Today marks the 5th Yahrzeit of my father. I always think of my dad on his birthday. It was easy, he was born on Halloween. I assumed over time the anniversary of his passing day would get easier, but this day still does not come naturally to me. This gets me thinking about a line from Kohelet that says, “A good name is better than fine oil, and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.” (Kohelet 7:1). Births are so happy and deaths are so sad. How could this be the case? On this the Midrash shares a great insight. We read:

Rabbi Pinḥas said: Man is beloved by his name, but I would not know which of them. Solomon came and explained: “A good name is better than fine oil, and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.” When a person is born, one counts to his death. When he dies, one counts his life. When he is born everyone is joyous; when he dies, everyone weeps. But that should not be so; rather, when a person is born no one should be joyous, as they do not know the challenges and actions that will confront him, and whether he will be righteous or wicked, good or bad. When he dies, they should rejoice that he passed away with a good name and departed from the world in peace. This is analogous to two ships at sail in the Mediterranean Sea; one was leaving the port and one was entering the port. Regarding the one leaving the port, everyone rejoiced, and regarding the one leaving the port, they did not rejoice. There was one clever person there. He said to them: ‘I see matters to the contrary. Regarding the one leaving the port, they should not rejoice with it, because they do not know what challenges will confront it, how many days it will be challenged, how many storms it will encounter. When it enters the port, everyone should rejoice that in entered in peace.’ Similarly, when a person dies, everyone should rejoice, and praise him that he passed away in peace from the world with a good name. That is what Solomon said: “And the day of death than the day of one’s birth.”

Kohelet Rabbah 7:1:4

While I will always think about my father on Halloween, I know that his Yahrzeit will grow with me over time. There is much to celebrate in a life well lived.

This year is particularly challenging one for me in that this is my dad’s first Yahrzeit since the passing of my mother in June. While their relationship was far from perfect, I took great comfort in having them rejoin each other in their graves. In a cosmic way things are returned to the way things aught to be, with them next to each other. This past Sunday would have been their 62nd Wedding Anniversary.

Since the advent of Elul we have been saying L’David Ori. There we say:

One thing I ask of the LORD, only that do I seek:
to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD, to frequent God’s Temple.

Psalms 27:4

During this period we want to come home. We just want to be back in the place where everything makes sense. And this is just not how life works out. One of my brothers wrote that he imagined our parents were off sailing somewhere.

During this time of the year I imagine that things are where they are supposed to be. My parents are rejoined. It is not that one ship is leaving and one returning to the port. And it is not that one is at port and the other out at sea. In this imagined state of being my parents are at home together again on the ship of the LORD all the days of my their lives. May their memories be for a blessing.