YIZKOR – THE ART OF BURNING MEMORIES Sermon presented at the Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) Memorial by Rabbi Gerald M. Kane, Las Cruces, New Mexico September 20, 1999

“A Distant Grace: Before, During and After Breast Cancer,” is an exhibit on display at the State University of New York Potsdam. It is comprised of works by eleven artists from across the country, each responding to the issues of illness and loss in their own lives. A few weeks ago I heard an interview on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” which shook me to the bones. The interviewer, Susan Stamberg, spoke with sculptress Sarah Hutt about her remarkable work entitled “My Mother’s Legacy”, which is a central part of the exhibit.

As I listened to the interview, and learned more about the artist and her work, I realized that she could teach us all how to derive even greater rewards from the legacies of those we love - our loved ones who touched our lives - all of those who we come into our minds as we share in this hour of remembrance as this Yom Kippur day draws to a close.

Sarah Hutt was just 13 when her mother died of breast cancer. Many years later, as a mature artist, Ms. Hutt began to work through her grieving process by writing down a few specific memories of her mother. For instance, she remembered that her mother gave her paper dolls. That her mother chewed ice. That her mother swept the driveway. That her mother liked to look things up. That her mother had sweaty palms. But writing down these few details was not enough. More and more memories about her mother came into her mind... and she continued to write them down.

Sarah Hutt wrote and wrote. To be exact, she compiled one thousand memories. Her mother liked to walk on crunchy snow. Her mother drank olive oil. Her mother used lots of garlic. Her mother embroidered pillow cases. Her mother hung her sweater on the back of a chair. Her mother liked strong tea in the afternoon. Her mother always brought a chocolate cake. The list goes on and on.

She published her 1,000-line poem in a small book. But still, that was not enough. She realized that something else was necessary to keep her mother’s memory alive. One of the details which Sarah remembered was that her mother used to turn over pieces of china to see where they'd been made. And so she carved – actually burned, one by one - each line of the poem into the bottoms of 1,000 small wooden bowls. As we enter the gallery of the exhibit, we are confronted with two long tables piled high with wooden bowls. In tribute to her mother, Sarah asks visitors to inspect the simple, familiar wooden bowls much like lifting up a rock to see what's underneath it. In doing so, she feels that we can get a fuller - more detailed, more complete - picture of her mother.

People pick up Sarah Hutt's wooden bowls at random to read the inscriptions. The order in which they're read is not important. In fact, Sarah likes the fact that her memories of her mother are read randomly, just like our own personal recollections. Sarah feels she's gotten her mother back in some way by creating this piece. She has gotten more than that, in fact.

The act of picking up each bowl is therapeutic, because it makes us stop and really think about the many aspects of our own lives - the thousands of aspects, details which make up an entire being. In finding these specific parts of her mother, Sarah Hutt has helped jog our memories of our lost loved ones.

Now, I’m not saying we need to run out and buy a gross of wooden bowls and a wood burning kit. But we can all learn from this process. We can adapt it. If each of us would try to assemble and record the details of the lives of those individuals we lovingly remember - if we were, for instance, to write down these memories in a journal or a photo album, or type and store them on a floppy disk – that very process would dignify the special people in our lives far beyond the words we are writing. And in that act of remembering, recording, we are preserving those loving details and our memories of our loved ones for future generations of our family to share.

On this Yom Kippur, on this day of solemn reflection and introspection, let us take the time to bring light to the details in the lives of those we love. Let us work at remembering them. It might be a good idea to write down each detail. It may be difficult, even painful at first. But, in this act of remembering, we are making the lives we recall special – kadosh – and in this very process we will, God willing, find comfort and blessing.

In this hour of memorial, as we begin to reflect on those we love, on those who have touched our lives in special ways, let us treasure the little things - the details which comprised the whole portrait of their lives, the elements which added texture and color to the cameos of those we remember. Much like in a Seurat paining, each detail we recall is like an individual dot of color which, when combined, comprise one magnificent masterpiece.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said that God is in the details. May the details of our memories of the lives of our loved ones bring them and God closer to us. In that act of connection, may we move on into the year ahead, strengthened by the memories of those we loved, and may their memories continue to beautify our lives and the lives of those whose lives we touch. Amen.

As Rabbi of Temple Beth El in Las Cruces, New Mexico, I presented this sermon inspired by Susan Stamberg’s interview with Sarah Hutt on “Morning Edition” at our 1999 Yom Kippur Memorial Service. Feel free to share it. Gerald M. Kane