## Rabbi Sacks on Siddur, Festivals, Yizkor

###### Rabbi Sacks on Siddur, Festivals, Yizkor 2
[Rabbi Sacks on Siddur, Festivals, Yizkor 2](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Rabbi%20Sacks%20on%20Siddur/s/Festivals,_Yizkor/r/2)

**English Edition; Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2017:**
YIZKOR: MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR THE DEAD
From the eleventh century onward it has become customary to pray, at key moments in the year, for the souls of the departed. At first, this prayer was said only on Yom Kippur, but it was soon extended to the last days of the other festivals: the last day of Pesaḥ, the second day of Shavuot (first day in Israel), and the day of Shemini Atzeret.
Remembrance is fundamental to Judaism. The word *zakhor*, “remember,” in one or other of its forms, appears no fewer than 169 times in the Hebrew Bible. The past is not lost: we remain connected to it to the extent that we remember it, honor it, and keep faith with it. We are its heirs – our lives are part of a story that began long before we were born and will continue long after we physically cease to be. Above all, God remembers – as we say in every Amida, He “remembers the loving-kindness of the fathers.” For Him, there is no forgetting.
At *Yizkor*, our memory reaches out to that of God. We ask Him to re-member those of our family who are no longer here. We ask Him to look on the good we do (it is a custom to donate a sum to charity at this time and attribute it to the souls of the departed ones), for it is because of their influence on us that we are in the synagogue; that we pray, and that we try to do good in this life. A connection is thus made between the dead and the living. We remember them; with God’s help, their virtues live on in us. That is as much of immortality as we can know in the land of the living.
It is a custom at *Yizkor* also to remember the Jewish martyrs, including the victims of the Holocaust, for we are the guardians of their memory. The dead cannot be brought back to life, but we can act in such a way as to ensure that they did not die in vain, by showing that the faith for which they died still lives. To the *Yizkor* prayer itself have been added a series of biblical verses on life and death, together with a prayer that we may act in such a way as to honor the memory of those, especially our parents, who are no longer here.