Shemini Atzeret – Yizkor 5771 – Days of Birth and Reflection
Even though the High Holy Days are essentially behind us, I relish the opportunity to embrace this season to its very end. Some of you here know that my children’s first birthday is this Saturday, October 2nd. And right now, as we approach the end of the hagim, I look back over the past year with the retrospective lens of the yamim noraim—this month-long period of reflection and transformation. I am amazed by how much my little ones, and we for that matter, have accomplished this past year. And, more than anything, I am amazed by how much my children have grown. Of course babies grow a great deal, but my arms get tired and sore now from carrying both at once—something that still astounds me when I think they used to be a mere 4lb 6 oz and 5 lb 11 oz, respectively, at birth.
As Aliza and Akiva’s first birthday approaches, I think about first crawls and first smiles, about first laughs and first tears. I think about first ear infections and first scares, about first discoveries and first solid foods.
However, after this wonderful year of firsts, capped now by an upcoming first birthday, I realize that as individuals, we are not fully in touch with our aging or the passage of time until we have a true marker of time in our lives. Perhaps we eventually notice wrinkles or gray hairs. And then there’s the chance that our metabolism slows down or our constant ability to be spry diminishes. But in truth, when an external marker is clear and present, time evolves into a sense that it is forever fleeting. I look at my children and now I think, “How has it been a year already? How have they gotten this big?” I see how quickly they transform and transition and I begin to lament, “where has the time gone? Where has all my time gone? Where has all of their time gone?”
Far too many of us are uncomfortable about our birthdays, about aging and about admitting to getting older. We joke about our age when asked—at what age is it that we start offering younger numbers or using ballpark figures and euphemisms like 30-something or 40ish or over-50?
From a purely halakhic perspective, there are those nay-sayers who suggest that the celebration of birthdays is a pagan ritual, but even the great rabbi and physician, Maimonides, didn’t cast aspersions on such celebrations provided there wasn’t any idolatry present (Hilkhot Akkum V’Hukkotehem 9:5).
But really, these discomforted individuals are not uneasy because of Jewish law. They are scared of the end. They are scared of being alone in their old age.
And then there are those who are opposite these uneasy individuals—and perhaps they have it figured out completely. My mother is someone about whom I would never refer to as “old,” and when she reaches her senior years, God-willing, one day, I probably will not call her “old” then either. My mother is someone who celebrates each birthday with emphatic vim and vigor. I recall year-after-year my mother’s bewilderment: “How can people not be excited about their birthday? It’s another year alive! It’s another year of accomplishment! It’s another year to walk this earth! How blessed are we!”
I suppose that’s the hiddush – the novel insight – I knew but never fully realized or understood until Aliza and Akiva arrived, and really, until their birthday coincided with the end of the hagim—birthdays celebrate the past to give us energy and hope for the future.
And now we reach the end of these hagim. Today, we celebrate Shemini Atzeret, a day our God established merely to rest and to celebrate. A celebration that comes at the tail-end of our previous celebration of Sukkot—yet another opportunity to reflect on the ephemeral.
Yesterday, we put down our lulav and etrog. And now we cross the threshold as the etrog transforms. It will not serve us again in the same capacity next year as it did this year. For some, the etrog is merely discarded. But we just cried out during the Shema Kolenu over the High Holy Days: Al tashlichenu l’et ziknah—don’t cast us out during our senior years! We still have a purpose. We are still living and can embrace life. Other etrogim, they become liqueur or candy or jam or marmalade. And still for others, they become the vessel for cloves and b’samim for havdalah.
Even the etrog, once bright, beautiful and sweet, it also ages. And though on the surface it may wither and fade, in the proper hands and with the proper motivation, the etrog transcends its current purpose in life, and finds a new purpose—a way to retain its sense of self and provide nourishment and fulfillment to all who seek it—the pri etz hadar: fruit of the tree of beauty, internal and external. If the etrog symbolizes the heart of the committed, then that heart beats on with fervor, long after this festival comes to a close, long after this season of teshuvah ceases.
Teshuvah literally means turning in step, or better, turning around, re-turning. Our repentance, our goal of doing an “About, Face,” leads us into the months following the hagim looking backwards while spiritually and emotionally moving forwards.
Looking backwards spiritually and emotionally moving forwards. Yizkor. Embracing the memory of who we were and seizing it to determine who we are to become. We think about all of the lives that touched us over the years, and all the lives we have had the opportunity to touch as well. And we think about our time. We think about the now. Yizkor. We call out to God at the end of this Holy Day season and we plead with God to remember us and remember our loved ones. We plead to God to help us not to forget—help us not to forget who they were and who we can still be. Though we recognize that we all will one day face our last day, we cry out to God to give us the strength to live life inspired by our own potential for growth and not be paralyzed by the fear of our end.
As we stare out into the year ahead, let us praise the Holy Blessed One for new life and for a new lease on life. Let us celebrate our birthdays with boundless joy, each day with boundless joy. Let us thank our Maker for the opportunity to count another year. And let us all move into the months that follow these hagim with our best foot forward, marking the pages about which we’ll be grateful when we reflect on the Book of Life next year at this time.
