Every funeral you officiated, you told the story of the ships: Why do we celebrate when the ship embarks not knowing what risk will befall it, yet there is no fanfare for the ship that returns home safely, its journey completed? At your funeral, we lowered the wooden planked box holding you into the ground, anchoring you home.
© 2021 Jewish Young Professional
***
Written belatedly for The Sunday Muse
Jewish Young Professional 
May you be comforted among the mourners of Zion.
-Shira
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Thank you, Shira.
*hugs* (COVID-free and if wanted).
My Rabbi passed away a few years ago. His yahrzeit is coming up, which has me thinking of him.
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*hugs*
May his memory always be for a blessing.
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Amen and thank you!
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You’re most welcome!
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“your rabbi” from childhood?
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Yeah, childhood Rabbi
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I’m sorry 😦
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That is a very good question. And an excellent poem.
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He mentioned it in all of the eulogies he gave. It was something of a signature. Thank you
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Beautiful ❤️
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Thank you!
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Wow, I love this.
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Thank you
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beautifully and succinctly told; of course, some funerals are celebrations and some go sadly awry ; I am about to embark on a magically subversive book called ‘The Coffin Confessor’ by Bill Edgar who knows how to shake things up 🙂
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You have me intrigued by this book. Dare I ask what “shake things up” means in this context?
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revelations made to the coffin confessor by the deceased to be read out at the funeral —
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Fascinating
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beautiful and poignant ❤
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❤️
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This is sad. I guess beginnings are often given more importance than endings. Maybe the journey in between just fades as time passes.
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True, and it is a bit sad that we don’t devote as much attention to the later parts of the journey
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It happens all the time. Endings are equally crucial. The end is likely what people should/will remember most about life’s journey.
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Concise yet touching! May his memories comfort you.
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Thank you so much
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What’s even weirder is that we are ships who don’t know the fanfare of either the embarking or the mooring…
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That is a good point. The fanfare, or lack thereof, is really for the people standing around not even on the ship
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Beautiful and thought provoking. Thank you for joining us at the Muse! 🙂
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Thank you for the inspiration!
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Oh wow!! That was dead bullseye. Fantastic. The boat and the coffin – perfect.
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Thank you! The boat and the coffin – both wooden vessels to transport us to the next destination…
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I really like this. Sorry to be so late visiting. Sometimes I forget to check back after the weekend.
–Shay
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Thank you! And thank you for stopping by even though I wrote this one so late.
I love your latest, “The City Inside My Head”. The imagery is just stunning.
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[…] then there were the things I didn’t have to say. When my childhood Rabbi died, you just held me while I […]
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[…] not unlike the time I went to a fundraiser dinner/dance at my hometown synagogue a few years after Hometown Rabbi had passed away. The fundraiser dinner/dance was a wildly good time and I was having a truly excellent time […]
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[…] Hometown Rabbi z”l was famous for saying “All roads lead to [our deeply boring, small, unremarkable municipality]”. It proved to be a true statement on many occasions. There would be many random people meeting in far off places discovering odd mutual connections to Deeply Boring, Small, Unremarkable Municipality, aka Hometown. Hometown didn’t even have a large Jewish community and yet the Rabbi’s quip still proved often true. […]
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