Rabbi Andy Bachman officiated at my father’s funeral on Wednesday. He spoke beautifully and we were blessed to have him with us at the funeral chapel and the cemetery. A friend wrote to me about  something he said.

    My favorite moment was when the rabbi said "your father was a fortunate man…to have such daughters."  I came home telling Max that I’d heard one of the most poetical and powerful motes, really the most holy nugget of any sacred sacred syllables I’d ever heard in my life in any liturgical moment.  It was a kind of reversal of patriarchical biblical. Power of the female.

My sister is a member of Congregation Beth Elohim, which is Bachman’s synagogue. A fellow blogger, Andy’s blog, Notes, is a thoughtful and thought provoking journal about the  thoughts and daily practice of a raibbi. Before joining Beth Elohim, he founded a group called Brooklyn Jews. He had this to say about my father’s funeral:

    I learned a very simple and profound lesson today while helping friends with a funeral.

    A beloved man died at age 79 and the structure of mourning and remembrance that was so carefully set in place by his daughters was so perfectly attuned to his wishes and to his abiding influence on them as a parent so that even as they were choosing on their accord how to remember and honor him, his touch and voice could still be heard.

    I was so cognizant at that moment of the particular blessings of death–paradoxical as it may seem but it’s true. Love sometimes is so keenly felt at the foundation of a relationship that even when one dies, their presence remains and in real time, one “sees” their soul gently yet radically alter in form.

    Today at the funeral their was exquisite music; humorous and heartfelt stories, delivered with great craft and robust love; and, the most devotional of eulogies displayed by two daughters of a father that I have ever seen or heard.

    It’s a bitter lesson to have to know that even dying is a gift that the dead give to us; but it’s true at times. And it was certainly true today.

    May comfort come speedily to all those who mourn and may the presence of those who’ve gone last forever and ever.