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Jewish Life & Celebrations

Funeral

A Memorial Service

Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine
In marking a death, Humanistic Jews focus on the importance of honoring the needs of the living. The style and length of mourning is a personal choice and is not dictated to the person in mourning. The following readings, created by Rabbi Sherwin Wine, are samples of remarks at a memorial service.
Sherwin T. Wine, Celebration, Prometheus Books, 2003, pp 377-388.

Opening Reading
Eulogy
Second Reading
Silent Tribute
Closing Words

Opening Reading

Death is something individual. Against the collective stream of life, it seems powerless. Particular flowers fade and die, but every spring repeats them in the cycle of nature. Individual man is a brief episode, but humanity bears the mark of immortality, renewed in every generation by the undying spark of life. We are, each of us, greater than ourselves. We survive in the children we create. We endure in the humanity we serve.

As an individual, separate and distinct, each of us is temporary, an ephemeral chapter in the saga of the universe. As a moment in the never-ending process of life, each of us is immortal, an expression of the persistent thrust of vital energy. The leaves of last year’s summer have died and have vanished into the treasury of mother earth, but each one lives on in the renewal of every spring. Every person dies, but humanity survives. Every living thing perishes, but life persists.

Eulogy

Second Reading

Death is real. In the world of changing nature it is inevitable. It may be postponed, but it cannot be avoided.

Loved ones do not pass away. They die. They do not escape the rhythm of life.

But they leave their gifts. We still ask in their love. We still use their instruction. We are still inspired by their deeds. We still linger on the memories of their style.

Immortality is very intimate. It is part of our mind. It is as close as our power to remember.

In the real world death is part of the drama of life. So is the loving tribute of remembrance.

Silent Tribute

Let us all rise and stand for a moment of silent tribute to the life and memory of ______

Closing Words

Let the memory of good people bless us.

May the memory of ______, whom we loved in life and still love in death, continue to bless our thoughts and our actions.

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