STAM
TORAH
PARSHAS
VAYECHI 5778
“FINAL
DIGNITY”[1]
NEW YORK TIMES-
It’s My Funeral and I’ll Serve Ice Cream if I Want To
ROBERT TISCH, who ran the Loews Corporation, had a
marching band at his memorial service and a packed house at Avery Fisher Hall,
all orchestrated by one of New York’s most prominent party planners. Estée
Lauder’s had waiters passing out chocolate-covered marshmallows on silver
trays. At Nan Kempner’s memorial, at Christie’s auction house, guests received
a CD of Mozart’s Requiem. Ms. Kempner had wanted a live performance of the
Requiem, but the logistics — full orchestra, chorus and soloists — were too much.
At a time when Americans hire coaches to guide their
careers and retirements, tutors for their children, personal shoppers for their
wardrobes, trainers for their abs, whisperers for their pets and — oh, yes —
wedding planners for their nuptials, it makes sense that some funerals are also
starting to benefit from the personal touch. As members of the baby boom
generation plan final services for their parents or themselves, they bring new
consumer expectations and fewer attachments to churches, traditions or organ
music — forcing funeral directors to be more like party planners, and inviting
some party planners to test the farewell waters…
“Baby boomers are
all about being in control,” said Mr. Duffey… What they want, he said, are
services that reflect their lives and tastes. One family asked for a memorial
service on the 18th green of their father’s favorite golf course, “because
that’s where dad was instead of church on Sunday mornings, so why are we going
to church,” Mr. Duffey said. “Line up his buddies, and hit balls.” Another
wanted his friends to ride Harleys down his favorite road, scattering his
ashes…
Mr. Biggins said funeral homes can do anything that party
planners can do. At his own funeral home in Rockland, Mass., Mr. Biggins
arranged a service for Harry Ewell, a man who had been an ice cream vendor. Mr.
Ewell’s old ice cream truck led the funeral procession and dispensed Popsicles
at the end. “If you call that over the top, then I guess I’m guilty,” Mr.
Biggins said. “But our business reflects society as a whole. Today’s consumer
wants things personal, specific to their lifestyle, whether it’s highlighting a
person’s passion for golf or celebrating someone’s deep devotion to knitting or
needlepoint” …
After the Torah records the passing of Yaakov Avinu, the
pasuk states: “Yosef commanded his servants, the healers, to embalm his
father.”[2]
Rav Moshe Sternbuch[3]
explains that Yosef made to sure that only those who he felt were trustworthy
to deal with his father’s body in a manner permitted by Torah law, were permitted
to touch the body. The embalming process performed with Yaakov’s body only
utilized methods that weren’t at all invasive, or made any marks on the body. Only
external mummifying was performed. The usual practices performed by the ancient
Egyptians however, are prohibited by Torah law, and are a terrible disgrace of
the body. It is impossible to entertain the notion that Yosef would have
allowed any such thing to happen to the body of his saintly father.
Part of the richness of our traditions includes the rituals
and laws we adhere to with regards to the final dignity accorded to a body
after death.
When Haman decreed mass genocide of the Jewish People, it
included incinerating the dead bodies.[4]
That nefarious objective reflects a true idea – that even the body of a Jew
retains a degree of holiness, after the living soul had departed from it.
The Torah relates that the funeral procession for Yaakov
Avinu was “a great and very imposing eulogy”[5].
In explaining the purpose of eulogies, Shulchan Aruch[6]
states: “The mitzvah is that he (the eulogizer) will raise his voice to recount
about him (the deceased) words that break the heart, to increase crying.”
Our world doesn’t like
to cry or shed tears. We view it as weak and we do our utmost to hide all
traces of vulnerability, so we can maintain a false veneer of perfection and
blissfulness. We distract ourselves from pain and suffering, out of fear that
we cannot handle facing reality. Halacha however, demands that we confront the
truth and come to terms with the painful reality and magnanimity of our loss.
In fact, this is part of the great merit we can give the
deceased - to be inspired by his good deeds, and by the legacy he is leaving
behind.
The purpose of a
funeral and the eulogies are not to mark what the deceased did, as much
as it is to recount who/what the deceased was. In his eulogy, the
eulogizer is challenged to convey what kind of person the deceased was, how he
lived his life, and what were the things that made him special.
It’s a somewhat unnerving thought that most people are not
defined by what they spend much of their time doing. If a person spent most of
his life selling and trading stocks, that doesn’t define what made him unique
as a person.
As we usher in Shabbos Kodesh each week, we sing in Lecha
Dodi that Shabbos was “last in deed, first in thought”. In other words,
although Shabbos was only brought into the world after the entirety of creation
was complete, Hashem’s original motive in creating the world was to create
Shabbos – a day of connection and sanctity.
Productive people live their lives in a manner of “last in
deed, first in thought”. They have goals and spiritual dreams which they look
to accomplish. They try to live their life based on those original goals.
It’s not a coincidence that the parsha which contains the
death of Yaakov is called “Vayechi” – Yaakov lived. One of our traditions is
that one’s soul transcends death through the legacy they leave behind. Chazal
say that Yaakov Avinu never died.[7]
One of the many explanations offered is that he lives on in all of us, his
descendants, the bearers of his legacy.
“A great and very imposing eulogy”
“Last in deed, first in thought”
Rabbi Dani Staum,
LMSW
Rabbi, Kehillat New
Hempstead
Rebbe/Guidance
Counselor – Heichal HaTorah
Principal – Ohr
Naftoli- New Windsor
[1] Based on the
lecture given at Kehillat New Hempstead, Shabbos Kodesh parshas Vayechi 5777
[2]
Bereishis 50:2
[3] Ta’am
V’da’as
[4]
That is how the Vilna Gaon explains the vernacular of the decree, "להשמיד להרג
ולאבד" ולאבד refers to the destruction of the dead bodies.
[5]
Bereishis 50:10
[6]
Yoreh Deah 344:1
[7]
Gemara Ta’anis
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