Goodbye dear brother

Rabbi Irwin Wiener, D.D.


It was as though I had traveled through time and relived the moments of my youth when I heard, after no contact for almost three decades, that my brother had died. Over the years I had tried to locate him using several websites and contacts only to reach a dead-end.

He was career military. So, I contacted the Veterans Administration, and their response indicated that without a serial number they could not be of any assistance. Time and again I encountered erroneous leads. I spent money joining websites such as “People Search” and was give information that went nowhere. Constantly I was asked if I wanted to upgrade my membership and then perhaps new information would be available. It was an exercise in futility.

Finally, through an accident, I learned of a website that could direct me to a search for deceased members of the military and it was there that I learned of my brother’s death some twenty years earlier. It was devastating, to say the least, to learn that a younger sibling had died so young and without any family involved in his burial or that prayers were not recited to officially send him on his way for his return trip to the Creator who breathed life into him as described in Genesis: “God formed Adam out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the neshamah of life; and Adam thus became a living creature.” (Genesis 2:7)

This experience made me think about the writings of our ancestors who understood the meaning of life and the messages we receive and the thoughts we encounter as we lose someone we love. There is a marvelous book: “Does the Soul Survive” in which various aspects of afterlife are studied and described as well as thoughts of the survival of the soul – that aspect of our existence that is housed in the shell we call the body. There is one particular story that seemed relevant to me because of the revelation I received of my loss. The story can be found in the book “Life After Life (1975) by Dr. Raymond Moody and describes the following life review which I changed indicating the male version of the experience as well as taking some liberties with the narration to fit my recollections:

When the light appeared, the first thing he said to me was, “What do you have to show me that you’ve done with your life?” or something to this effect. And that’s when these flashbacks started. I thought, “Gee, what is going on?” because all of a sudden I was back in my childhood. And from then on, it was like I was walking from the time of my very early life, right up to the present.

I pause here in the story to mention that this story describes my feelings and musings upon hearing the sad news of a brother who was 47 years old when he died and is a true expression of my encounter with his memory.

It was really strange where it started, too, when I was a little boy, playing down the street in our neighborhood, and there were other scenes from about that time-experiences I had with my brother, and things about the neighborhood people, and actual places I had been. And then I was in kindergarten, and I remembered the time when I had this one toy I really liked, and I broke it and cried for a long time…I remembered when I was in the Boy Scouts and went camping, and remembered many things about all the years of grammar school (actually Yeshiva)….

The things that flashed back came in order of my life, and they were so vivid. The scenes were just like if you walked outside and saw them, completely three-dimensional, and in color. And they moved. For instance, when I saw myself breaking the toy, I could see all the movements. It wasn’t like I was watching it all from my perspective at the time. It was like the little boy was somebody else, in a movie….

Now, I didn’t actually see the light as I was going through the flashbacks. He disappeared as soon as he asked me what I had done, and the flashbacks started, and yet I knew that he was there with me the whole time, that he carried me back through the flashbacks, because I felt his presence, and because he made comments here and there. He was trying to show me something in each of these flashbacks….

All through this, he kept stressing the importance of love. The places where he showed it best involved my sister (I have a sister); I have always been close to her….

He seemed very interested in things concerning knowledge, too. He kept pointing out things that had to do with learning, and he said that I was going to continue learning.

How strange. The author could have been writing about me and my brother and sister. It is as though he were sitting with me and writing my biography. I could not put the book down. The flashbacks were so real and the description of them so authentic. It reminded me of the Talmudic interpretation of the meaning of the soul when they described that just as God fills the whole world so does the soul fill the whole body. We are nothing without the soul for it is the essence of who we are. God contributes to the beauty of the world through continuous creation and the soul is eternal as well.

The eternal question is whether there is life after death and how we get there. Needless to say, faith plays an important role in determining our understanding of eternal life. More than that, however, is our perception of continuity. What exactly constitutes continuity? The dictionary describes this as perpetuation and that refers to everlastingness. We go full circle in determining the never ending cycle of birth and death. And it leads to the question: “What is the purpose of creation if it ends?”

From time immemorial we have yearned to learn about the continuation of our being. Judaism does not concentrate on this because our emphasis is life and not death. The prophets attempted to explain the “world to come” by explaining that the results are determined by God. Isaiah tells us that God alone knows what He prepared for him that waits for them because “no eye has seen and no ear has heard, O God, beside you.”

Our tradition teaches that the soul, upon leaving the body, encounters various conditions as it prepares itself for its ultimate destination – the return to its Creator. Our tradition of Shiva – sitting for seven days is designed to allow us the opportunity to absorb the loss, endure the pain and the as the Psalmist tells us: “Walk through the Valley of Death.” We don’t dwell on death – we mourn – we remember – and we continue with life.

Our custom is to say Kaddish (prayers of sanctification) – not prayers of death but utterances of gratitude for the life that was shared – for 11 months. This is the time, the mystics tell us, it takes for the soul to wind its way toward its ultimate destination. We should look at the Kaddish prayer as a “booster shot” – giving the soul the ability to make the journey. And in the end the soul rests in its Heavenly repose waiting to be born again.

We are taught that when the soul is called to make the journey back it is touched by an angel below the nose, removing the light of understanding, and sends it on its way. In that split second the soul forgets all that it has experienced and enters the world crying, having lost the place of redemption it fought so hard to achieve.

My brother is now remembered for what he was to us. We will miss him now because the search is over. We mourn his passing and are grateful to God for having given us (my sister and I) the ability to close an unfinished chapter in the story of our lives.

We say Kaddish now because, even though his journey ended quite some time ago, for us it has just begun. The memories will flow, the reminisces will continue, the guilt has been assuaged and he now rests in peace. Somehow I know that he waited for us to find him and say goodbye.

Goodbye sweet brother.