By Diane Herman, April 25,. 2026
Shabbat shalom!
When I chose this week to give the drash on Acharei Mot, it felt like an especially meaningful time on the calendar. I am still in the year of mourning for my mom, and this week marks the 11th anniversary of my dad’s yahrzeit, on the 12th of Iyyar.
Little did I know that this week would also become acharei mot—“after the death”—of one of my friends and a stalwart member of this community, Fredi Rembaum. Her death leaves a profound hole in the Library Minyan, in Temple Beth Am, in the wider Los Angeles Jewish community, and in Jewish communities around the world. May her memory, and her example, be a blessing for us all.
I chose this parasha because of its title—Acharei Mot. But most of the immediate reaction to the death of Aaron’s two sons actually appears two weeks earlier, in Parashat Shemini.
There, Aaron’s response to the sudden and tragic loss of his sons is just one word: “Va-yidom.” He is silent.
Ironically, many of our Jewish mourning practices come from what Aaron and his remaining sons were not allowed to do in that moment. Because they had to continue serving the community during the dedication of the Mishkan, they were told not to mourn publicly.
And from those prohibitions, our traditions emerge:
- They were told not to rend their garments—so we tear ours.
- They were told not to let their hair go uncut—so we refrain from haircuts during shloshim.
- They were told not to step away from communal responsibility—and we learn the importance of making space to mourn.
Our tradition honors Aaron’s sacrifice by affirming what he could not do—by giving us permission, and even obligation, to grieve.
So what do we learn in Acharei Mot itself—when the Torah returns to the story after the death?
- We learn about boundaries—who may enter the Holy of Holies, and when.
- We learn about purification of sacred space.
- And we learn the origins of the rituals of Yom Kippur.
The Etz Hayim commentary suggests that these rituals of cleansing, self-scrutiny, and renewal are meant to help us “confront our own mortality and reflect on the direction of our lives.”
My own acharei mot experience, after my mom died, began with a personal commitment: to say Kaddish every morning for the first 30 days—and then I would see.
Na’aseh v’nishma. I told Larry: I’ll do it first–and then decide if I find meaning in the ritual.
This was new for me. When my dad died eleven years ago, we were living in Mozambique. We had helped rebuild a small Jewish community there, even a synagogue building—but when it came time for shloshim, we gathered a minyan of community members but couldn’t gather ten Jews. And there was certainly no daily minyan in Maputo.
So attending a daily minyan has been an entirely new experience for me.
What prompted me to think more deeply about all of this was an article by Arthur Brooks, a professor at Harvard—not Jewish– who writes about happiness.
He begins with a striking line:
“But first, today’s light subject: your death.”
He argues that many people avoid thinking about death—even though we know it is inevitable—because we cannot truly comprehend our own nonexistence. Others embrace the idea of an afterlife as a way to cope. He suggests that unless we acknowledge that our story has an ending, we can’t really shape a meaningful life.
When I read that, I wanted to say: No. That’s not right.
Because our tradition does not avoid death—we confront it.
Every single morning.
In the siddur, right after the morning blessings, we read:
Ma anachnu? What are we? What is our life? What is our kindness, our righteousness, our strength? … All is but a fleeting breath.
I read these words—in English—every morning.
And what is our response?
- Not that we are waiting for the afterlife.
- Not that we are trying to perfect our individual “story arc.”
The answer comes immediately after:
- We are part of a people.
- We are in covenant with the Divine.
- We are heirs of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Our meaning is not only in our individual lives, but in our belonging—to a people, to a tradition, to something that continues beyond us. We affirm this with our recitation of the Shema.
There is a part of the mourning liturgy that I didn’t fully understand—until I did.
Why do mourners recite Kaddish de Rabbanan?
And why, in the middle of mostly difficult Aramaic, do we suddenly encounter these clear Hebrew words:
“v’al rabanan, v’al talmideihon, v’al kol talmidei talmideihon…”
—upon the teachers, and their students, and the students of their students.
Why is that what mourners are asked to focus on?
It took another loss for me to understand.
Last January, on the Jazz Cruise, a beloved musician died suddenly on the penultimate day of the cruise. Just that morning, we watched Ken Peplowski, a famous jazz clarinetist and Anat Cohen, another well-known, clarinetist (Israeli, by the way) speaking about mentorship—about learning from those who came before (Ken had been a student of Benny Goodman) and passing that knowledge forward.
That evening, Ken’s shocking death was announced before the final concert and as I listened to people speak about him, I began to understand.
Legacy.
In jazz, musicians constantly speak about who influenced them—who taught them, who shaped their sound. And that chain continues.
And suddenly, the words of Kaddish de Rabbanan made sense.
When we mourn, we are not only remembering a life that has ended.
We are recognizing a chain that continues.
- Teachers.
- Students.
- Students of students.
Reciting that Kaddish gives us space to think about the legacy of those we have lost.
- How our parents live on in us.
- How we carry them forward.
- How we pass something of them on—to our children, and our grandchildren.
More than eight months have passed since my mom died. I am still going to minyan every morning, and I plan to continue for the full eleven months.
And even after that—I suspect I will keep going, at least often.
Because something unexpected has happened.
Alongside the struggle to find meaning in the prayers, I have found something else.
I walk each morning holding hands with my sweetie and greet the first light of day.
I enter a space where I feel part of something larger than myself.
A community.
Honestly—it feels a little like walking into the bar on Cheers: the place where everybody knows your name.
So what comes acharei mot?
After death—what comes next?
Life.
In our parasha, it is the continuation of sacred service—the dedication of the Mishkan, the rituals of Yom Kippur.
And in my life, it is this:
- Being Savta to my grandchildren.
- Being a teacher to my students.
- Finding joy in music.
- Showing up to minyan.
Carrying forward the legacy of my parents.
The legacy of my people.
And discovering, along the way, a community that needed me—and that I didn’t even know I needed.
And you know what?
We need you, too.
Shabbat shalom.