Return Us, So That We May Return

Dear family, friends, and loved ones- 

עֵץ חַיִּים הִיא לַמַּחֲזִיקִים בָּהּ.

 .וְתמְכֶיהָ מְאֻשָּׁר
.דְּרָכֶיהָ דַרְכֵי נעַם וְכָל נְתִיבותֶיהָ שָׁלום
הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ ה' אֵלֶיךָ וְנָשׁוּבָה.

 .חַדֵּשׁ יָמֵינוּ כְּקֶדֶם

Eitz chayim hi lamachazikim bah, 

v'tom'cheha m'ushar. 

D'rachecha darchei noam v'chol n'tivoteha shalom. 

Hashivenu Adonai eilecha v'nashuva,

Chadesh yameinu k'kedem.

It is a tree of life for those who cling to it, and those who uphold it are happy. 

Its ways are pleasant,​ and all of its paths are that of peace.​ 

Return us to you, God, so that we shall return.

Renew our days that they should be eternal. 

As we continue to mourn the loss we faced as a Jewish people last Shabbat, we will open our Torah scrolls tomorrow morning to Parashat Chayei Sarah, the Torah portion that remembers the Life of Sarah in light of her death. 

In this parsha, Abraham comes to Hebron to eulogize his beloved wife Sarah. We do not, however, know what he said. We can only imagine, as my teacher Meir Shweiger says, that he might have reflected on moments from Sarah’s life that would have painted a beautiful picture of her entire being. Abraham might have remembered Sarah as the mother of all of the Jewish people. Her son, Isaac, after all, is the first “heir” to the Jewish people. 

Though we don’t get to hear the words that Abraham uses to remember Sarah by, this parsha does tell us explicit details us about the burial and mourning process that Abraham engages in. This is the first place in the Torah where we learn how to act and behave after the death of someone we love. In a drash (talk about the Torah) that I heard over this past week, I learned that as soon as one hears about the death of a loved one, they are exempt from completing positive, time-bound mitzvot (commandments, i.e. prayer, blessings. What’s more than that- this is one of the only times, save from protecting life, that we are not even allowed to do these mitzvot. We are taught that, in a time of utter shock, sadness, and grief, we must let ourselves be consumed by pain and sorrow. 

Our Torah then steps in to tell us what to do next. Bury your dead, cover your mirrors, surround yourself with family and friends who will feed and take care of you, tear your clothes, say kaddish, and finally, after seven days of sitting low to the ground, let someone help you up so that you might return to this world ready to infuse it with the memory of your loved one. 

Parshat Chayei Sarah begs us to ask the question- how can we move forward in a time of loss? The structure of behaviour that Abraham engages in as he mourns his beloved wife Sarah teaches us that in the face of great loss, we must always, eventually, return. 

I began this entry with the zmira (spiritual song) that we sing every Shabbat morning when we return the Torah to the ark after having read it. As I sing this zmira tomorrow morning, I will think of Etz Chayim (Tree of Life)- Or L’simcha Synagogue, and will remember those whose prayer was cut short last Shabbat. Our Torah, we are reminded, is a “tree of life”. We can be nurtured, renewed, and uplifted by the lessons it has to teach us, so long as we remember that “its paths are that of peace”. 

We call out- “return us”, “so that we shall return”. Who are we asking to return us, and what are we returning to? I for one am calling out to myself. I am reminding myself to return to shul every Shabbat- to return to Torah, to community, and to prayer- in order that I might return the favour, and infuse the goodness that Torah gives to my life into the world. This, I hope, is how I might “renew [the] days” of those whose memories I carry with me, and make their lives “eternal”.  

So friends, I’m calling on you to join me in going to synagogue tomorrow. Join me in (doing my best to) show up on time. Sit among your family, friends, and community and show the world that you will continue to learn Torah, for it is a Tree of Life to all who grasp it. Find comfort in those around you. Use the words of our siddurim (prayer books) to inspire you to infuse goodness and kindness into our world, which so desperately needs your love. Do it in honour of the memories of those we lost last Shabbat in mid-prayer. Do it so that your kids will be able to sit in shul and use these lessons to infuse goodness into the world someday, too. 

May their memories be for a blessing, may their families find comfort in the strength of their community, and may we know hate no more.

אַחֵינוּ כָּל בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל, הַנְּתוּנִים בְּצָרָה וּבַשִּׁבְיָה, הָעוֹמְדִים בֵּין בַּיָּם וּבֵין בַּיַּבָּשָׁה, הַמָּקוֹם יְרַחֵם עֲלֵיהֶם, וְיוֹצִיאֵם מִצָּרָה לִרְוָחָה, וּמֵאֲפֵלָה לְאוֹרָה, וּמִשִּׁעְבּוּד לִגְאֻלָּה, הַשְׁתָּא בַּעֲגָלָא וּבִזְמַן קָרִיב.

Our siblings in trouble who are over land or sea, may God show them mercy, and bring them from distress to comfort, from darkness to light, quickly and at a near time.