October 2025
Rabbi Moshe Taub
This is the week of my mother’s, a”h, yartzeit.
Losing a loved one is painful, yet chazal share how Hashem gifted us with the power of shikcha, the ability to, if not forget, to move on. With time we learn to live with the absence, to navigate the pain.
In fact, Rav Moshe Feinstein explains that the reason why many have the minhag to avoid reciting yizkar the first year of mourning is precisely due to its freshness. On yom tov we are not supposed to cry –yom tov hi mi’lizok – and the newness of this lost, combined with reciting their name among the dead may be too jarring for the simchas hachag.
A few months ago, a member approached me with an interesting question. At first, I dismissed his query as silly, yet I couldn’t shake it, and certainly didn’t know the most tactful way to answer him.
“Rabbi, this has always bothered me. If the olam ha’emes is beyond space and time, why would the loss of a neshama be minimized with time?”
How would you answer this question, as well as the many others that arise at this time?
(In the past, I would call Rav Ahron Levine z”l)
Recently however, in preparation for my mother’s yartzeit, I was reminded of a fascinating idea (see Kol Bo L’Yartzeit, volume 1 p. 59-60, and Das VaDin p. 76).
First, let us review the history behind ‘yartzeits’:
Although codified in the Shulchan Aruch, the minhag of yartzeit is of dubious origin. The most logical historical explanation for its provenance is that it was the chachmei ashkenaz whocreated this day at some point after the 800’s C.E (some say that it was institutionalized by Rav Hai Gaon). Even Rav Yosef Karo, the author of the Shulchan Aruch, and himself of sefardi descent, quotes ashkenazi sources as his support for establishing halachos for this day (oh’c siman 621).
Others point to tanach (see shoftim 11:40; II divrei hayamim 32:33; II shmuel 1:12), although most dismiss these as being the source for our current minhag.
Even the minhag of simply reciting kaddish on a yartzeit is without a clear source. While some claim it too was a takana from ashkanaz (see Keser Shem Tov vol. one p. 101 and Otzar HaGeonim, mashkin, p. 79).
Whatever its source, we must wonder what precise purpose it serves.
- The gemara teaches us that the mitzvah of kibbud av v’em applies even after a parent’s death (kiddushin 31b), and based on this the Torah Temima states, “There is no greater failure in proper kavod (for one’s parent) than forgetting them and their memory after their demise, for this demonstrates that (the child) lacks recognition as to their importance and feelings of love toward them…and since chazal state that forgetfulness begins after twelve months…we establish such a day every year (every twelve months)…” (Mekor Baruch 2:15; see also Sefer Chasidim #231).
- Others explain that the minhag of a yartzeit is due to the fact that each neshama is judged on the day they departed from this fleeting world to see if it should be granted an even higher position in shomayim. Their progeny therefore performs special acts, and certain mitzvos, in their zechus (see Panim Yaffos to parshas Bahaloschah).
- Some take an entirely different approach. Because the day one commemorates a parent’s yartzeit is a day of ‘reyah d’mazlei -bad mazal’(one commemorating a yartzeit avoids travel etc.), and therefore the child spends the day in taanis and teffila in order to protect themselves. Indeed, the Chasam Sofer writes that such days should be considered as yimey teshuvah for the rest of one’s lives (shu’t Chasam Sofer, y’d 156).
There are many more approaches, but there is one final one I wish to share, as it had a tremendous impact on those in my in shul with whom I shared it. Kol Bo L’Yartzeit brings from Rav Dovid Asaf (sefer Yalkut Das V’Din, p. 76) that the goal of and the particular sadness we feel on a yartzeit is due to the fact that we are victims of our own success. Every mitzvah we perform, any chesed we do and all the Torah that we learn is all due to those who raised us. These zechusim cause our parents to ascend even higher into heights of shomayim. Therefore, since it is on the yartzeit when they receive their new elevated status (see below for more details), each year we become more and more distant from them, as they ascend. We are mournful of the now even greater distance between us!
Perhaps, then, as we grow in Torah and chesed year-after-year,as we continue in the ways of those who raised us, we feel more distant because we are!
This reminds me of what Rav Yaakov Kamanetzky shared at a yartzeit event for Rav Aaron Kotler. He pointed out how Rashi seems to compare a yartzeit to a ‘regel’ (yevamus 122a). He explained that the on each festival we are to go to Yerushalaim ‘l’roaos u’lhiharos’ –to see the makom hamikdosh and to be seen by Hashem. Rav Yaakov suggested that just like on yom tov -when we travel to stand before Hashem -so too on a yartzeit we are to imagine standing before the niftar. How will they look at us? What will they say to us? Where would they want us to improve? What will they think about the way we have been navigating our lives? (Rebbe Yaakov, p. 479).
Rav Pinkus writes that today without a mikdosh, on each yom tov we stand before Hashem and say, “Look at us” (Sichos, p. 149).
Lahavdil, one of the reasons we visit cemeteries (see Rav Chaim Paltiel as quoted by the Bach in yoreh deah, siman 217) is not chalila to be doreish el hamaisim, rather to to look at their matzeiva, remind ourselves of their lives, what they stood for, and be galvanized to change for the better.
It is said that Rav Elchanan Wasserman would encourage his students to visit gedolim. “In this world, for a little money, one could take a train to Radin and see the Chofetz Chaim. Do it! Because in the next world, these gedolim will be at a station unattainable to us!”
However, when is comes to our loved ones, as we increase their station we simultaneously increase ours as well…so that we will be reunited either acher meah v’esrim, or b’yimon homoshaich, sh’yavo b’mehera!
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