It is wonderful that many people come to visit, speak to the mourners, study a Mishna, conduct services and recite Kaddish. The family surely appreciates knowing that many share in their sorrow. It is balm to hear kind words about the deceased. The tumult is a distraction. But then it gets quiet, and the sorrow and pain return.
What everyone truly yearns for is to have the lost loved one back. A rabbi may, in his eulogy, voice this desire; it is quickly followed, however, by the statement that we all know this is impossible. A rabbi may soften these words by adding something along these lines:
“Perhaps it is possible. It is like you had a 78 r.p.m. record with a melody that you loved and you played it again and again. Then one day you dropped the record and it broke. The record is gone, but the melody remains. You have yet the wonderful memories, which shall always abide with you.”
A hearty, comforting thought – but it is sermonizing. A metaphor.
I read about an Israeli who was asked if he agrees that we should give back Gaza. He replied, “With one condition – that they give me back my leg that I lost in a terrorist attack.” From a statement like this we realize that true consolation comes only if we know we will get back what we’ve lost.
In my community there were many Sephardic Jews, not only from the Middle East, but also from Greece, Turkey, Rhodes and Gibraltar. I officiated once at a funeral of a prominent man of that origin. As I concluded the service in the overflowing chapel, the entire assemblage rose and sang “Yigdal.” It was my first such experience. They were expressing their faith in techiat hamaitim – the resurrection of the dead.
This is the true expression of consolation. There will be a revival. We will meet again. The belief in techiat hamaitim is expressed at every burial service in the recitation of the Kaddish. Yitgadal veyitkadash shmay rabbah biolmo ditatid leachaya maitaya – His name shall be praised and hallowed in the world when He shall resurrect the dead.
Upon visiting a cemetery it is customary to recite the mechayeh hamaitim benediction: “Blessed art thou, O God, who resurrects the dead.” Every day we recite this bracha in the Shemoneh Esrei. It is one of the fundamental principles of the Jewish faith as articulated by the Rambam in his “Ani Maamin.”
Ministers and priests publicly pronounce this belief often, especially at funerals. Rabbis, however, are hesitant even to mention it, ignorantly fearing that belief in the revival of the dead is Christian theology.
Why are rabbis and teachers reticent about one of the basic tenets of Judaism? Why deprive Jews of an encouraging and powerful source of condolence?
The Talmud in all its divisions – halacha, aggadah, midrash, zohar and kabbalah – speaks about resurrection. The gaonim discusses it extensively. So do all our commentators and philosophers. They delve into the subject because it is basic Judaism. From the Mishna in Sanhedrin it is evident that only believers in resurrection shall experience it. It is, therefore, imperative that Jews know about, speak about, and believe it.
Many eulogists mention resurrection unwittingly when they recite or mumble the verse in Isaiah 25:8 “Beelah hamovet lonehzach” (He will swallow up death forever, and God shall wipe away tears from off all faces, and the rebuke of His people shall be taken away from off all the earth, for the Lord has spoken so). Rashi and the Ibn Ezra say it refers to the time of resurrection. Then shall it happen, at the coming of Messiah.