RABBI’S MESSAGE
Some Advice – Free and Unsolicited!
Not to be maudlin, but… you may have noticed there have been a lot of funerals in our community lately. One of the passages from the funeral service includes the line, “For when we die, we carry nothing away….” This is certainly true in the material sense, but there are some less-tangible things we do carry away when we die – all the information we never shared; the stories we never told; the things we thought or felt but never said. Unless we share these things while we can – they will be lost forever to this world when we leave it.
With that in mind, I would like to offer three pieces of very specific advice. (I have more, but three is a good number.)
- If you have a Hebrew name, make sure your loved ones know what it is. A person’s full Hebrew name is included in the memorial prayer, El Malei Rachamim and is often engraved on the monument or gravestone. (A person’s full Hebrew name includes not only the first name, but also the Hebrew names of their parents. For example, if a person’s Hebrew name is Chayim, that is only one part of it. Their full name would follow the form, Chayim ben Shlomo ve-Sarah.)
If you know that you have a Hebrew name, but don’t know what it is, the best place to look for it is in old Jewish documents or certificates: baby-naming or bris certificates, bar or bat mitzvah certificates, a ketubah (wedding document).
Of course, not everyone has a Hebrew name, or perhaps any record of it is long gone. If you need Hebrew name help – please come see me about it. As long as you’re still alive, it’s not tool late to acquire or uncover a Hebrew name.
- Identify the people in photographs. It is astonishing how quickly a shoebox full of old family photos – powerful images of ancestors, stories of and connections to the past – can become a box full of strangers. Even if the people who will someday inherit those photos seem to be uninterested now, someday they may want to know who those faces belonged to. Whether you use Post It notes, index cards, or a ballpoint pen – do something to let future generations know who the people are in your old photographs.
- Share the stories of your stuff. Material objects sometimes get a bad rap: It’s just stuff. But stuff has stories, and those stories are the difference between a thing being a cherished treasure and garage sale garbage. If no one knows that a particular cut-glass bowl has been used for five generations to serve horseradish at family seders, that precious heirloom could end up at a thrift store. Even objects that don’t have a family history are brought to life and made more meaningful when they have a story that goes with them. But if you are the only one who knows the story, it’s gone when you are.
Fortunately, we live in an age when it is easier than ever to share stories. Nearly every one of us carries a video camera in our pocket. It’s as simple as opening up the camera app on your phone, clicking on video, and walking around telling stories while pointing the camera at the relevant object. You can name the video something like, “Stories about stuff.” You can even conscript a grandkid, a niece or a nephew to film while you talk.
We are a storytelling people. Telling and retelling our story is built into Jewish tradition from the time of the Exodus. And beyond Judaism, an entire branch of anthropology is focused on the study of human beings as “a story telling species.” In many ways, our stories are not simply about us; they are us. We are our stories.
But what makes something a story is not what it contains. In order to be a story, it must be shared. Otherwise, all those things we know, our stories that are the rightful inheritance of those who come after us, unless we share them, it is like burying a precious treasure where it can never be found.
So, perhaps that line from the funeral service: “For when we die, we carry nothing away…” – perhaps we should think of it not as a description of the nature of life and death. Maybe, instead, we should see it as a call, a commandment: carry nothing away when we die! The treasures of our mind – names, stories, knowledge – give it away while we still possess it. Let it not be buried, but, instead, let it be a bequest.
Rabbi Neal Schuster
nealschuster@gmail.com