Epitaph and Destiny
Rabbi Ron Shulman
He’s already installed and inscribed his tombstone. He’s recruited a rabbi to preside over his funeral. He’s been saying some goodbyes. He insists he no longer caries any grudges; well, maybe just a few. He’s issued an apology or two and even confesses to a few regrets…”
This New York Times description of Ed Koch got my attention. He’s now 85 years of age, relatively healthy, and prepared to die; more accurately, prepared to be buried. The former mayor of New York has established a monument at his cemetery plot. It’s been engraved with his epitaph and only lacks the date of his death.
I’ll admit this level of preparation makes me uncomfortable. There comes a time in our lives when we show our loved ones great kindness by making the necessary “pre-need” arrangements for our funerals. In the surge of sad emotions when a loved one dies, it is a comforting relief not to face the logistics of making funeral arrangements.
Up to a point. At a recent burial, I was surprised to look up from the grave and read the deceased’s name already inscribed onto the stone. It was done a few years back when her husband passed away. She wanted to know what it would look like; and it was cost effective. I respect that we each confront our mortality with a unique sensibility. To know we will die is both unsettling and motivating.
We learn from life’s limits something important. We know that there could be no growth, no progress, no hope, and no future if generations did not come and go. There would also be very little meaning to our lives if our days were not marked by the boundaries of time, of moment, and of urgency.
Consider that we feel the rush of time more as we grow older. Our sense of time’s speed comes from having experienced more with every passing year. Time seems to pass more quickly closer to the end rather than the beginning of what we are doing. As a result, each day we live becomes more precious than the one before it. All that we do becomes more pressing and significant. Everything we hope for becomes more heartfelt and sincere.
The Jewish instinct is for life. Living fully and responsibly includes making plans for when we die, to a point. But, let’s remind ourselves not to blur the line between life’s fleeting sanctity and death’s eternity by seeing ourselves “as dead” while we’re alive.
I met Ed Koch many years ago. As part of a speaker’s series I hosted, he was invited to share a private dinner with some of us before his lecture. The dinner guests were asked to arrive about 30 minutes before the Mayor. We were sharing drinks and conversation when he arrived. Never in my life have I witnessed someone “work a room” like Ed Koch did that evening.
He walked up to each and every guest, extended his hand and exuberantly introduced himself. First impression on us all, Ed Koch is full of life and energy. These many years later it doesn’t surprise me to read that Mayor Koch continues to work and maintains a regular exercise routine.
What does surprise me is the epitaph he has written and placed on his tombstone. He quotes Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who said, “My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish” before his cruel murder at the hand of Islamic terrorists in 2002. Ed Koch’s epitaph continues.
“Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Ehad. Hear O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” He was fiercely proud of his Jewish faith. He fiercely defended the City of New York and fiercely loved its people. Above all, he loved his country, the United States of America, in whose armed forces he served in World War II.”
In summarizing his life and how he chooses to be remembered, Ed Koch is proud. Proud to be a Jew, proud of what he did, and proud to be an American. I’m surprised by the order, and his focus on being Jewish. Aware that he was, being Jewish was never my primary association with his name or career.
The mayor’s declaration is also instructive. If we aren’t clear about who we are and what we believe in the last years of our lives, then who were we becoming when we were younger? What truths did our accomplishments and failures, our joys and pains reveal to us, and about us?
As Ralph Waldo Emerson observed, “Life is a journey, not a destination.” We travel through the years seeking more than our place. We seek our destiny. Life’s most illusive goal is to understand, to achieve self-awareness and personal purpose.
This doesn’t happen suddenly, all at once, in a flash or a moment. The apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon reminds us, “Understanding is the gray hair of humanity.” Understanding ourselves and our destiny occurs gradually, over time. We achieve greater definition and clarity with every accumulated spark of recognition, intuition, and discovery.
This is the fullest way to live, seeking our destiny by focusing on our journey. No day ought to pass void of values to inspire us, ethics to guide us, and relationships to ground us. This is the essence of a Jewish life. As I told our High School graduates earlier this week, “To be Jewish is to be given the symbols, insights, celebrations, ideas, and ethics, in other words, the spiritual tools, of a tradition whose goal is the refinement and goodness of every human being, created in the image of God. To live life guided by these measures of our own humanity gives expression to that which is unique and sacred about each of us.”
That’s why we remember our loved ones today. Understanding of who they were is vital to clarifying who we are, and still aspire to become before we’re done, before the proper time comes for writing our epitaphs.
This is what Yizkor is about. We remember our loved ones from whom we learned real truths about life. We hope to integrate those lessons into our own experiences, to honor what we say about those whose lives are encapsulated in our memories by living with their best values and ethics in our current relationships.
We grow to know more about ourselves by remembering so much about them. As in time, our children will discover something more about themselves through what they’ll acknowledge about us. Ultimately, unlike Ed Koch’s tombstone epitaph, what matters is not what we may say about ourselves, but what others will say about us.
Notice the modesty of the plaques placed on the Memorial Wall in the back of our sanctuary. No space there for descriptive words, for formalized memories. On Memorial Plaques our loved ones’ names evoke their memory. In here only names live on in the consciousness of our synagogue community.
Gazing at a Memorial Wall we think about those whom we remember. We recall something of our loved ones’ characters and significance to us. Our memories, their influence upon us, and our on-going discoveries become their legacy.
No one of us sees his or her name memorialized on such a wall. We dedicate Memorial Plaques to honor the dignity of other people’s lives, to recognize our own destiny, and to remember that we are still striving to become.
© 2010 Rabbi Ronald J. Shulman
