Yom Kippur, Yizkor 10 Tishrei 5768 / September 22, 2007

Signor Amato di Prima was the agent of an Italian paint company. He had come across a sample of a paint that according to its developer protected one from misfortune and would quickly replace amulets, four-leaf clovers and charms in general. The challenge was to replicate the formula and then produce it on a commercial scale.

At first glance it appeared to be no different from any other paint. But the effectiveness apparently spoke for itself. A fishing boat that had been coming back empty for weeks on end, now had its nets full, once its hull had been painted with it. A typographer mixed the paint with printing ink and typos vanished. So the lab analyzed the sample with the latest technology. It deduced that the key was the element tantalum, #73 on the atomic scale. And it proceeded to duplicate the paint and soon sent a large sample back to Signor di Prima. The paint agent coated himself with it and stood for 4 hours under a ladder on Friday the 13^th in the company of 13 cats without any harm befalling him. Another person used it and within a couple of days could testify that he never had to stop for a red light, he never got a busy signal on the phone, his girlfriend made up with him and he had won a prize in the lottery. Alas, his luck ended when he took a bath and washed his good fortune down the drain.

Primo Levi’s tale, “The Magic Paint,” however, has a tragic end: a jinx had his eyeglasses painted with the coating and sadly the paint reflected back his evil eye and he died on the spot.

Don’t we wish we could get a sample of that good fortune paint? I am sure that I would’ve won the Mega Millions jackpot when it was over 300 million dollars, if only I had some of that paint. In fact, without the paint my ticket was so bad, it didn’t have a single # close to any of the winning numbers. I wonder if Ace Hardware could mix up a batch of the paint if I could find a little tantalum to toss into the mixture?

There are people who seemingly are ever blessed: the bad stuff slides off of them and/or luck always seems to be with them. But most of us aren’t so fortunate. And we look for ways to guarantee good fortune. How many of those red ribbons have been sold; those kabbalistic charms? How many wear a mezuzah or Chamsah around one’s neck as a way of ensuring mazal? How many of you still say Kayn HaRah, which is a shortened form of Kneged Ayin HaRah, against the evil eye? How many kiss the mezuzah on a doorpost—actually one touches one’s fingers to it and then kisses one’s fingers—as a way of guaranteeing good fortune or more precisely Godly fortune. [My friend and colleague Rabbi Barry Dov Lerner points out that the Vilna Gaon refrained, because he considered it as an act of idolatry, elevating the object over its contents.]

Is our coming to synagogue on this holiest of days the equivalent of kissing the mezuzah: an insurance policy? Not that I have anything against insurance policies—I have some of my own and one of my sisters-in-law sells insurance. But what do we hope to get out of this experience? That this magical paint of religion will protect us from all harm in the year ahead: say a few Al Chets, and an Ashamnu or two; if we confess to have a few sins have we done enough to ensure our well-being for the coming year?

Alas, as experience teaches us, bad things happen to good people, even to those who are religiously pious and even to those who wear kabbalistic charms.

Okay, so the paint only exists in the world of fiction and the charms and amulets which we embrace probably can’t hurt, but certainly can ensure us mazal. But more than mazal, what most of us desire is a way of staving off death. We want to hold off our appointment with the Malach HaMavet, with the angel of death.

Death is seemingly around every corner. Our government persistently shouts Terrorism in our face: death awaits us if we don’t attack them there. The headlines remind us of tragedies around the country and around the world: bridge collapse in Minnesota, mine collapse in Utah, hurricanes in Mexico and Nicaragua, and tsunami in Indonesia. Furthermore, the best selling novel of the summer, the last installment of the Harry Potter series—which I confess I read within the week of its release--, also had death as a prominent motif, as well as its in title—Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. (For a children’s book, it is astonishing the extent to which death does not take a holiday here.)

And for some of us, this past year, death reached out to us personally.

A few weeks ago, my aunt, Naomi Perlman, my father’s sister died after a long illness and an ever longer period in which this accomplished woman, with a doctorate in economics, became a shell of herself as she literally lost her mind. She was the last of the generation in front of me—it was a small cadre--. Oh, yes, there probably are some distant cousins, but they are beyond my purview, and though my first cousins on my mother’s side are a bit older than I am, the stark reality is that I and my brothers have now moved up to the head of the queue. Frankly it is scary to be the oldest generation.

Death frightens us. In a fascinating piece that appeared towards the end of the summer in The New Republic, John Judis explores the psychological impact of having glimmerings of death set before one and their impact on our thought processes. The article entitled “The Shadow of Death” shares the findings of a number of psychologists who engaged in thought experiments. In one early test people who were asked in a questionnaire to describe the emotions that the thought of their own death aroused in them and also to describe what they thought would happen to them when they died were much more willing to impose a harsh bail than those who did not have to respond to the questions. Several years ago, post 9/11, they tested people at the University of Missouri wherein 911 or WTC (for World Trade Center) or 573 (the university’s area code) were subliminally flashed. The first two awakened unconscious mortality thoughts; the area code did not. The implications of this for the political arena I leave for you to discover. At the deepest level we fear death; we react viscerally to it; we do all that we can to forestall it.

In the fall of 1959, there aired a new television program called “The Twilight Zone.” Its second episode, one of my favorites, was called “One for the Angels.” The plot is simple: Mr. Bookman, played by Ed Wynn, is an outdoor salesman, with a suitcase filled with various inexpensive items which he hawks on the sidewalk. The day has come for Mr. Death to take him home. Bookman persuades Death that he shouldn’t go, until he has fulfilled his dream of doing his big pitch, one for the angels. And so Bookman is granted a reprieve, but the day’s quota must be fulfilled and hence a neighborhood girl is hit by a truck and is fated to die at midnight, but only if Mr. Death can enter her room at that point. Knowing this to be so, Mr. Bookman sets up his traveling valise of merchandise and begins his shpiel, pitching the wonders of a silk tie and various other items and so entrances Mr. Death that the latter misses his appointment: Maggie, the little girl lives.

At this point the episode should’ve stopped: it is our fantasy; being able to hold off The Malach HaMavet, the angel of death. But it doesn’t. For once he has accomplished his mission of staving off Mr. Death, Bookman declares he has given his best pitch ever; yes, he acknowledges, one for the angels. And recognizing that he has indeed accomplished his life’s dream, he journeys off with Mr. Death, with his satchel in hand, for one never knows what they may need in heaven.

This very touching episode moves us on several levels. It moves us because we, too, wish to have our great moment before The Malach HaMavet comes calling. We further wish that we could postpone our appointment with him, by a simple declaration that we had yet to have our enduring moment, our one for the angels.

We identify with the later story line, of Bookman trying to keep Death from his appointment, as we contemplate what we and others have done in attempting to hold off death’s grasp on a loved one: our prayers, our vigils, our diligence in watching them and taking them from doctor to doctor, to one treatment to another, all to buy us a little more time with them.

Why do we fear death so much? It is the fear of the unknown. (Isaac Bashevis Singer inverted this in his story “Yachid and Yechida,” in which the real world is the world of the soul; our world, the world of materiality, is the unknown world that awaits the soul. Well worth a read.)

Soon we will recite yizkor and a cardinal component of that service is the memorial prayer known as Kayl Malay Rachamim. Within it is the thought that the souls of our departed are Tachat Kanfay HaShechinah-beneath the wings of the Shechinah. The phrase should comfort us: that the afterlife is in God’s sheltering and loving protection, Yes, it tantalizes us, but for most of us it is insufficient balm, for we cling to this life dearly. Similarly, the idea that we gain immortality through our heirs and our accomplishments serves as salve for some, but many of us would agree with what Woody Allen says, “I don't want to be immortal through my work. I want to be immortal through not dying.”

We wish for further details about the next world. It is why so many are intrigued by reports of those with near death experiences: we devour their stories of out of body experiences, of their encounters with the white light and with departed family members.

We want to know what awaits us.

Jewish tradition seemingly has been reticent with regard to descriptions of our fate. Oh, yes, there are bits and pieces here and there. There was in fact a Jewish contemporary of Dante, Immanuel of Rome, who penned his own description of hell and heaven—no limbo--, but unlike the master he didn’t populate hell with contemporaries, while granting admission to heaven to many a non-believer. Closer to our age, and more accessible—the medieval material is finally in the process of being translated into English—we find some images in the stories of the Yiddish author, YL Peretz. His “Neilah in Gehennah,” offers a passing glance at the world to come that we hope to avoid. His story of “Bunche Schweig” similarly offers a brief view of the celestial residence awaiting the righteous and the possibility of endless rewards. (You may remember that Bunche is so beaten down from his life in this world, that with heaven at his feet, all he can ask for is a hot roll and butter every morning.) Another perspective was published in 1919, in Italy: it purports to be an account of Moses’ visit of Heaven and Hell, by two Yemenite Jews and represents a synthesis of some traditional views. There Moses encounters the angel Gabriel under the Tree of Life. He further observes three jeweled thrones which are guarded by myriads of angels and are designated for the patriarchs. And beyond that he sees many thrones fashioned out of precious stones and metals with angels also guarding them. The thrones he is told belong “to the humble sages, the prophets, the saint and the righteous, and the rest belong to charitable people, penitents, and righteous proselytes, each one according to the extent of his rank, according to his honor, his standing and his good deeds; and also the honest people who did commerce honestly, and prayed with devotion, and did not speak in the synagogue, and gave charity. Their thrones are bigger than this.” Is this sufficient description of the after life? More importantly does it resonate within us?

Over the years I have attended a number of Christian funerals. They stand in contrast to Jewish funerals. Without fail, most of the former are short on eulogy, and highlight the belief in the hope of resurrection, following in Jesus’ footsteps. On the other hand, though our tradition offers the hope of resurrection and the balm of God’s sheltering embrace we emphasize the person’s achievements in this world; their enduring legacies and models. Would we find comfort in the emphasis on the after-life?

In his powerful book, The Death of Death, Professor Neil Gillman argues vigorously for re-embracing the rabbinic concept of Techiyat HaMaytim, of the resurrection of the dead. He makes a strong case for it: but frankly, that is so distant in time. What happens now? Rabbi Rifat Sonsino has authored a short book called What Happens When We Die and reminds us that there is a diversity of opinion within Jewish thought, including gilgul, that is to say reincarnation—and you thought only the Buddhists had it--.

I can’t tell you what to believe. I have ever been intrigued by the concept of the yeshivah shel ma’alah, the yeshivah on high, a concept which the late Professor Finkelstein of the Seminary shared at my grandfather’s funeral nearly 40 years ago: he averred that was where my grandfather had taken up residence and where he hoped to join him in due time. Perhaps I want a version of that: the after life is it to be a place like an Elder Hostel, with better accommodations: chances to continue to learn, to relax in God’s presence, perhaps a round of golf or two. I hate to imagine that who we are—let us it call our souls--, disappear with our physical bodies: that part of us is not ephemeral, but indeed has enduring existence. But I will admit to be an agnostic in this area: I just don’t know what will be.

I have taken you from a mazal paint to what awaits us in the world to come. What binds this intellectual journey is the desire to enjoy good fortune, be it in the here and now and be it after our 120 years.

Yizkor is one more moment when we contemplate our own mortality. We can’t ransom ourselves from the inevitable visit of the Malach HaMavet. We can, however, perhaps find hope and strength in traditional images of the after life. But it is in our recollections of the lives of the departed that we find comfort, Woody Allen’s demur notwithstanding. As we recall their lives, we recognize the void in ours, but yet can find strength as we build on their lives. I have often concluded an eulogy by citing the words of the 19^th century Italian scholar Shadal, Samuel David Luzzato. It is equally appropriate now: “HaZikaron Mekayem et HaAdam B’eretz HaChayim. Memory sustains a person in the world of life.” May it be so for the departed we recall and for us. Amen.