“Ovadia Yosef was one of the world’s most revered rabbis, renowned for his scholarship and erudition in the field of religious law….. served as chief rabbi of Israel from 1973 to 1983, but this was from the peak of his career. In the ensuing three decades he cemented his reputation…. More than 700,000 people – around ten percent of Israel’s’ population attended his funeral….. started writing about Jewish law when he was 9… ordained as a rabbi at 20… soon publishing the first volumes of his magnum opus on religious law, Yabia Omer, which in 1970 won him the Israel Prize, the state’s highest civilian honour…. Through the Shas movment Yosef sparked a large ‘return’ movement of non-religious Mizrachim who became observant, causing a religious resurgence in lapsed families. Among Orthodox Mizrachim he strengthened the culture of religious study….As an orator Yosef captivated audiences….survived by ten children… died… aged 93. (Excerpts from The Times, Wednesday October 9 2013 – Obituaries page 55)
I was shown this full page obituary – probably not written by a Jew – a couple of weeks after Reb Ovadia’s passing. I was pointed to another obituary written on page 56, back to back to Reb Ovadia’s. (I have added the brackets and the bold!):
“Philip Chevron was the guitarist with the Pogues…. The Pogues resembled a bunch of Irish labourers on a Friday night mission to drink the town dry….Chevron suffered his own problems with drug and alcohol abuse, and by the mid-1990s they had rendered him hors de combat (out of action!). Then again it was not easy to exist in the orbit of the Pogues without subscribing to the hedonistic (pleasure seeking) and carefree lifestyle that both gave the group its inspiration and contained the seeds of its self-destruction… Their songs viewed the world through the bottom of a glass… in 2002 Q magazine named the Pogues as one of the “50 Bands To See Before You Die”. Given the group’s habits, the description inevitably provoked the waggish rejoinder, “or before they die”…. Chevron left the next year, drink and drug abuse having rendered him too ill to tour… died aged 56”.
And if you were wondering how many people attended Chevrons funeral – a few hundred! Quite noticeable is that he was survived by absolutely no one! What a striking difference to Reb Ovadia!
A famous one-liner from Eisov in this week’s Parshah encapsulates the ideology of Chevron and conversely highlights the way of life of a Torah-lifestyle. In pursuit of some instant short lasting physical pleasure in the form of a bowl of red soup, Eisov trades in a life of eternal spiritual bliss, with the comment, “I am going to die”. Or in the words of the Prophet Isiah describing those who ridicule the Word of Hashem by saying, “Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die”.
This comment of Eisov was uttered on the day his grandfather Avraham died. Regarding the death of Avraham we are told how he was, “at a good old age, mature and content”. Furthermore the verse says, “These are the days of the years of Avraham’s life which he lived”. The redundant expression “which he lived” is an indication that Avraham lived his life fully, not one day was wasted. All his days were days full of life – real life. Precisely on the day when Avraham passed away from this world Eisov verbalised his opinion of life, “Give me my pleasure before I die”. The contrast between Avraham’s life and Eisov’s is not dissimilar to that of Reb Ovadia and Chevron!
The Chofetz Chaim asks; how can it be that thinking about the day of death can cause such opposing ideologies? For an Avraham the day of death is a catalyst to grabbing good deeds, whereas the wicked sees the looming day of death as a reason to grab some more short-lived indulgence.
He answers quite simply that it depends on what your belief is regarding what happens after life in this world. The Medresh tells us that when Eisov heard that Avraham had died he responded by denying the existence of any Divine justice system – “there is no judgement and no Judge”. He denied the concept of afterlife. It’s no wonder that the thought of death didn’t trigger him to spend his time in this world wisely. For Eisov this world was all there was – so eat sleep and drink for tomorrow one dies.
Let us contemplate for a moment the day of death! Written on a gravestone is the year the person was born in and the year they died in; e.g. 1923 – 2005. The life of a person is just the ‘dash’ in the middle. How are we going to fill our ‘dash’? What do we want written on our gravestone’s? What do we want said at our Eulogy? Make the Most of your Dash!
Good Shabbos, Yaakov