Affirming Good Times

My perspective on religion as an institution has been floating between synapses for a while, the institutional side not faring very well, the ability to generate thought imprinting more favorably.  Not just my religion, something inherited and socialized more than sought out and purchased.   But it does deal with death better than secularism once death has occurred.  Judaism acknowledges death, but we really affirm the life that was.  

Some memorials have clustered of late.  First a Jewish pillar of my childhood, a synagogue stalwart who would be the first to greet me on my return any shabbos morning, long after I had relocated.  This week also brought the Yahrtzeit of another beloved congregational lady, a woman of talent, pleasantness, and commitment, whose surviving husband brought stability to our congregation in precarious times.  He needed a minyan so he and his son could recite Kaddish in her memory.  Though I could have been doing other things, I helped assure ten men attended.  We gathered far o than that.

This shabbos, I recite Kaddish for my father, it being my custom to do this on the Saturday preceding yahrtzeit, then light the candle on the actual day later in the week.  I assume ten men will come to enable this, but in recent months it's not been a slam dunk.

Along a similar theme, the Post-Dispatch, which I've been reading since college since only they and the other P-D the Plain Dealer had color comics on the back, accessible in the student lounge from University subscription, ran a FB notice inviting nominations for favorite teacher.

Our icon by overwhelming consensus was the Senorita, that pillar of Spanish who really turned us into mensches.  I tried to nominate her posthumously but was blocked, not because of her passing but because she did not teach in the Post-Dispatch's circulation region.  Still, I searched for her obit and found it.

 https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/lohud/name/norma-rodriguez-obituary?pid=149373359

I hadn't known of her PhD or her brothers or her age or her short term parochial school experiences before becoming the fixture in my school.  She generated many  highly distinguished alumni, much indebted to her.  She had come as a distinguished invited guest at our high school reunion, where I had the privilege of not only chatting but updating her on who else in the class had become physicians, a few very prominent.  She also indicated that she was on chemotherapy and making end of life arrangements with another classmate who had become an attorney not far from where she taught us.  She apparently passed away within a few months of that event.  Another pillar whose life contributed so much.

So I'll observe Kaddish and Yahrtzeit as scheduled.