Dear TBZ Community,
I hope you had a beautiful week and did not watch the news too much (oy, it’s bad for your health!). I have the pleasure of leading an online minyan for mourners to say Kaddish every other Tuesday through MyJewishLearning (and Rabbi Sarah Bracha, my chevruta, leads the other weeks). This week I brought the online minyan into our sanctuary to teach, so I want to share my teaching in hopes that it is also meaningful for you.
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I have been coming to TBZ since long before I was employed here. I started coming when I was in college in the early 2000s when my rabbi said, “Let me take you to the shul that I go to when I am ‘off duty!’” When my dad, Gary Anderson, zichrono livracha, died I was working in a shul that met in a church and did not have the custom of hanging yahrtzeit plaques because there was nowhere to hang them. I suppose I could have bought siddurim or chumashim in his honor, and that is how some people memorialized their loved ones, but I wanted something lasting since chumashim and siddurim can change over the years. Now that I’m back home, both in Brookline, my hometown, and TBZ, my “home shul,” I needed to hang a plaque here. I spend so much time in our sanctuary praying, working, even just walking when I'm on phone calls I'll often do loops around the sanctuary. It is my happy place and today, I had the pleasure of hanging my dad's plaque here. It very much felt like hanging a mezuzah and I wish we had a formal bracha for it, but I suspect most people don’t hang their own loved one’s yahrtzeit plaques! And it feels fitting that it is during Parshat Beha'alotecha, which begins with God saying to Moshe,
דַּבֵּר֙ אֶל־אַֽהֲרֹ֔ן וְאָֽמַרְתָּ֖ אֵלָ֑יו בְּהַֽעֲלֹֽתְךָ֙ אֶת־הַנֵּרֹ֔ת אֶל־מוּל֙ פְּנֵ֣י הַמְּנוֹרָ֔ה יָאִ֖ירוּ שִׁבְעַ֥ת הַנֵּרֽוֹת
Speak to Aaron and say to him: "When you light the lamps, the seven lamps shall cast their light toward the face of the menorah."
Naturally this week I was thinking about lighting lights and with Father’s Day coming up I wanted to hang this plaque and put in the light next to it. But where to put it?
We have two beautiful faith quilts here, Chesed, which has images of loving kindness, and Gevurah, which have images that represent the energy of boundary and separation. And we have two walls of memorial plaques facing each quilt. My dad died on the 3rd day of Pesach, which is the 2nd day of the omer, gevurah she’bechesed, the boundary, or separation, that is within love. And I feel that boundary every year on his yahrtzeit, and certainly at other times. I could not have understood that separation, the force of gevurah, between life and death until it became real. Even today, 8 years later, I still very much experience my dad’s loving presence, in the things he loved and the causes he cared about, and certainly whenever I’m enjoying time with my daughter who is named after him. We say in El Malei Rachamim that a person has halach b’olamo or halcha b’olama, gone on to their world. And I feel this field of gevurah, the separation between our existences, me b’olami, in my world and him b’olamo, in his. So, in considering where to place the plaque, I heard the words of the parasha slightly differently: “When you light the light, let it cast its light towards Gevurah,” so I placed it facing the Gevurah quilt, since his death brought me to face the nature of gevurah which is separation and boundary.
In addition, Beha’alotecha, which means “when you raise up” feels even more relevant this weekend where many people consider their father’s influence in their lives, and how they were “raised up.” Rashi clarifies that the intention of this instruction to Aaron was to:
לְהַדְלִיק עַד שֶׁתְּהֵא שַׁלְהֶבֶת עוֹלָה מֵאֵלֶיהָ
“kindle the wick until it could burn on its own”
(Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 21a).
As a candle now burning on my own, I deeply appreciate the years of “kindling” from my dad (and mom, of course) and I hope Father’s Day is meaningful for those who bring to mind their fathers, living or “b’olamam,” in fondness.
Shabbat Shalom,
