By: Nelly Ben Tal
Shlicha
Parashat Chukat is often seen as a parsha about mortality.
We read about the deaths of Miriam and Aaron, and we learn that Moses, too, will not enter the Promised Land. Yet Rabbi Jonathan Sacks suggests that the deeper message of the parsha is not only about death, but about what continues after us.
As he writes, “We die, but the best part of us lives on.”
Lately, I have found myself thinking about this while attending the funeral of relatives of a dear friend and listening to the eulogies. I was moved by how those eulogies were built from stories and memories that tried to answer one simple question: Who was this person in the lives of others?
Not what they owned or achieved, but the values they lived by. Their kindness, wisdom, humor, and love.
It reminded me of something my father used to share with me, a sentence his father told him when our family made Aliyah from Spain in 1961 and left behind everything they had built there: “On a gravestone, there are never numbers or lists of achievements. There is only a sentence describing how you made people feel.”
That is something I have come to believe deeply.
Perhaps because it touches on something delicate that many of us carry: the hope that while we are still here, someone will truly see and value us.
That is why the communities we choose matter so much.
Whether it is a workplace, a congregation, a volunteer opportunity, or a community organization, we all need environments that help us express our values, discover our strengths, appreciate the gifts of others, and allow others to appreciate ours.
At JEWISHcolorado, our Circle of Life programs remind us that appreciating and honoring a person’s story should not begin only when their life ends. They also give us opportunities to express our own values and character through the many ways we participate in community life.
Chukat reminds us that while life is finite, our impact is not. The best part of us lives on in the people we touch, the values we pass forward, and the souls we help shape.
Shabbat Shalom.
Please email JEWISHcolorado at nbental@jewishcolorado.org with questions or comments.