It is customary to prepare for the High Holy Days by visiting cemeteries, to reflect and to pray at the graves of parents and family members. This admirable custom, Kever Avot, affords the living the opportunity to confront our own mortality, to honor the departed, and thoughtfully to recall the time we were privileged to spend together. The monuments of granite, marble, or bronze which we see inscribed with names and brief biographical data, provide an invaluable perspective.
While those material monuments may stand for many generations, they are only suggestive of a far more enduring monument: the influence the departed had on us through their example and interactions… and through us on countless others whose lives we – transformed by their impact – will continue to touch… and on those they, in turn, will shape after us.
The Rabbis (Shekalim 7A) teach: “The righteous need no monuments; their deeds are their memorials.” Some years ago, an anonymous 19th Century laborer’s graffiti was discovered in the subterranean foundation of the 555-foot tall Washington Monument: “Whosoever converts one soul under God erects a monument to his own memory greater and more lasting than this.”
Kever Avot reminds us: when our influence and example touches, elevates or inspires another human soul, the impact can be truly monumental.
(Rabbi Joseph H. Prouser is the rabbi of Temple Emanuel of North Jersey and the National Chaplain of the National Jewish Committee on Scouting.)
It is customary to prepare for the High Holy Days by visiting cemeteries, to reflect and to pray at the graves of parents and family members. This admirable custom, Kever Avot, affords the living the opportunity to confront our own mortality, to honor the departed, and thoughtfully to recall the time we were privileged to spend together. The monuments of granite, marble, or bronze which we see inscribed with names and brief biographical data, provide an invaluable perspective.