Tomorrow is not only Shabbat, but also Shmini Atzeret, which means we recite Yizkor for our beloved departed. We are going to explore a question the Talmud raises at least three times: Do the dead know what is happening in our lives? When we are going through hard times, do they know? Are they rooting for us? Even interceding for us? When we are going through happy times, when we are celebrating a wedding of their grandchild or great grandchild, do they know? Are they celebrating in heaven? When we say that “they are shining down in heaven on us,” is that just poetry? Or is there any sense in which these gauzy words may be true?
Many of us see ourselves as rational: When you are dead, you are dead, you don’t know, you don’t care, you don’t exist, so how could you know or care? Many of us may believe that what Kohelet writes is true: ve’hameitim anam yodim meumah, the dead know nothing. 9:5.
And yet, I have been in the pews of funerals at a local Orthodox shul, where a local Orthodox rabbi who gives exquisite, moving, poignant eulogies, offers a trope that your beloved mother, your beloved father, your beloved grandparent, is in heaven, an advocate, a melitz yosher, arguing on your behalf before God, still knowing, still caring, still working to make possible your best life. I have been there, and heard those eulogies, and seen those tears, when dry-eyed rationalists who might believe in Kohelet weep away at the notion that their loved ones still know and care and work for our best lives.
What is that? What is the question behind the question? The Talmud’s stubborn refusal to accept the inexorable logic of Kohelet is not about ghosts or spirits. It is about loss and grief. It asks the question of Yizkor: when life ends, how do our relationships live on?
