Question 22: How do we live knowing we will die?

This is the sermon I gave on Yom Kippur morning at West End Synagogue in Manhattan. If you prefer video you can watch the sermon.

The Most Important Dress Rehearsal

Each Yom Kippur, we rehearse our deaths. 

One Yom Kippur, for each of us, will be our final rehearsal before death comes.

The difficult truth is that we won’t all be here a year from now. Some of us will have died at an old age, others far too young. Some will have passed peacefully, others violently, some in pain, others in sleep, some with loved ones surrounding, others with strangers or even alone, some in a horrible accident, others of disease. Some of us will have felt ready to die, or as ready as we can be, and others will have clung to life with all that we have. Most of us will not get to know the circumstances of our deaths until they are upon us, just as none of us know the circumstances of our own births.

A year ago on the High Holy Days, I stood on this bima 8 months pregnant, hoping and praying to bring new life into the world. I could not know how or when or even if Nathaniel would be born, but I hoped that 5785 would be the year when his life would begin. 

I also knew that it would almost certainly be the year when David Prager’s life would end. And he knew it too. By late September, David’s strength was failing. He’d entered hospice several weeks prior after a nearly three and a half year battle with pancreatic cancer. 

David knew death was coming. Not in the abstract way that all of us know on some level that death is coming, but in a looming, time-bound, certain sense. It could be days, weeks, or a couple of months, but soon, he would die. He would leave behind a partner who balanced him perfectly, a sister and a nephew already mourning the recent loss of their husband and father, dear friends, our synagogue that he poured his energy into after retirement, and our broken world that he cared so deeply about.

This morning’s Torah portion begins: “God spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron who died when they drew too close to God’s presence.” It reads as though this passage picks up directly after Nadav and Avihu brought their strange fire and were consumed by the fire of God. But this is 6 whole chapters later— after their deaths, after a discussion of kashrut and cleanliness, after rules for regaining purity following childbirth and recovery from spiritual skin affliction that is somehow also applicable to homes and vessels, after instructions regarding certain bodily emissions— only then does the topic turn back to these two dead sons of Aaron. And only in passing. They’re named as a marker of time— “after the death of the two sons of Aaron who died when they drew too close to God’s presence.” Six chapters later, why remind us of their death at all? Ibn Ezra is one of a number of commentators who say that this reminder is included because Moses is warning Aaron not to risk death by behaving as his sons did. He must follow the instructions precisely to avoid incurring God’s wrath. Being the High Priest is dangerous work, and death always hovers nearby. 

Most of the time, most of we humans try to avoid thinking about death. But Yom Kippur doesn’t allow that. As Rabbi Yitz Greenberg wrote, “In the Jewish calendar, the Yamim Noraim (Days of Awe) structure the imaginative encounter with death in an annual experience in the hope that the experience will recur to liberate life continually.” In other words, we encounter death on Yom Kippur so that we can better encounter life the rest of the year. 

A little over a year ago, shortly before the holidays, I received a series of long text messages from David. Since my hiring process in 2020, when he was West End’s president, he and I had always had a close and caring relationship, but we also had strong disagreements at times and he was rarely afraid to let me know about them. As David neared death, he and I had a number of visits. During most of them the conversation was understandably and correctly focused on him, although he did always ask how I was feeling as my pregnancy progressed. These texts were different. He began (and those of you who knew David will undoubtedly, like me, be able to hear this sentence in his voice): “It occurred to me after we last saw each other that I have not spoken my whole heart, and I have been busy instead telling you mildly embellishing stories about myself.”

I won’t share the full message— it’s long (again, not surprising for those of us who knew David) and much of it was personal. What I want to share is the intention behind his message. He wrote: “Let me speak… a larger truth.” And then he did. He summed up four years in a few paragraphs. He told me what I meant to him. He wrote about our relationship, and he shared his gratitude. 

I had a feeling I wasn’t the only one he'd reached out to in such a way, and David’s widow Sara confirmed that many people in David’s life received similar messages or had similar conversations as he sought to say his goodbyes.

 David’s death was, and is, deeply unfair. There is no silver lining to be found in a premature loss, or in any loss to such a horrible disease. But David’s approach to dying reminded me of a number of lessons that, as we approach his first Yartzeit and have our own rehearsal for death today, I want to invite us to practice together.

First, let’s remind ourselves that while the vast majority of us don’t have control over our deaths, we can work on our relationship with our mortality.

 As Rabbi Toba Spitzer put it to her congregation several years ago: “Birth and death are the two most significant things that happen to us, and they are the least in our control. Most of us are happy about having been born, but a bit more ambivalent when it comes to facing our own mortality.  The great spiritual challenge of Yom Kippur is to do precisely that:  to look our own mortality in the face, as it were, and to say - yes, I know.  What I don’t know is how many more days I have left. So let me make the most of what I have.”

David shared the year of his death with many wonderful people, among them poet and activist Andrea Gibson, who died at 47 after their second bout with ovarian cancer. During a podcast interview, Andrea spoke of the shift they were able to make from being a self-described hypochondriac to having a loving relationship with their mortality, “which does not mean joyful— like, if you’re thrilled to die— it means a respect for it. Because I think our mortality is what makes this life rich.” 

Perhaps, when God told Moses to speak to Aaron after the deaths of his two sons, it was as a reminder of his own mortality. Not just a warning— do it the right way or you’ll end up like them— but a statement of fact: do it the right way and one day you’ll still end up like them, so think about how you want to live your life while you have it. 

This leads to the second practice: let’s seek to share our hearts with the emotional boldness of someone who is acutely aware that their time is limited.

After their cancer returned, Andrea Gibson said: “Living used to mean something very different to me. It used to mean just going out and doing everything and seeing everyone and having every conversation. But for me, it means opening my heart to gratitude, opening my heart to love, and mostly being present…. I’ve never in my life loved this much…. I’m so aware of how much courage it’s taking in me to look up and to love and to acknowledge how much there is to love.” 

None of us truly know how much time we have left. Some, like Andrea and David, have a better sense than others and therefore more incentive to speak and act boldly. But all of us have the capacity to let those we are in relationship with know how we feel and to speak up for the world we want to see from a place of love.

David texted me just over a month before he died. He shared with care and with heart. In different circumstances, he might have thought such genuine sharing a risk. How many times have we hesitated telling someone what they mean to us because we don’t want to come off as too much? Closeness to death simultaneously raises and lowers the stakes of interaction. We want to tell people the full truth before it’s too late, and if it doesn’t go over well we aren’t as worried about having to figure out how to engage in the future. But isn’t it worth the risk even for those of us who hope to have many more years to live?

My son Nathaniel will be 10 months old on Saturday. I tell him I love him dozens of times a day. I smile whenever I see him, and one of the first things he learned to do, alongside babies around the world, is smile back. He doesn’t withhold joy. He doesn’t withhold anything. As he grows, he’ll learn patience and subtlety, and he’ll develop a filter as adults do. Most adults, anyway. That’s all for the good. But I hope that he won’t learn to act like people aren’t important to him when they are. I hope he won’t hold back from offering a heartfelt thank you, or a letter to a former teacher, or a tearful embrace of a friend, because he thinks it could be “too much.” We human beings are born with an immense capacity to feel. Let’s let ourselves feel, and especially when what we feel will help us connect, let’s share it with those whom we care about. 

Third, if we must choose between joy and sorrow, let’s elevate joy. But better yet, let’s make space for both. 

My Grannie M was the oldest of three siblings. She lived in California, and her two brothers lived in New Jersey and in Hawaii. Money wasn’t always easy to come by, so she, Bud and Lou had a deal: all of the weddings, none of the funerals. They would fly anywhere for a joyful celebration, but when death came calling, they wouldn’t necessarily hop on a plane. 

While my grandmother came from a Catholic family, the arrangement she and her brothers had reflects a Talmudic principle. In Ketubot 17a we learn: “The Sages taught: One reroutes the funeral procession for burial of a corpse to yield before the wedding procession of a bride.” If a wedding and a funeral both need space, the joyful procession comes first.

Rashi takes this piece of Talmud further, writing “When the bride comes out from her father's home to the wedding hall and (at the same time) those accompanying a dead body (for burial) and both groups are shouting (one group with joy and the other in mourning) and we don't want to mix the two, we reroute (those accompanying) the deceased (even) if it is to a different route.”

I appreciate Rashi’s intention, but with respect, I disagree. Joy should come before sorrow, it’s true. There is a reason that we do Kiddush, sanctifying our sacred days over a sweet cup of wine, before Kaddish. But to mix the shouts of joy and sorrow is human. It’s a reminder to those mourning that there is still good in the world even if that good feels far removed, and a reminder to those experiencing joy to be even more grateful, knowing that someday they will be in the funeral procession, and someday they will be its reason. 

Finally, let’s choose life until death chooses us. Rabbi Annie Tucker wrote in a sermon for Yom Kippur during the pandemic, when death swirled around:

“life is ultimately measured not by the special days but by the ordinary ones…the happy ones when it’s easy to show up, the exhausted ones when there are so many other things clamoring for attention, the difficult ones when being present is an act of sheer will and commitment. Speaking words of tribute at a funeral is one way to show love and honor, but so are all the many, many other words spoken over the course of a lifetime – the encouragements and soothing, apologies and affection, murmurs of tenderness, promises rendered, secrets kept, private jokes shared, and all the rest.”

It’s easy— too easy— to get sucked into the grind of daily life without taking much notice of the miracle of our being alive at all. The train is uncomfortably crowded. There’s another deadline to meet. Our kid threw their yogurt all over the floor when we’re supposed to get out of the house in 5 minutes (definitely not speaking from personal experience on that one). Doctors’ appointments. Work assignments. Caretaking. Planning for that vacation that rolls around not often enough when we get to pause and breathe for barely a moment before plunging back into it all again. 

When Nathaniel was born, I read a parenting book that said if you and your partner could spend 15 minutes a day doing or discussing anything but logistics, you were succeeding. And sometimes those 15 minutes felt impossible to come by, let me tell ya. But even when the to-do lists are long, we can choose our orientation toward them. 

In his new book The Triumph of Life, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg writes: “We can drift, oblivious to challenges and opportunities. We can slip into routines that deaden emotions, patterns that prescribe unthinking actions, and setups that leave no room for surprises. Or we can decide to stretch our minds, expand our emotional range, learn new tools and methods of understanding that broaden our vision and deepen our life experiences— in short, we can choose to grow. Making such decisions constitutes choosing life. Life grows; death is unchanging.” 

The first time that Aaron the High Priest made atonement for the Israelites, surely he felt like he was growing. I wonder if every year was like that. I wonder if at some point he let it become stale. And I wonder if the reason the instructions came with a reminder of his sons’ deaths was to keep the ritual from becoming stale. Each time Aaron went into the Holy of Holies, he would hold the responsibility of his entire people. But he would also hold the memory of two of the people most dear to him, whose capacity for growth had come to an end. 

When I think of David now, I hold three images side by side. The first is of him as he was most of the time I knew him— sporting a fedora and a wry smile, singing his heart out, bringing his all to life. The second is of how he was hours before he died, the last time I saw him. Frail, in pain, unable to speak. The third is how he was after he died, how most of us will be after we die. In a casket in the ground, with shovelfuls of earth atop us, with– if we’re lucky– loved ones saying goodbye. David. And Henry. And Noah. And Thelma. And Volker.¹ And so many other parents and children, siblings and partners, friends and beloveds. How I wish that wasn’t where we were all going. But knowing that this is our end only makes our present more precious.

Our mortality enhances our existence. It is a reminder, with every heartbeat, to live. To cherish our breath. To appreciate our mistakes and the opportunity for repair. To relish joy and to cultivate it. And to be present, and grow, through every ordinary day. As David wrote to me, “the measure of a person is not the errors but the effort, and not the difficulties but the diligence in moving forward.” 

We do not know what 5786 will bring. Certainly we are entering this year in a dark place. All we can know is that this year will be made better if each of us commits to bringing ourselves to it fully. Let this dress rehearsal for death renew us for life. 

This precious life. 

This limited life.

Don’t hold back. 

G’mar chatimah tovah

1- the names listed here are members of West End Synagogue who passed away in 5785.