Yizkor: to stay or not to stay?

My first Yizkor is in two days.  Yizkor is a remembrance service.  Traditionally only those who have lost a parent stay for Yizkor.  Everyone else leaves the sanctuary.  I used to.  After my mother was diagnosed with cancer, I was so happy to leave, knowing that the time would come when I'd have to stay.  That time is coming on the last day of Passover.  Then my brother mentioned that some say that an avel (in the first year of mourning) does not stay.  So I called my Rabbi.  He said I should stay, and that the custom of leaving arose out of a sense, no longer considered accurate, that Yizkor might be too overwhelming when loss is so recent.  I called a friend who told me that a different Rabbi had told him that the original reason an avel does not say Yizkor is that the mourner might become too overwhelmed by the grief of others, but that, in this day and age, public grief is not as intense as it used to be.  So the Rabbi suggested he stay for Yizkor, which he did, he had a good cry, and felt better afterward.  And so I will stay, think of my mother, maybe cry, and be counted among the community of others who no longer have both their parents.

How is this Passover different from all other Passovers?

On all other Passovers, we would fly to California to join my parents for the Seders; this year my father flew to New York to join me for the Seders.  On all other Passovers, my father would lead the Seders; this year, I led the Seders.  On all other Passovers, my mother would make potato kugel, gefilte fish loaf, roasted turkey, two kinds of charoset, two flavors of homemade sorbet, chicken soup and kneidlach to die for, matza brei for breakfast, vegetable burgers, dozens of Passover rolls for snacking, different types of salads, honey cake, sponge cake (and more); this year my wife and I worked to approximate some of her recipes.   On all other Passovers, we dined on dishes handed down from my Bubbe and Zady (grandparents); this year, we dined on dishes I purchased for $1.99 each at Target on the morning of the Seders.  On all other Passovers, I felt I was a child again being loved and cared for by my mother; this year I was the adult taking care of my father.  On all other Passovers, I felt a sense of wholeness in the embrace of family; this year, I worked to keep the threads of family intact.  On all other Passovers, I would have long talks with my mother about all sorts of things; this year, I am trying to keep her memory in my thoughts.  On all other Passovers, I could sleep in and go to shul depending on how I felt; this year, going to shul is an obligation.

However, as on all other Passovers, we felt joy as we completed the Seder, sang "Next Year in Jerusalem" and the other songs to "Chad Gadya". 

May I, may we all, be brought, in the words of the Hagadda, "from slavery to freedom, from sorrow to joy, from mourning to festivity, and from servitude to redemption."

Embarrassing myself at the Siyum Bichorim

Erev Pesach (the day before Passover) was rough. The night before I picked my father up at the airport.  He'd flown from California in his rather immobile state to join my family for Pesach. Earlier that day my wife had a medical emergency (nothing serious thank God).  I tried to take a short cut from the airport and ended up getting lost.  By the time we'd gotten home, I'd missed Mincha.  After attending to his needs, beginning to set up for Passover cooking and attending late Ma'ariv, we did Bedikat Chametz (the search for leavened bread). By the time we'd finished I was completely exhausted from the accumulated toll of the week's Passover preparations.

The next morning I woke up at my normal Friday time, 5:58, to get to shul by the 6:55 start time. When I got there, however, they were already up to Az Yashir. I looked at a shul calendar and realized that prayer had begun 15 minutes earlier than usual to account for the siyyum. (The siyyum is the completion of a talmudic tractate the attendance of which enables first born male children (of which I am one) not to fast on Pesach eve.  Too embarrassed to enter so late into the service and having missed the first kaddishes, I snuck out of the building so no one could see me, returned home, did some more Passover preparations, then returned to attend the 7:30 minyan. As I put on my tephilin, a man from the minyan I'd missed who had given the siyyum after the 6:55 minyan admonished me (slightly) for missing it. After davening and the siyyum, the person began reading the special, and long, kaddish that follows. He struggled, his Aramaic not being too good. When he finally he got to the familiar "yisgadal", I reflexively joined in. He and the other congregants hushed me up. He said this kaddish was difficult enough to recite without being interrupted. This was not the first time I'd begun saying kaddish at the wrong time. Twice when I was in Berkeley I'd started to say kaddish before there was a minyan. But this time I'd erred in the presence of about 100 people.   Another embarrassment.

Oh well. I guess I'll be better at saying kaddish the next time (which, God willing will not be for a while).

Why I am leading prayers?

I am, so to speak, back in business as prayer leader.  It's gotten to where I make my way to the bima (prayer stand) as a matter of course unless the Gabbai informs me that someone has a Yahrzeit.  I've continued to ask myself why.  Why does a mourner have preference to lead prayers?

Since the Shiva concluded, I've been making my way, slowly, through Leon Wieseltier's book "Kaddish."  It's not really a book in the normal sense.  Rather, it contains translations of Jewish sources related to kaddish and the child-parent relationship, interspersed with his reflections of saying kaddish.  On page 366 (the book is 585 pages, so at the rate I'm going, I should finish before my mother's first Yahrzeit), he brings sources that address my question.  It turns out that, not surprisingly, there is a machloket (difference of opinion) about the status of mourner as prayer leader.  According to the Shulchan Aruch, the classic 16th century code of Jewish law, the mourner should lead prayers only as a last resort.  However, according to the Rama, Rabbi Moses Isserles, whose gloss on the Shulchan Aruch records the Ashkanazi practice, the mourner should lead prayers.  A later authority (Solomon Luria) explains why: "because the King of Kings prefers broken vessels."  As Wieseltier beautifully puts it, "The opinion of the former is that sorrow depletes a man.  The opinion of the latter is that sorrow deepens the man."  (page 367)

It is comforting to know that the Rabbinic tradition recognizes the contradiction between brokenness and leadership.  I am chosen to lead because my heart is broken.  I have my answer.

Honor your father and your mother

Tonight between Mincha and Ma'ariv, the Rabbi spoke about the commandment of honoring one's parents.  As he noted, no time of the year is more redolent with parental duty as is Pesach, the only holiday whose obligations are fulfilled inside one's home.  The question was why there is no blessing attached to this mitzvah (commandment).  Several answers were proposed with the most logical one being that this obligation had no fixed time element.  May we be blessed, he continued, to still have the opportunity to fulfill this commandment.  And as for those who have no parents (a truly frightening thought), may we be blessed, the Rabbi concluded, to be the recipient of our own childrens' honor and love.

I don't have my mother.  But I do have my father.  All my child-to-parent feelings are now directed solely toward him.  The mitzvah can still be fulfilled, even if in an incomplete way.  I have not yet been stripped of all connection to the two who (with God) created me.  With my father coming to my home for the first time to celebrate Pesach, it falls upon me to honor him in a more profound way than ever, and through that honor, to honor my mother and her memory.