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The Everyday Judaism Podcast (formerly Living Jewishly Podcast) is dedicated to learning and understanding the laws and basic how-to of daily Jewish living. Presented by Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe in a simple and concise manner, easy for anyone to understand and connect.
This Podcast Series is Generously Underwritten by Marshall & Doreen Lerner.
00:01 - Intro (Announcement)
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, texas. This is the Ask Away series on the Everyday Judaism podcast. To have your questions answered on future episodes, please email askaway@torchweb.org. Now ask away.
00:22 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
All right, welcome back everybody to the Ask Away segment of the Everyday Judaism podcast. We are Ask Away number 15. If you can imagine, we're already at the 15th episode of the wonderful questions of our listeners, our participants, and today we are going to open the floor with Marilyn.
00:41 - Marilyn (Caller)
Marilyn Robinson. My question is what is a prayer you recite at a loved one's gravesite?
00:49 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Excellent question. What is the? Because we just learned Semen number 26 in the Kitzesh Chonorach. In our Everyday Judaism podcast, we discussed the laws of Kaddish, the laws of the prayer. So there are psalms that are recited.
01:12
There's a special psalm, which is Psalm number 119. 119 has all of the letters of the Alephbet and it has, I believe, six of each. I mean it's a very, very long chapter because it has the beginning of each of the verses is the letter of the Aleph Bet, so it's Aleph, aleph, aleph, aleph, bet, bet, Bet, bet, so on and so forth. So what's customary is that we spell out the person's name with the letters of that chapter. So some do just the name, some add the name of the parents as well as part of that, and that's a special prayer, and then we recite the Kaddish. So that's what's done many, many times. What other people do is just recite any psalm, any psalm. You can find a shorter one, you can find one that is meaningful to you, one that you connect with. The idea is it should be, and it's best to be there, if possible, with a minion of people, so that a Kaddish can be recited as well, because, again, kaddish is so powerful. Kaddish is so powerful that it creates unbelievable protection for those who are passed on from this world. Because what's the problem If we look at the whole picture of life? The picture of life is as follows we come to this world to accomplish, and if we don't accomplish because we get carried away with what's going on in the world, we get carried away with fashion, we get carried away with materialism, with luxuries, so we pull away, so to speak, from God, from what our real responsibilities are, and potentially that's what we get punished for in the heavenly courts. Right, I gave you so much potential, I gave you so much ability and perhaps one did not fulfill their mission appropriately. So what we do is recite Kaddish.
03:21
We recite Kaddish for the amount of time that there would be a cleansing of that soul. So, for example, if, if you gave your child ten dollars and you said, go to the store and buy milk, they go to the store and they buy bubble gum and they buy candies, and they come back home and, like you say, where's the milk? You're like I, like I carried away. I sorry I bought bubble gum. What are you going to do? You're going to try to figure out a way that your son should learn his lesson and not do that again. I told you to get milk, not to get candies.
03:56
In the world of responsibility that we live in, there is accountability and a person who comes to this world, god, gives us that $10 and says I want you to give it to charity. Instead, they use that $10 on selfish purposes. So Hashem says you stole my money. I wanted you to distribute it for me. Instead you took it for yourself. That's not appropriate. So there's a cleansing process.
04:22
People talk about the world to come as, or what we know as, gehenom or purgatory hell, otherwise known as hell. Now, we don't believe in eternal damnation. There's no such thing as eternal damnation in Judaism. It's not forever. It's a limited amount of time where, for example, if your child runs outside in their nice clothes and get all muddy, what are you going to do? You're not going to let them walk into the house all muddy. You're going to take them outside. You're going to spray them with a hose and make sure that there's no mud on them and then give them a towel and then make sure that they're dry before they come into the house, because you don't want the house all muddy. God doesn't want his abode, so to speak, to be muddied by our sins. So there's a power wash process of cleansing the soul so that we could be in God's presence.
05:17
That's purgatory. It's a limited amount of time. It's not forever, unless someone is truly wicked. The question always comes well, is Hitler in paradise now? No, he's not. He's someone who's extremely wicked and he has eternal damnation. That is true, but someone who is righteous, someone who's a good person. They made some mistakes, okay. So there's a little bit of a cleansing, a little bit of a blemish. Okay, it's like you take your shirt to the cleaners. There's a stain. So what are they going to work on more? They're going to clean the whole garment, but they're going to work on that a little bit more. They're going to scrub it clean. That's our soul when we come to the heavenly realms, and there's a little bit of a stain on that soul, a little, and there's a little bit of a cleaning. That's what we call purgatory. It's not forever, but still it's unpleasant for the soul.
06:06
Kaddish helps, because what does Kaddish do? Kaddish says Hashem, I'm declaring in the memory of this individual, I'm declaring that you are the master of the universe. The only reason we got that blemish is because we forgot that you're the master of the universe. We got carried away with the physicality of this world. We got carried away with the luxuries, we got carried away with all of the accoutrements, with all of the fashion, with all of the materialistic elements of this world. We got carried away and therefore we allowed that blemish to hurt our soul. Therefore, the Kaddish is so powerful for those who pass on. So, at the very minimum, when we go to a gravesite, we should go with 10 people and make sure that we have a Kaddish recited in their memory.
06:58
It doesn't need to be at the cemetery, by the way. It can be in synagogue as well. God knows exactly who you're referring to, but it's special for us to feel that closeness, you know, because the soul is everywhere. The soul is not only in the cemetery. That's the physical body. That's why we, we, we, um. There is a renting of the clothes at the, at the burial. Why? Because the physical person, the physical being, is here. The spiritual is all over. We get carried away with the physical person. The physical being is here. The spiritual is all over. We get carried away with the physical. So we tear our clothes to show we're separating from the physical. We're separating from the physical, but the spiritual is forever. Okay. So it's an excellent question. I hope I answered it.
07:48
There are many people who like to go alone and to just pour out their heart and be there. Look, when I go to my grandfather and grandmother's burial site, I think I've always gone alone and it's a time to have a personal prayer. We don't pray to the deceased. We ask them to be representative in front of God's holy throne, say you're closer than we are, pray on our behalf. We don't pray to them. It's very important.
08:17
Sometimes people go to the gravesite of a righteous, pious scholar and they mistakenly pray to the deceased. That's a big mistake. We should not pray to the deceased. We should ask the deceased to, on our behalf, request of the Almighty. But to have a conversation to talk about how you miss the person who has passed on, that's something which is completely legitimate and warranted for a person to do, and to do that privately. I've seen people sit with a chair next to the tomb, next to the gravesite of someone they loved whether it was a parent, a spouse or the like, or child and just sit there and have hour--long conversation. It's very, very, very powerful and it's very healing, very comforting. So, um, but it should be in a healthy level. It should be at a health, a healthy with a balance, all right. Next question,
09:30 - Carlos (Caller)
Rabbi what's the main reason why some starts selichot one month before and others 10 days? or a week before.
09:32 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Very good question. So we know that we're in the month of Elul and in the month of Elul we blow the shofar every day in synagogue, except for Shabbat. But the Sephardic community begins from the beginning of the month of Elul. The Ashkenazic do it for four days prior to Rosh Hashanah, unless Rosh Hashanah is on Sunday, monday or Tuesday. That means you have to have at least those amount of days Sunday, monday, tuesday to recite Slichot. If Rosh Hashanah begins on Wednesday, then it would be. They would start Saturday night this year because Rosh Hashanah is on, I believe, on Monday night. So we start the Selichot the week before on Saturday night. So it's going to be a full week plus Sunday, monday and then you have Rosh Hashanah. So the reason why I always joke with my Sephardic friends I say is it worth it to eat the rice on Pesach? You have to apologize for all of these days, but either way, the truth is like this is that why do we blow the shofar during the 30 days preceding Rosh Hashanah? We do it because of a verse in the prophets, where the verse says that when Moshe ascended the mountain to receive the second tablets, he went up on Rosh Chodesh Elul and he descended on Yom Kippur and he attained for the people, forgiveness. He attained for the people forgiveness For the people, forgiveness. He attained for the people, forgiveness. The sages tell us that Moshe said before he went up he says make sure you blow the shofar in the community every day. In the desert right, blow a shofar every day. Why? To make sure that they don't fall again into sin. They shouldn't go back and do the golden calf again. The first time Moshe went up the mountain he came back down, had a surprise of a golden calf, an idol that they built. The second time he says make sure that blow the shofar so that people don't make that same mistake again. It's very important for us to realize the seriousness of these days. Serious of these days that God expects us to gather ourselves together To put ourselves on a track for success, that when we come to Rosh Hashanah it shouldn't be like oh, what am I doing here? We know what we're going to eat, but do we know about our closeness to Hashem? Did we work on our relationship? And that's really the most important part of these days. So the Sephardic custom is a very beautiful custom, to recite the Slechot the entire 30 days, because it's not only blowing the shofar but actually asking forgiveness means being aligned with it, not just hoping that the shofar blowing will elevate me to a point of recognition that I need to do Teshuvah, I need to repent, but to actually ask for forgiveness and actually seek atonement. Point of recognition that I need to do Teshuvah, I need to repent, but to actually ask for forgiveness and actually seek atonement for any mistakes we have done. So. It's proper to do the first 30 days, as the Sephardic custom is. Ashkenazic have a different custom where it's only the intense days right before Rosh Hashanah that we begin. Everyone recites them for the 10 days of repentance, which is the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Everyone recites that. And after Yom Kippur we're in the days of Sukkot, which is the days of celebration.
13:05
We've been granted forgiveness. Hashem says I forgive you why? Because you asked. You asked for forgiveness, so I'm granting it to you. I'm granting it to you. It's a very incredible thing. We ask for forgiveness. Hashem says oh, you asked, no problem.
13:30
Imagine if human beings were that easy, if we were that easy, where all we need to do is say I'm sorry and they say oh, you said I'm sorry, no problem, I forgive you Right, like no, you did that. That that People have a lot of accountings to. We hold a grudge, unfortunately, and we need to learn to be more God-like in being easy to forgive. God is very easy to forgive. All we need to do is ask and Hashem says no problem, okay, you got this All right. Excellent question, all right. My dear friends, thank you so much for joining us today. We are concluding our Ask Away segment and looking forward to continuing our learning together. Have a magnificent week. If you do have any questions, please email askawayattorchweborg. Askawayattorchweborg. We look forward to hearing your questions, responding to your questions and learning more together. Have an amazing week.
14:32 - Intro (Announcement)
You've been listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe on a podcast produced by TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. Please help sponsor an episode so we can continue to produce more quality Jewish content for our listeners around the globe. Please visit torchweb.org to donate and partner with us on this incredible endeavor.