April 26, 2011 | 22 Nisan 5771

When you think about your parents, very likely of blessed memory now, what images come to mind? What experiences, other than this time of Yizkor, evoke those images?

According to a midrash, it was a moment of personal vulnerability that caused an image of Joseph’s father, Jacob, to flash across his mind.

You remember Potiphar’s wife, don’t you? She had designs on Joseph. The Torah shares an upstanding Joseph with us, a man who wouldn’t consider giving in to Potiphar’s wife’s advances. But the midrash projects a different Joseph…one who entertained other thoughts…until that image of father Jacob popped into his head.

I never had that kind of Joseph experience. No image of my parents has ever crossed my mind in a moment of temptation or crisis. But following the deaths of Susan’s parents and especially the death of my mother, I did discover something significant about mental images of loved ones that came to mind.

Every time I said Kaddish for my in–laws and my mother, very specific images of them came to mind. Those images comforted me because I invoked them as I regularly offered the words of the Kaddish.

My father-in-law died in September 2009, and for the first time in my life, I began to say Kaddish regularly as a mourner, not an obligated one in this case, but a mourner nonetheless. As I said Kaddish for my father-in-law, I often brought to mind an image of him smiling…not a polite smile, but a big grin because that is who Carol Hart was…happy and optimistic.

My mother-in-law died in May last year and, again, as I thought about her when I said Kaddish, a visual image came to mind. God bless my mother-in-law, Ricka. She was seldom as happy or optimistic as her husband so my mental image was a different one than it was for my father-in-law. But every now and then, I saw an image of my mother-in-law with just the slightest smile we had managed to coax.

And then of course, there was the image of my mother that came to mind every time I said Kaddish. Mom died between the deaths of my in-laws, but, as one might expect, her image dominated my mind when I said Kaddish. While several images of my mother would come to mind, one particular image always came to mind…the one I shared with you in my Yizkor sermon last Yom Kippur.

Do you remember the story?

A year plus ago, I arrived at the nursing home in Minneapolis and took Mom out of a room full of people and into the hallway. I tried to talk to her, but she simply wasn’t connecting with me. Suddenly, she looked directly at me and said, “How’d you get to be so cute?”

The smile she had on her face at that moment…that is the image I summoned every time I said Kaddish. I wonder what images of my in-laws and my mother would have come to mind during the year following their deaths if I hadn’t regularly said Kaddish? I don’t know what those images would have been, but I’m certain I would have brought them to mind much less frequently than I did.

I know that to be true because once shiva came to an end for each of our parents, I seldom thought about them except when I said Kaddish. It was at that time that the image that serves to reinforce my memory of each of them came to mind.

Am I different from you and from others in that regard? Am I an insensitive or unfeeling son? I don’t think so.

Each of our parents died in a non-tragic way after living a full life. Their deaths did not traumatize us. We could whole-heartedly praise God as “Dayan Haemet.” But like many of you, I am busy and throughout the year and a half of continuous mourning I moved from one task to the next…just as usual. Kaddish became my opportunity to slow down and to regularly take what became sacred time to evoke a lasting image of loving parents I will not see again on this earth.

That, my friends, is the power of regularly reciting Kaddish. That is what I have learned about mourning the deaths of parents.

This Yizkor portion of our service is naturally evocative. No one really needs to say anything.

Images of loved ones no longer among the living rush in…no more so than when we say Kaddish as a congregation minutes from now. But the power of memory and of those images that come to mind will be most enduring as we regularly say Kaddish for loved ones following their deaths.

I have shared that thought with my congregants for many years. Now, because of my personal experience, I am convinced of that truth.

If you haven’t already done so, I hope you will discover that truth if and when you need to say Kaddish again.
Do so, on a regular basis, as frequently as possible.

I hope it is a truth that you will discuss with your loved ones so that when the time comes, they too will be open to the healing power that comes from regularly offering this unique Jewish prayer.

May the memories and the images of our loved ones bring us comfort.

Amen