This is the third of three wonder sermons delivered by Rabbi Peter Kessler of Reform Temple Ohev Sholom this Yizkor on Yom Kippur. There’s a movie I’ve never seen, called “The Bucket List”. It was made by Rob Reiner in 2007 and stars Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. They played two patients in a cancer ward who escape and run away to fulfill all the dreams of what they wanted to do, that they had never found the time to do, until they knew they had precious little time left in their lives. Do you know where the title: ‘The Bucket List’ comes from? It comes from the crude expression for dying that we have all heard: ‘to kick the bucket”. As I said, I didn’t see the movie, and I knew nothing about bucket lists until I read a book recently that had a chapter about them in it. The book is called “Happier Endings”, and its subtitle is: “Overcoming the Fear of Death”. It is written by Erica Brown, a Jewish educator who lives in the Washington, D.C. area. It is a wonderful book, and I urge you all to read it. I put a copy of it in the Mildred & Irving Hand Library here at the temple in case you’re interested. There’s a chapter in the book called “A Different Bucket List” that I want to talk about this afternoon at Yizkor, the time when we remember those we’ve loved so dearly and gather as a community to honor. Think for a moment about those in your family who have passed away. Did they live lives that were filled with the promise of success, adventure, love, and satisfaction? Or did they live lives that were unfulfilled, lonely, and without the promise of inner peace? And when our time comes…hopefully not for a very long time, but when it does will we be able to say that we lived lives that were full…lives that were really lived and not lives that merely existed. One way to make sure you live a full life is to actually have a bucket list. Erica Brown suggests we Google “bucket list” for some examples of what other people have on their own lists. There are thousands of web-sites to choose from on the subject, and I copied down a few of the examples I found most interesting: Break a world record---in anything. Experience weightlessness. Go hang gliding. Ride an elephant. Feed the sharks. Go to the Oscars, and get a front seat. Learn to belly dance. Form a band, and perform at a major concert hall. Set foot on all seven continents. Learn how to work a Rubik’s Cube. Do something that scares you---whatever it is. Climb Mt. Everest. Finish a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. Watch the hundred best movies of all time. Eat at twenty-five of the world’s best restaurants. And my favorite: try to get into Area 5l, which is a highly secretive military base in Nevada. There are those who believe (I happen to be one of them) that alien spacecraft are stored there, and I guess there is no way to know for sure except by going there, but no one is allowed in, so that one is a real challenge. I won’t trouble you by reading any more. If you are really interested, you can go on line, and read these bucket lists for yourself. But the one thing that struck me as I read through these lists is that they all have one thing in common. As you read these lists, they are all about doing something personal. In other words, they are all about me, and what I can experience before I leave this world. And I think that’s kind of sad, because the world does not begin and end with me. The world is bigger than me, and I think that there is something pathetic about a person whose entire wish list, whose entire vision of what he or she wants to accomplish in this world consists of things like this. The world is not a trivial place, and therefore, I believe, a person should want to do more, and be more, than is reflected on some of these lists. Erica Brown offers her own suggestions of what should go into a bucket list in this chapter, and I think that her list is a much nobler list than any that I found on line. She doesn’t say that if you had only six more months to live, that you should visit the North Pole and the South Pole, or finish reading “War and Peace”, or have any of the adventures that come from these other lists. She says that, if you knew that your days on earth were going to end soon, these are the things that she hopes you would do before the end: Pray for once in your life with all your heart and soul. Finish your graduate degree. Say ‘I’m sorry’ to your dad and all the others whom you have hurt in your life. Take each of your kids on a separate trip. Reconcile with the friend you are on the outs with. And finally, write a letter to your Mom, and say thanks to her for everything she has done for you and your family. What I like about it the most about this list is that it is do-able, unlike skydiving and hang gliding and learning new languages, which are beyond the strength of most of us. And I like the fact that it is a spiritual list. It is composed of ways in which to take care of our unfinished business on this earth so that we can let go of our lives when the time comes, with a sense of completion. There is another marvelous book to mention, one that is already 20 years old, but still is as fresh today as it was when it was written. It is called So That Your Values Live On: Ethical Wills and How to Prepare Themby Nathaniel Stampfer and Rabbi Jack Riemer, who happens to be my uncle. An Ethical Will is a way to write a message to those we love to be read after we die, or even as we are in the process of dying. It is a will that doesn’t leave money, valuables, or the family jewels to one son or one daughter. It is a message about living a life filled with mitzvot, a life that focuses on making the world a better place, a message about how the life of the one who is leaving us was lived, either from lessons learned from their own parents or by their own interpretation of what it means to be a mensch, a good person, and the hope that the generation to follow will also live a life filled with the promise of a sense of spiritual redemption, rather than selfishness or the collecting of possessions rather than deeds. An Ethical Will is a better idea than a bucket list, because it is easier. We don’t have to do anything but leave instructions for those we leave behind…there is nothing for us to do, except hope that our children and grandchildren learn from our mistakes, and work toward the creation of a better world. Our list does not need to have some athletic or some travel experience that we had not yet had. Our last concern needn’t be to see the Grand Canyon or skydive or climb Mount Everest. Our last concern should be to form a link between our parents and our grandparents on one side,and our children and their children on the other. Our last concern should be to form a connection between our past and our future. And isn’t that what Yizkor is really all about---keeping our ties to the past---and casting a rope forward into the future?
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 15:44:17 +0000