Remembrance Of Things Yet To Come

 

                                                                                        
The older you get, the more funerals you attend. I've been to two in the past week, and though I was told of another death, I didn't attend the service. There have been many others in recent years and I'm impressed with how wonderful all the deceased were. In fact, I don't think I've ever heard anything negative about the center of attraction. Even when there is a less than completely desirable featured mentioned by one of those giving a eulogy, it's mentioned using a euphemismⁱ or noted with a positive spin.ⁱⁱ Some in attendance – those who knew the individual being described – may giggle, but no one will contradict the speaker.

Some of those being eulogized are unfamiliar to me; I'm there because of a friendship with one of the mourners. And in some instances, the deceased wasn't even known to the clergyman (or clergywoman or someone else) conducting the service.ⁱⁱⁱ His loving description during this obligatory ritual is a hodge-podge of (some of) the recollections of those grieving.^iv But, he's paid to be nice. Sometimes the service is for someone loved and respected by all, and the clergyman, friends, and family deliver honest and loving tributes. They may last longer, but there's less impatience, squirming, and resentment. Funerals are for the living, not the dead. They're to show respect for those who have died – whether because we knew and respected them personally, or as a way of demonstrating our concern for the mourners.

For better or worse, my mind wanders during funerals. I wonder about my own. Who will be there? Who will speak? What will be said? And please G-d, don't let there be too many giggles. That, of course, is up to me. I have to live in a way that (rightly or wrongly) people will agree with what will be, by convention, laudatory rhetoric.

But then I ask myself, “Who cares?” I can't tell you anything about my great-grandmothers on my mother's side. I don't remember them? In fact I never knew them. And I'm not sure if my mother knew them either. Although my children will remember their grandmothers, when they themselves die the memories will be lost. And my time will come too. As the saying goes, who will remember me (or care about me) a hundred years from now? And that raises other questions. Theological questions. Questions we've all thought about but none of us can answer because they're matters of belief rather than knowledge.^v

So I wonder. And so do you. Is death the end?

I can think of several different scenarios that might pertain: one, the sentiment likely to be expressed in a Hallmark card or a comic strip, is that death is a continuation of life – you're reunited with those who have passed before, and together you look “down” on those who are living. You'll have the opportunity to see how the lives of your descendants play out. Nice. But hard to imagine as anything other than an idyllic hope.

At the other end of the spectrum is the view – nothing^vi follows death. You'll have no consciousness of anything, including the fact that you are no more. It's kind of a “Whiffenpoof Song” conception: “you'll pass and be forgotten with the rest.” Poof. Or, if you prefer, it's akin to Ethel Barrymore's famous “That's all there is, there isn't any more.” However you package it though, it's final. That's cold and scientific. If you can't prove it experimentally, it's not true. Many view scientists and their knowledge, or lack of it, with belief and a kind of god-like reverence, even if they disavow any belief in G-d or in belief itself.

Dante had a different formulation, but besides his there are many views that after our physical lives are over there is the time of reward or punishment, with possibly a period of cleansing of our sins interposed somewhere along the line. In western religion, Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and the Garden of Eden are some of the terms used to portray the “locations” to which we will be transported in the “Afterlife.” A “Messianic Age” and resurrection of the dead are also believed by some to be part of this formulation. Some consider reincarnation to be our fate.

But apart from the “Hallmark Scenario” which I mentioned above, our relationship to our life on earth, and our recognition of those we knew and loved here, are unlikely to play a part. Whatever our fate in the Afterlife, it will be based on our^vii own deeds and not those of our predecessors or descendants. We probably will be unaware of others and their deeds. Being reunited with those we love, however much we may wish it, does not seem to be in the cards. The ideas of Reward and Punishment are difficult to integrate into our thinking.^viii

So if there's a future at all, we can't prepare for it. We can only work in the present and for me this means trying to help others, and to observe G-d's commandments. I may not be rewarded in the future for it, but it's rewarding to me now. I don't know what's to come so all I can do is what I find satisfying today.

Actually I can prepare for the future. I'll write a speech overflowing with praise for me. It's important that everyone knows how wonderful I was. All I have to do is find someone who will read it. With a straight face. No giggling.

Next episode: “You Don't Say” -- But it's ok f u do.

i      For example, someone who was obstinate and pigheaded is described as “single-minded” and “focused.”

ii     It won't surprise you to learn that the same person “held dear some principles with which we might not all fully agree.”

iii    He may not even know the mourners and read their names from a piece of paper (mispronouncing some of them) during his boilerplate oratory.

iv    The favorable ones. The ones they're willing to disclose. There's nothing to be gained by washing their dirty linen in public.

v     I'm aware that some “know” what others only believe or hope, but I'm not fortunate – or unfortunate – enough to be one of them.

vi    Literally.

vii    Hallmark, Norcross, or otherwise.

viii   Jewish philosophy – the corpus with which I'm most familiar – contains a variety of concepts on the subject. Perhaps the most familiar is the eleventh of Maimonides's Thirteen Articles of Faith, which declares that we'll be rewarded or punished based on the level of our adherence to G-d's commandments, but there is also the advice of Antigonus ,(Avot 1:3) that cautions against accepting G-d's commandments for the sake of any reward. And numerous others, from the Bible forward, have weighed in on the subject. The bottom line is that while Reward and Punishment will eventually take place, what we do should be independent of the promises and based on our desire to obey Halakhah – Jewish law.