Torah Portion

How To Turn Memories
Into Lasting Blessings

honor their memories. This, in turn,
gives glory to God and leads to atone-
ment.
It seems to me that this phenome-
non applies even to the deaths of people
who are not broadly recognized as
saints. When rabbis prepare eulogies,
we investigate the life of the deceased
he presence of death hovers
for beautiful and inspiring qualities.
over this parshah (Torah por-
Why? One motivation is certainly to
tion), and yet the effect is
honor the deceased by recalling their
oddly uplifting.
finest moments. But there is a second
There is something redemptive
motive that is equally important. The
about the various contexts in which
eulogy may honor the dead, but it is
mortality is presented, something which
addressed to the living. It
indicates that it is the response
challenges everyone present
to death, rather than its brute
to listen and to respond by
reality, which defines its ulti-
upgrading their own conduct
mate meaning.
in preparation for their own
We begin with the red
funeral some day.
heifer ritual, whose 2urpose is
When we say that, yehei
to purify the living after physi-
zichrono livracha — let his
cal contact with the dead. The
memory be a blessing — we
mechanics of this ritual
mean a blessing among the
response are famously mysteri-
living. For the grave itself is
ous; yet the power is readily
RABBI DANIEL not an impermeable bound-
perceived.
ary between the living and
NEVINS
The red heifer allowed our
the dead The dead depend
Si. ecial to the
ancestors to create holiness in
upon the living to preserve
Jewish News
response to death, to juxta-
their memory and even to
pose the mitzvah of burial
elevate their souls via prayer,
with the mitzvah of return to worship.
study, tzedakah (righteous acts) and acts
As distant as the exotic ashes of red
of love. Yet the living depend equally
heifer seem today, they remain a fitting
upon the dead to motivate such conduct
symbol for the Jewish response to
and thereby to atone for their .own sins.
death.
We are told in the Midrash that the
A more frontal engagement with
deaths of Miriam and Aaron each left
mortality lies at the very center of the
our ancestors deprived of certain bless-
parshah. First Miriam and then Aaron
ings. With Miriam went the miraculous
are called from this world to the next.
well. With Aaron, the clouds of glory
We need not imagine the devastation
departed.
experienced by Israel in-the loss of these
Yet these material blessings were
two remarkable leaders. Yet the sai,es
restored by Moses. The deeper and
found grounds for encouragement even
more enduring effect of these losses was
in the loss of Moses' two elder siblings.
in the response that they elicited. The
In the Talmudic tractate of Moed
death of the righteous atoned for the
Katan (28a), the rabbis discuss the nar-
sins of the people through the process
rative context of these two deaths. In
of mourning.
each case they identify a comforting
In their righteous and kind acts
principle: Mitatan she! tzadikim
memorializing Miriam and Aaron, the
death of the righteous
michaperet
people atoned for their own sins as well.
atones for others. What a strange idea!
May we learn from their example and
Judaism has generally rejected the
may our own loved ones remember us
notion of vicarious suffering that is so
in the same fashion when our own time
cherished by our Christian neighbors.
comes. ❑
How can the death of a righteous per-
son possibly atone for the sins of others?
Rabbi Baruch HaLevi Epstein
explains in his classic Torah commen-
tary Torah Temimah that it is not, in
When you hear about a funeral for
fact, the death of the righteous that
someone special, how do you
atones for the sins of others. Rather,
respond? What would you like
when the righteous die, many people
others to do in your memory?
respond with kind and loving acts to
Have you ever communicated
your wishes in a living will?
Daniel Nevins is a rabbi at Ada.
Shalom Synagogue.

Shabbat Chukat:
Numbers 19: 1-22: 1;
Judges 11:1-33.

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