Jewish Musings Monday, Nov. 6

[hollygail]

What’s on your mind — how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.

Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:

Frieda (hopefully)?
Holly
Lee
Louise
Lynne
Peachy

And for those of you that stop by to read this thread without posting — you are welcome to, but you are also welcome to chime in. Don’t be shy!

[hollygail]

Wow! Loved reading what everyone said yesterday; everyone had something great to share!

Is Nov. 19 (right before Thanksgiving) a good day for us to do a Zoom meeting together? If yes, who prefers 10am Pacific (1pm Eastern) and who prefers 11am Pacific (2pm Eastern)? (I prefer the former, earlier time.)

Back to this week's topic. One of the first actions in this week's portion is that Abraham buys land to bury Sarah. Honoring the dead (k'vod ha-meit) is central to the Jewish way of life. The way that we treat the dead is one of the greatest tests of our humanity. For this reason, the purchase of land for a cemetery is frequently (some might say "generally") one of the first things a new Jewish community might do.

In your life, what might you do to honor the dead? It can be a relative, a friend's relative, a friend, or stranger(s). What have you done? What would you like to do that maybe you haven't?

DH's 94-year-old uncle recently died. There won't be a funeral per se, but only a burial in the same cemetery as his mother and one of his sisters. It's probably going to be this week (we haven't been given a specific day) and DH doesn't want to go (I do). I probably won't because of DH, but I'd really prefer to be there. (DU wasn't Jewish; he came into the family by partnering with DH's mother's youngest brother who died in the mid-to late-1990s some 35 to 40 years after partnering with DU).

Some ways I have honored (and do honor): I say kaddish on the yahrzeit of each of my parents (as well as during the days of yizkor), of my nephew/godson, and of a man who was like my brother during our undergraduate days and with whom I stayed close friends until his death in the 1980s (his father had pre-deceased him, his mother was completely secular, and his younger brother was far along the autism spectrum, relatively non-communicative). I officiated at the funeral of the woman whose idea it was to introduce DH and me in the first place. I officiated at the unveiling of a close friend (whose mother was/is not Jewish, although she buried her daughter according to Jewish law). I continue to show up to help make a minyan when someone else has yahrzeit and for shiva at someone's house when someone is in the first week after the death of a loved one (whether I did or did not know the deceased or the person sitting shiva). I show up; it's one of the Jewish things we/I do.

[lee058]

Good morning everybody. Hope you are all well and SAFE! Please pray for Israel.

November 19th would be a great day for me for our next Zoom meeting. I'm fine with either 1PM or 2PM.

Re today's topic: I honor the dead by talking about them. As long as they're remembered, they still are alive, in some sense.

Have a peaceful day, Lee

[louise]

I do all the same things re yizkor, kaddish etc and have officiated at some unveilings. I am going to a memorial service this weekend for my niece's (she's my nephew's wife) parents. She will also be burying their ashes. One was Jewish, the other was not. I did not know her parents well but am going out of respect and love for her. For some reason my SIL (her MIL) has not decided yet whether they will attend. I don't even want to go into the details but this SIL is giving me a lot of grief of late. Most reently she took me to task for referring to my brother as "Stephen" rather than "Steve" as they do. I told her he'd been my brother Stephen all my life. Now I am self consious about what to call him on her presence. I know I have gone off topic and that this is a small thing but I'm not looking forward to seeing her this weekend (should they deign to attend) or on Thanksgiving.

[gazelle18]

I like to think I honor my Dad by trying to emulate him. And I try to also emulate my paternal grandmother, who loved her grandkids so much that every request from them was met with the same response: “Anything your little heart desires.” (In other words, I’m kind of a pushover ).

Louise, the use of Stephen instead of Steve seems to be a really silly thing for your SIL to pick at you about.

[peachymom1]

I attended my father's memorial service, not so much to honor him as to support my sisters. My oldest two sisters had close relationships with him since they were born; they were "the big girls" while the third sister and I were "the little ones." I'm glad we were all there to support each other. And I'd never attended a military memorial service before, complete with a 21-gun salute.

I said kaddish for each of my parents for 11 months, and I light a yahrtzeit candle and say kaddish for them on their yahrtzeits. In our shul, if someone is standing alone to say kaddish, someone will go stand with them. This was particularly meaningful to me when I was saying kaddish for my parents, and I always look around for anyone standing alone, so I can do that for someone else. Like our rabbi says, sometimes all you can do for someone is show up.