Avi: Hey, who died?
[Shira] Uh… Still Mom. I’m trying to remember that sort of good casserole Mom made. I have to bring an entree to a potluck.
Avi: Maybe it was a mushroom casserole?
[Shira] No, she made mushroom knishes. I don’t wanna deal with the dough.
Avi: Right, the knishes and She always complained about how hard they were to make.
[Shira] “What, I should make something easy? Only the best for my children.”
Avi: “For you, I suffer.”
[Shira] Yeah, so forgive me, I don’t want to make the hard knishes.
It sucks that I can’t just call her. When she died, I knew there’d be no more big moments, but I wasn’t ready for all the small stuff I’d no longer have access to. I can’t just google, “What was my mom’s easiest recipe?”
What a line. So much truth and so much wisdom from an animated Netflix series that just came out called “Long Story Short.” The show follows a Jewish family, jumping back in time through childhood vignettes and the children’ s and pathways navigating
adulthood. Avi and Shira are two of three siblings still struggling with the loss of their mother who died during covid. She is portrayed in the most stereotypically Jewish way, but it comes through so earnestly and the characters are portrayed by Jewish actors so fluently that I can literally see my own family in scene after scene. It sucks that I can’t just call her, no one tells you about the small things.
Avi: Broccoli casserole! Mom made it when we got invited to dinner last minute. Ah?
[Shira] Yes! When you’re invited because someone better canceled, you make broccoli casserole. Think Mom would judge me for making something so easy?”
Avi: Yes, but… look, she’s not here, so… [clicks tongue] If she wanted to judge you, she shouldn’t have died…
So in the end Shira tries to make the hard recipe – the mushroom knishes. She does it the first time, exactly like the recipe she received, she tastes them, but they don’t taste quite right, and she throws the whole thing out. Then she drives all the way out to her dad’s house to get her mom’s handwritten recipe note cards. She
frustratedly goes through every step – I did this already! I did this already! Until she reaches the page with the handwritten note that crossed out “Four cloves of garlic” and above it in her mom’s handwriting it says, “Eight. Shira likes it extra garlicky.”
And that’s the secret. Do you have those handwritten recipe cards? The ones you still use even though you’ve typed up the recipes already, or even though you’ve cooked the dish a million times and know exactly how they did it? Can you see the handwriting? My father still uses the tattered notecard he has from his great aunt to make fried matzah every pesach, even though he could do it blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back at this point.
Growing up my mom would read the same Shabbat prayer poem every Friday night from the tattered notecard my grandmother had mailed to her, even though she had retyped and laminated a new copy and even though we all had the entire poem memorized. “We are grateful O God for the heritage of Shabbat, and for the companionship of those with whom we have gathered.
May our coming together help to banish worry and anxiety, and enable us to share moments of true Shabbat joy.
May the hands of those who break bread together be hands of friends and family who strengthen and support one another. May the voices which chant and pray on this Shabbat be voices of kindness and truth at all times.
Grant us the capacity to value our friends and family and to enrich the lives of those whom we love.
May we deepen our concert for all your children, and renew our devotion to our people and our faith.
On this Shabbat which we share together, help us to feel your presence, O Source of Life and Love.
Shira tastes the knishes. “It’s garlicky,” she says. “Like, so garlicky.” She tears up. “They’re just like mom’s.”
Who are we when those who shaped us are no longer with us? How do we continue to carry them with us long after they are gone? We converse with them, we remember what they would say in a given situation. We still ask ourselves if they’d judge us, if they would be proud of us. Today we have come to remember. We have come for these exact memories. Who have you brought with you this Yom Kippur? Where are you with them right now?
Yom Kippur is the day when we are closest to death ourselves. We stay in one place basically all day, we dress in white like our burial shrouds, we don’t eat or drink, we hover between life and death, unsure of which side we will fall on. And so of all the days to remember our loved ones, today becomes the most vivid – the closest we can get to being in conversation with them again. To relive the memories.
“I’d like the memory of me to be a happy one,” writes Helen Lowrie Marshall in her poem, “The Afterglow.”
“I’d like to leave an afterglow of smiles when day is gone. I’d like to leave an echo whispering softly down the ways,
Of happy times, and laughing times, and bright and sunny days, I’d like the tears of those who grieve to dry before the sun,
Of happy memories that I leave when life is done.” This morning, what are you feeling in the afterglow?
We invite up the choir to join us in opening our Yizkor service this morning with the words of Psalm 103:
ֱ֭אנשׁוֹ ֶכָּחִ֣ציר ָיָ֑מיו ְכִּ֥ציץ ַ֝הָשֶּׂ֗דה ֵ֣כּן ָיִֽציץ׃
A human being, their days are like those of grass; they bloom like a flower of the field; a wind passes by and it is no more, its own place no longer knows it. But God’s love, along with the love of those who have left us is for all eternity, for our children and for our children’s children.
Choir Sings Enosh
Turn to page 684 (Then Sheree announce ark opening) Page 684 – Adonai mah adam vateda’ehu, ben enosh vatechashveihu. Adonai, What are human beings that you take account of them, mortals that You care for them?
Page 684 – Read responsively then sing Shiviti
May all the memories of those you have come to mourn today be for a blessing, yehi zichram baruch. We now take a moment for Personal yizkor prayers as we remember our loved ones who we have lost.
Page 691 – El Male for six million
El male for Oct. 7th
El Maleh Raḥamim
ֵאל ָמֵלא ַרֲחִמים, ׁשֹוֵכן ַּבְּמרֹוִמים, ַהְמֵצא ְמנּוָחה ְנכֹוָנה ַּתַחת ַּכְנֵפי ַהְּׁשִכיָנה, ְּבַמֲעלֹות ְקדֹוִׁשים ּוְטהֹוִרים, ְּכֹּזַהר ָהָרִקיַע ַמְזִהיִרים, ֶאת ִנְׁשֹמֹות ָּכל ֵאּלּו ֶׁשִּנְסּפּו, ֶאְזְרֵחי ִיְׂשָרֵאל ְוֶאְזְרֵחי ְמִדינֹות ָהעֹוָלם, ַעם ִיְׂשָרֵאל ְוָכל יֹוְׁשֵבי ֵּתֵבל,
ֲאֶׁשר ֶנֶהְרגּו, ְוִנְרְצחּו, ְוִנְׂשְרפּו, ְוֶנְחְנקּו, ֻהְפְצצּו, ָעְברּו ִעּנּוִיים ְוֶנֶאְנסּו, ַהָּכאֹות ְוִהְתַעְּללּות, ְוִנְטְּבחּו ְּבאֶֹפן ַאְכָזִרי ְּבִׂשְמַחת ּתֹוָרה ַהּגֹוָרִלית.
ְוֶאת ִנְׁשֹמֹות ָּכל ַאְנֵׁשי ַהֲהַגָּנה, ִמְׁשָטָרה, ְוכֹוחֹות ַהִּבָּטחֹון, ִּכּתֹות ַהּכֹוְננּות,
ַּתְצִּפיָתִנּיֹות, ְוַצַה”ל, ֶׁשָּמְסרּו ַנְפָׁשם ְּכִגּבֹוֵרי ִיְׂשָרֵאל. ְּבַגן ֵעֶדן ְּתִהי ְמנּוָחָתם. ָאָּנא ַּבַעל ָהַרֲחִמים ַהְסִּתיֵרם ְּבֵסֶתר ְּכָנֶפיָך ְלעֹוָלִמים ּוְצרֹור ִּבְצרֹור ַהַחִּיים ֶאת ִנְׁשמֹוֵתיֶהם.
ָה׳ הּוא ַנֲחָלָתם ְוָינּוחּו ְבָׁשלֹום ַעל ִמִּׁשְּכבֹוֵתיֶהם. ְוֹנאַמר ָאֵמן.
Exalted, compassionate God, grant perfect peace in Your sheltering presence, among the holy and the pure whose radiance is like the heavens to the souls of all of those who perished, citizens of Israel and citizens of countries around the world, Am Yisrael, and all who dwell on earth,
who were killed, who were murdered, who were strangled, and bombed, who were tortured and who were raped, beaten and tormented, and were cruelly slaughtered on that fateful Simḥat Torah.
And the souls of the defense personnel, the Israeli police, the defense forces, the emergency squads, the observers, and the IDF, who gave their lives as Heroes of Israel.
May their memories be a blessing and may they rest in paradise.
Master of mercy, may they find eternal shelter beneath Your sheltering wings, and may their souls be bound up in the bond of life. Adonai is their portion. May they rest in peace. And let us say: Amen.
Before El Male for all dead
How often in a puzzling time, We turn around to mama
Asking, “What does all this mean?” How often in a quiet hour
We turn around to the beloved of our life Asking, “Do you remember when we both…?” We feel the answer.
The knowing nod near moves the breeze But there is no breeze.
The answer murmurs only in our mind. The smile lives somewhere in our eyes.
No one else can see what has sown itself in us.
We are their earth.
Our words, our accents, Half our songs, our tears,
All are flowers from their lives,
Sweetening our blood, Perfuming our flesh. Others say, “What a good person you are… We know the roots
However we two struggled when they stood beside us, From the struggle or beyond it rose
So much of us,
So much we need to keep the conversation going. “I’m my own person!” we always said.
But we weren’t. We never were. Without them we are Less.
And more.
Because their shouting colors bloom in us, if anywhere, We must move the breeze along to spread the fragrance To listen past the breezes to the blow of breezes
Where the answers (We) Begin.
El Male for all
Psalm 23
Mourner’s kaddish
