We gather on this Passover, a time that celebrates freedom, renewal, and the birth of a people. And yet, woven into this season of joy, we also encounter something quieter, more tender—memory, loss and the act of holding on to those we love through Yizkor.
At first glance, it seems contradictory. Passover is about life, movement and redemption. Yizkor brings us face to face with absence, with the people who are no longer sitting at our tables, no longer telling their stories, no longer asking the Four Questions.
How do these two emotional worlds live side by side? The answer lies in the Torah reading for this very past Shabbat. We read from the Book of Exodus, chapters filled with rupture and repair. The sin of the Golden Calf has just occurred. A people, newly freed, stumble almost immediately. Something sacred is broken. And in the wake of that loss, Moses does something extraordinary—he refuses to give up. He pleads, he mourns, he insists on the possibility of connection even after devastation.
And God responds with the revelation of the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy—a declaration that even when something precious is shattered, the relationship is not over. There can be healing. There can be continuity. There can be presence even after absence. That is the language of Yizkor.
When we lose someone we love, it feels like a kind of breaking. The world we knew is no longer whole. There is an empty chair, a silence where a voice used to be. Like the Israelites after the Golden Calf, we stand in the aftermath of something that cannot be undone. And yet, our tradition gently but firmly teaches: the story does not end there.
Yizkor does not ask us to forget. It asks us to remember—actively, intentionally. Not as a passive looking back, but as a way of keeping a relationship alive. The people we have lost are no longer physically present, but they remain woven into who we are: in our choices, in our values, in the stories we tell, in the traditions we continue. Just as the covenant was renewed after the breaking, so too our bonds with those we love are transformed, not erased.
Passover itself is an act of memory. The Torah tells us, repeatedly, to remember that we were slaves in Egypt. Not just as history, but as identity. Memory shapes who we are meant to become. In the same way, the memory of those we have lost shapes how we live now. We honor them not only by recalling their names, but by carrying forward what they gave us. Their kindness becomes our kindness. Their strength becomes our strength. Their faith becomes our faith.
In this way, memory becomes a form of redemption. There is a beautiful, quiet truth hidden in this convergence of Shabbat, Passover, and Yizkor: freedom is not just about leaving the past behind. It is about carrying the past forward in a way that gives it life. The Israelites left Egypt, but they did not leave their story behind. They were commanded to retell it, relive it, pass it on.
And we, too, are called to carry forward the stories of those we love. To speak their names. To live their values. To let their presence echo in our lives. On this Shabbat, as we stand between redemption and remembrance, we can begin to see that they are not opposites. They are intertwined. Because to remember someone deeply is, in a sense, to refuse to let them be lost. And perhaps that is the deepest act of faith we can offer: that love does not end, even when life does.
May the memories of those we hold in our hearts be a blessing. And may they continue to guide us, shape us, and live within us—today and always. May God bring us peace around the world, and may everyone have a wonderful holiday!
