This Yom Kippur, I’ll say a prayer for my teachers

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(RNS) — Zvi Levran was not always Zvi Levran. Fifty years ago he was Bob Leveritch and we were synagogue friends together on Long Island. He later moved to Israel, shed the name “Bob” and became “Zvi.” Now he is a tour guide and lay leader in the Reform movement in Israel. 

Back in July, over lunch, he asked me an interesting question: “Whatever happened to Mr. Goldberg?”

Mr. Goldberg was our confirmation teacher. I hadn’t thought of him in more than 20 years.

“I’m pretty sure he died about thirty years ago,” I said. “What makes you think of him now?”

He had been the best teacher both us of ever had in our younger years — he was creative, even audacious, in how he tried to make Judaism and ethics come alive. After some reminiscing about him, Zvi said something that has stayed with me: “I wish I had told him how much I learned from him and how much he meant to me.”

We sat with that for a moment. Then, he told me about the “Forever Letter,” a concept developed by Elana Zaiman. You write someone a letter telling them how much they influenced you.

It has been compared to the ethical will — that ancient and modern Jewish practice of a parent writing down, near the end of life, the values and hopes they want to pass on to their children. The Jewish ethical will looks forward: This is how I want you to live. The “Forever Letter” looks behind: This is how you shaped how I have lived. Instead of the elder writing to the young, the young writes to the elder — the teacher, the professor, the mentor, the guide, the rabbi, the rebbe.

Zvi never got to write his to Mr. Goldberg. That’s the trouble with waiting.

Which brings me to the Yizkor memorial service on Yom Kippur.

Just as we say Yizkor for our parents and other departed relatives, we should also say Yizkor for our beloved teachers. It is, in a sense, that “Forever Letter” we didn’t get to send in time — so we say it instead in the sanctuary, in community, before God.

There is real Jewish merit in this argument for a few reasons.

First, the Bible famously traces lineage through generations by using the shorthand that someone “begat” another person. But when we enter the rabbinic period, the era after the Bible when rabbis shaped Jewish law through the Talmud and other writings, the emphasis shifts from biological to the intellectual and spiritual generation. It is no longer that this person begat that person; it is that this person taught that person.

Again and again in rabbinic literature, we find a sage teaching something “in the name of” another rabbi who heard it from another rabbi before him. That is the chain of tradition — and it is sacred.

There is also a fascinating pattern in Jewish law — and that is that in certain circumstances, the honor due to your teacher takes precedence over the honor that is due your parents. 

The reason is simple: Sages say that your parents bring you into this world, but your teacher brings you into the world to come. Your teacher can show you eternity in a way even your parents cannot.

What does it look like, and what does it feel like, to remember a teacher? 

I got a chance to experience this several years ago as a rabbi. During a Shavuot Yizkor service, I saw the founding rabbi of the synagogue, the late Rabbi Eugene Borowitz, who was the preeminent liberal Jewish thinker of our time, sitting in the pews. He had been my teacher at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. 

In my life, no one fulfilled more roles for me: He was my professor in seminary; he was my employer when I worked for him as assistant editor of his intellectual journal; years later, he became my congregant; he became my student at Torah classes on Shabbat morning  (imagine having the foremost liberal Jewish thinker sitting before you every Shabbat morning!); and finally, he became the recipient of my pastoral care.

During the service, I asked everyone to name the teachers who had influenced them the most — our beloved teachers in heaven, as I put it.

The responses came forward: a biology teacher who inspired someone to become a physician, a driver’s ed teacher, a professor who lit up the sky.

Then Borowitz named a name, ever so softly: Samuel Cohon, who had himself taught Jewish theology at Hebrew Union College when Borowitz was a student there more than 50 years earlier. 

And then, I felt it: an invisible tug, a spark that went from Cohon to Borowitz, from Borowitz to me, from me to my students — and somehow, I know, from them on to others.

That is the work of eternity.

This week, the Reform world said farewell to Paul J. Reichenbach, who died at 74 after a brief battle with ALS. Reichenbach was the long-time director of Reform Jewish youth programs, overseeing camp programs — the pride of the movement and the envy of other Jewish movements — and Israel trips for teens.

I wrote these words about Paul:

We never really know the ultimate scope of our vision and our reach. Rabbis, cantors, teachers, educators, camp directors — and yes, pastors, priests, imams, all religious professionals: We do not always see the rewards of our labors in the moment, or even in our lifetimes, before the people we engage go out into the world.

It is a much longer arc than that. It is an arc that lasts not just a lifetime, but beyond. It can reach into several lifetimes.

And now, I ask you: Who are the teachers that you remember?

Take a few moments and name them. Let their teachings sing to you again. 

They are your teachers in heaven.