Dear Friends,
Marking moments and places is important to us; after all, most of us just celebrated Thanksgiving, likely in places and with people of meaning to us.
We celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. We place stickers from places we have visited on our water bottles, bumpers and notebooks.
And, most notably, linking both themes, we erect markers at the sites where our loved ones are buried, and we visit those sites at yahrzeits, or when we can be present.
How did this tradition begin? In this week’s Torah portion, as Jacob was traveling in his return to Canaan from exile in Haran, his beloved Rachel was pregnant, and died during childbirth, bearing their youngest child, Benjamin. Of her death and memorial, Torah states, “Rachel died and was buried on the road to Ephrath, that is, Bethlehem, and Jacob set up a pillar by her burial site; it is the monument at Rachel’s tomb to this day.” (Genesis 35:19-20)
Such was our earliest recorded mention of a death and establishment of a marker at the site of burial. Yes, this was necessitated because Jacob was en route from a faraway place back to his ancestral, familial land, where the family burial plot acquired by his grandfather, Abraham, stood in Hebron, still further south of Bethlehem. Thus, if Jacob – or his descendants – ever wished to return to the site to offer prayers or messages, they would need an enduring marker to indicate the place. Hence, a stone marker was erected.
And, Torah teaches that the marker stands yet until this day. Indeed, many visitors make pilgrimage to Rachel’s Tomb till this day, especially women with difficulty conceiving, praying for Rachel’s intercession on their behalf.
Though visiting Rachel’s grave is a distant journey for most of us, visiting the graves of our nearer relatives is likely much easier. Their burial sites stand as eternal beacons and remembrances for us, and at least for me, pull me with a granite magnetism to come and reflect on my and their lives, and to tell them stories. I engage them in birthdays and anniversaries, and places to which I have traveled. It works.
This Shabbat – and this wintery season – it is a good time to bring our dear ones closer to mind, and perhaps even visit the sites where they lay in eternity. It is good to tell them our stories. It works.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
Marking moments and places is important to us; after all, most of us just celebrated Thanksgiving, likely in places and with people of meaning to us.
We celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. We place stickers from places we have visited on our water bottles, bumpers and notebooks.
And, most notably, linking both themes, we erect markers at the sites where our loved ones are buried, and we visit those sites at yahrzeits, or when we can be present.
How did this tradition begin? In this week’s Torah portion, as Jacob was traveling in his return to Canaan from exile in Haran, his beloved Rachel was pregnant, and died during childbirth, bearing their youngest child, Benjamin. Of her death and memorial, Torah states, “Rachel died and was buried on the road to Ephrath, that is, Bethlehem, and Jacob set up a pillar by her burial site; it is the monument at Rachel’s tomb to this day.” (Genesis 35:19-20)
Such was our earliest recorded mention of a death and establishment of a marker at the site of burial. Yes, this was necessitated because Jacob was en route from a faraway place back to his ancestral, familial land, where the family burial plot acquired by his grandfather, Abraham, stood in Hebron, still further south of Bethlehem. Thus, if Jacob – or his descendants – ever wished to return to the site to offer prayers or messages, they would need an enduring marker to indicate the place. Hence, a stone marker was erected.
And, Torah teaches that the marker stands yet until this day. Indeed, many visitors make pilgrimage to Rachel’s Tomb till this day, especially women with difficulty conceiving, praying for Rachel’s intercession on their behalf.
Though visiting Rachel’s grave is a distant journey for most of us, visiting the graves of our nearer relatives is likely much easier. Their burial sites stand as eternal beacons and remembrances for us, and at least for me, pull me with a granite magnetism to come and reflect on my and their lives, and to tell them stories. I engage them in birthdays and anniversaries, and places to which I have traveled. It works.
This Shabbat – and this wintery season – it is a good time to bring our dear ones closer to mind, and perhaps even visit the sites where they lay in eternity. It is good to tell them our stories. It works.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
