of your loved one’s life? Their talents, their accomplishments, their moments of fulfillment? What are the blessings that they gave to you? – the gifts, the teachings, the life lessons?
When my father in his seventies and eighties, the blessing that he spoke of the most was being married to my mother. He was very affectionate and liked to give my mother a kiss or hug as he passed by where she was sitting. He would say, “I’m so lucky that your mother married me.” He loved his five grandchildren and was wonderful grandfather. He was a real people person. It used to embarrass me when I was little that he talked to everyone – waitresses, salesclerks, people standing near us in a line. Now, I find myself doing the same thing.
He didn’t hold grudges. He grew more mellow and open-minded with the years. I’d like to emulate that.
Shulchan Orech: the Meal. What were the foods they loved? Holiday foods. Everyday foods. Are there perhaps foods that you eat that remind you of them?
My father had simple tastes in food and thought anything and everything that my mother made was wonderful whether it was beef brisket, stuffed cabbage, or a simple tuna salad. He loved ice cream. So do I.
Songs: What songs did they like to sing? Or to listen to?
My father did like to sing. The song that I most associate with him is the one he sang to all the grandchildren when they were little, “A frog went walking in the park one day...”.
Thank you to Rabbi Graf for inspiring these memories.
