Pulpit Siddur Dedicated to Avi and to Mo Handler

Jonathan Bilmes and his wife, Barbara Becker, donated last month a new Artscroll pulpit-size siddur in memory of Avi and of Mo Handler, who had died in September at the age of 93. The siddur's inscription notes the unique contributions of both Mo and Avi to supporting the daily minyan.
Mo and Avi had been well-acquainted with each other as synagogue attendees.

The Chicago Bears Defeated the Arizona Cardinals Last Night

Avi would have tried to watch the game in its come-from-behind entirety, while being cajoled by me about his homework and his need to go to sleep at a not too unreasonable hour.

If only had Avi to pester...

He would have enjoyed the game...

Nightmare...or Dream?

My thoughts sometimes alternate:
Am I living through a nightmare?
Or, was Avi a fifteen-year dream?

I still call out for Avi, even though I know that he cannot hear and that he won't come back. So why do I do it? For the same reasons why I pray for other things, like a perfect world, that won't ever happen.

At times, I imagine this dialogue:
ME: Avi, come back!
AVI: Abba, Abba, you know I can't come back. Stop calling out for me. I am dead. Stop bothering me.

The holiday of Simchat Torah concluded today. I fulfilled the commandment of being joyous, and I helped to make the holiday joyous for my fellow congregants. Still, while other fathers were stitting next to their sons, I continued to sit next to an empty pew with a tallis draped over it.

Sukkot

Sukkot this year reminded me of Avi celebrating Sukkot for his last time last year.

His chair at our dinner table inside the Sukkah was empty, with no one sitting in it to make Kiddush, enjoy the food, help bring out the food and to put up with his Abba's annoying questions.

I led the evening Festival services this year, as I had done on one of the days last year. This time, Avi was not there to finish them up by chanting the Yigdal, which concludes with the verse, "God will resurrect the dead in His great lovingkindness. Blessed forever is the praise of His Name," which Avi had firmly believed in.

When Rabbi Adler instructed the congregation this morning on how to hold the etrog and lulav, I recalled how Avi had had to hold them the opposite way because of his left-handedness.

Last year, Avi and I shared the etrog and lulav as we walked in the Hoshanot processional. I would walk part way with them before handing them off to Avi.

Not this year.

NYT: "Good Grief" by Amitain Etzioni

Click above for Amitai Etzioni's op-ed piece in Saturday's New York Times, which contains essential advice for would-be, well-meaning advice givers.

Yom Kippur came...and went.

Avi's bronze synagogue memorial plaque finally came in last Friday, after months of unreasonable delay. As I had expected, my order was not filled to my specifications. I had wanted not the civil date of Avi's death, which has no Jewish significance (the Hebrew date is what's important), but rather his lifespan, 1990-2006. I want anyone who views the plaque in future decades to know that it was not memorializing a "routine" death, i.e., in old age.

Rabbi Adler had the plaque mounted Sunday morning on the memorial board just outside the daily chapel, where most Friday and Saturday afternoon and weekday services ("minyans") are held.

This is the board that a worshiper passes by when he first enters the building through the "minyan" entrance. This is the board that Avi himself passed by on so many occasions as a regular minyan attendee. That board was not meant to have his name on it.

I viewed Avi's mounted plaque for the first time Sunday afternoon, just before the early, pre-Yom Kippur Mincha (afternoon) service. After services, I just stared at it after most of the other congregants had left.

I returned home for our special, pre-Yom Kippur fast meal. Susie told me that she had begun to take out five soup bowls before realizing that we had become a family of only four.

As for Yom Kippur itself, I went through the motions. I did stay for most of the serices, including Unetane Tokef, but I was for the most part disengaged. I occupied myself more with my duties as ritual chairman, rather than with my duties to pray. I used Avi's beloved interlinear Mahzor (Yom Kippur prayerbook), but the traditional words asking for forgiveness from God and for sealing in the "Book of Life" simply went past me. I needed Avi's forgiveness more than atonement from God, but only the living can genuinely forgive.

As is customary, I wore my kittel - the traditional white garment - for Yom Kippur. Avi lies lifeless in a similar garment.

Rabbi Adler on Yom Kippur day commented on the traditional Torah reading from Leviticus 16, which begins, "And it came to pass after the death of Aaron's two sons..." He certainly had me in mind when he asked why the brief mention of the sons' deaths should introduce the laws of the Biblical atonement rituals. He answered that God's Voice can be difficult for one to hear in the aftermath of the death of a child. Yet, it's precisely at that time that one is in most need of hearing that Voice and in attending to the Commandments.

The end of Yom Kippur starts the preparations of Sukkot. Avi always helped me to erect the family sukkah. This year, I'll do what I have to do to get through another Jewish festival, for which Jews are commanded, "You shall be joyous." Yes, I have to be commanded, because I won't be naturally joyous.