Rabbi Friedman - The Soul and the Afterlife: Where Do We Go From Here?

Avodah
1

A talk on this topic given by Rabbi Feldman is at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzFUXKk2B4I&feature=youtu.be

[https://i.ytimg.com/vi/YzFUXKk2B4I/maxresdefault.jpg\]<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzFUXKk2B4I&feature=youtu.be&gt;

Rabbi Friedman - The Soul and the Afterlife: Where Do We ...<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzFUXKk2B4I&feature=youtu.be&gt;
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Sinai Indaba is an annual Torah convention of the foremost international Jewish leaders and thinkers. See more at: www.Sinai-Indaba.com Dubbed a "superstar" ...

Beginning at about 9 minutes and 30 seconds into the talk, Rabbi Feldman talks about how the soul needs us to say Yizkor and will not allow people "pull strings" to get people l to say Yizkor.

These statements have raised questions in my mind.

From http://booksnthoughts.com/the-relatively-recent-origin-of-yizkor/

What is the origin of Yizkor?

The custom of reciting Yizkor on the solemn holiday of Yom Kippur began in Germany in the eleventh century following the devastation of Rhineland Jewry during the Crusades, a trauma that was exacerbated in the fourteenth century when Jews were butchered because non-Jews were convinced that they caused the Black Plague. It was originally a personal family prayer recited to remember their dead, but it soon became a prayer recited within a community in synagogues on Yom Kippur.

The custom of reciting Yizkor spread eastward very quickly and Polish Jews supplemented it with a prayer remembering the Jewish victims of the 1648 Cossack massacre under the leadership of Bogdan Chmielnicki. The Polish Jews also extended the recital of Yizkor beyond the sole recitation on Yom Kippur to the last days of the three festivals Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot.

The additional recitals were made because of popular feelings, but it raised a problem that has not been satisfactorily answered: Yizkor can fit into the Yom Kippur services because Yom Kippur is a solemn day, but the three other holidays are happy days, why add a somber prayer to mar these holidays.

2

would be willing to wager that Yemenites don't say Yizkor. If so, what
about the souls of Sefardim or Yemenites?

Sefardim do not say Yizkor as such, but we do say "Hashcabot", and learn
Torah and make berachot "Le`ilui neshama". I haven't listened to R.
Friedman's whole talk, but what I did hear would apply just as much to the
Sephardi minhagim as it does to Yizkor.

3

: A talk on this topic given by Rabbi [Manis Friedman] is at
: https://youtu.be/YzFUXKk2B4I
...
: Beginning at about 9 minutes and 30 seconds into the talk, Rabbi [Friedman]
: talks about how the soul needs us to say Yizkor and will not allow people
: "pull strings" to get people l to say Yizkor.

What he says is that if the soul is to get anything out of Qaddish,
Yizkor, or tzedaqah, it must be done by those the person was in
relationship with.

If you listen with an ear to figure out what is obvious intent is, how
he makes sense (rather than someone trying to find flaws), he means "need"
in the same way people talk about "needing" coffee. Does this mean the
person will literally die if they don't get their coffee?

Similarly, the dead manipulate even quite assimilated descendents into
getting to shul for Yizkor because they need Yizkor.

Where in his tone or context do you get a justification for insisting he
couldn't have meant it idiomatically?

(If RMFriedman weren't chassidish, I wonder if you wouldn't have cut
him more slack. This post reads like yet another in your tiresome string
of misnagdishe threads.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha