Facing the end of life— or even seeing that possibility in the distant future— can be a gift, for all sorts of reasons
The rabbi further confided that this led to one of his more memorable rabbinic flops. Wouldn’t it be better, he thought to himself, if I could consult with the ultimate experts on my congregants’ lives? One weekend, he distributed a form to his kehillah. The form asked: What would you like said at your own funeral? What qualities and accomplishments were most important to you over your lifetime? What would you like the rabbi to include in his hesped file?
For some reason, this did not prove to be a popular program. He did not get a single response. He never tried again.
Unpopular though it was, this rabbi’s idea was not far from the advice of Chazal. Aseh devarim lifnei mitasecha, the Gemara says; do things that you would like them to say at your funeral. What occupies our attention most of the time is not going to feature in our eulogy. The rabbi will not talk about how many hours we spent at the office; he will talk about how we were moser nefesh for mitzvos despite our busy schedule. Our families will not remember the particulars of our challenges as much as they remember the grace and strength with which we handled them.
Facing the end of life — or even seeing that possibility in the distant future — can be a gift, for all sorts of reasons. Chazal prescribe thoughts about the day of death as an antidote to the yetzer hara, a lifelong tool for giving our task the proper perspective. As much as most of us do not look forward to this stage of life, it has a way of setting our priorities in order. It seems that for a tzaddik, it is in fact something to look forward to.
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