Walking the Walk

I experienced something at the last Yizkor, on Pesach, that has puzzled me for the six weeks since. On that morning, for the first time since he passed away almost nine years ago, I felt the need to recite Yizkor for Joel Shickman, a rabbinical school classmate who passed away during our third year.

Joel and I had met just two years earlier, at orientation. I felt drawn to him, perhaps because he was the only other married student in the class, probably more because of he was the kind of warm, gentle person who you can’t help but like. Whenever we hung out — playing guitar, telling jokes, learning Torah — I always had a great time. Still, we weren’t especially close friends at the time. Joel fell ill during our second year, and when the class left to study in Israel his absence was palpable; his death, halfway through our time in Jerusalem, shook our small group to its core. Still, as time has passed my personal pain has also lessened — until now, when I find myself thinking of Joel often in the weeks since the last Yizkor. Throughout that time, I’ve struggled to understand: why the need to remember Joel now? Why in this way, through Yizkor?

Each day, as we recite the Shema, we say, וְדִבַּרְתָּ בָּם בְּשִׁבְתְּךָ בְּבֵיתֶךָ וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ בַדֶּרֶךְ, “You should speak of Torah when you sit in your home and when you walk on your way.” We generally understand the verse to mean that we should consider the teachings of Torah whether we are at “home,” in a stable, secure, controlled environment, as well when we are “on our way” in a less-predictable environment. Another way to read the verse, which I received from my rebbe, Reb Mimi, sees two different kinds of Torah in the verse: the Torah בְּשִׁבְתְּךָ בְּבֵיתֶךָ, the Torah that governs our private, internal experience, and the Torah וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ בַדֶּרֶךְ, the Torah that teaches us how to walk in the world. The first kind of Torah we learn from books, but the second kind — the Torah וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ בַדֶּרֶךְ, the Torah of walking in the world — we can only learn from other people.

I am now the age that Joel was when he left the world; my children are around the ages his boys were. A decade ago, Joel represented an ideal, the kind of father I would want to be one day when I had kids; and now that “one day” has become the present, I see that Joel was one of those people who taught me the Torah וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ בַדֶּרֶךְ, Torah that lives in my actions. I think of him more now than I used to: when I’m making breakfast in the morning, picking kids up from school, when I’m putting someone to bed — for the seventh time that night — I remember how Joel was with his sons, and I see those qualities in myself as well. His book of Torah וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ בַדֶּרֶךְ, left unread until recently, now sits open before me.

Yizkor offers us the chance to recall those people who taught us the Torah וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ בַדֶּרֶךְ, whose example serves as the text from which we learn how to live a good life. Before we move on to our personal prayers, take a minute and call to mind someone who was your teacher of Torah וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ בַדֶּרֶךְ, someone whose influence continues to shape how you walk in the world.

Tags: Life, Shavuot, Yizkor