Number the Stars – An Ode to Love, Friendship and Memory
The 147th Psalm has two verses that never fail to open wellsprings of love and memory:
‘Harofei lishvurei lev, um’chabesh l’atzvotam, moneh mispar lakochavim, l’chulam shemot yikra’ – ‘The Eternal heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds, the One who numbers the stars and gives each one a name.’
Yizkor is the time of year where we consciously open these wellsprings of love and memory. If the loss is close or recent (or both), these wellsprings can be turbulent and raw; if the loss has mellowed with time and distance, they may be tender and nourishing. Either way, it is a wise thing that our tradition creates moments of ritualized remembrance, where we step out of time and into memory, honoring love and loss.
Paradoxically, there is great hope in the contemplation of Yizkor: a hope to love and remember and to be loved and remembered. The words of Song of Songs, which we read around Pesach time, remind us that ‘love is stronger than death.’
Yizkor is many things to many people; among them an ode to love, friendship and memory. It is a precious thing indeed, to create sacred vessels for remembering.
Yizkor is about the stories we share. Stories of personalities no longer with us but who continue to impact us till this day. We live in a time where we need much more compassionate stories. This Yizkor, there is an unexpected story I want to share—a testimony to love and friendship—that buttresses us against the cynical and cutting times we live in.
While it may seem strange to connect a Medieval ritual of commemoration to the contemporary stories of our culture, I think books, movies, literature and art can be repositories for grief and joy in ways that feel collectively cathartic. I never thought I would talk about the power of Yizkor through a science-fiction story about a rocky space alien, but the story I am about to share brought me to deep and meaningful tears.
Last summer, while on vacation, I read ‘Project Hail Mary’; a science-fiction novel by Andy Weir (author of ‘The Martian’). As a genre-lover, I picked up a copy, not knowing what to expect. A few days later, I finished the book, and was a flood of tears. Beautiful, raw, welcome tears at the deep humanism of the story.
The movie came out a few weeks ago and is a massive, runaway success: on its domestic opening weekend alone, the film grossed over 80 million dollars at the box office. When I went to see the movie, I knew I was witnessing a once-in-a-generation tearjerker, not unlike E.T. in the 1980’s. Again, I unashamedly bawled my eyes out—big, wet tears over a rocky alien and their deep friendship with their human. I know many of you have seen the movie; if not, go and see it—it is wonderful.
How are Yizkor and ‘Rocky’, the fictitious, eponymous alien from the star system Erid connected? Without wanting to spoil the plot too much, here is some clarification: humanity discovers that the sun is dimming to catastrophic degrees and rushes to find a cause. This leads to the governments of the world banding together to create a once-in-a-lifetime ‘Hail Mary’ project: an intergalactic suicide mission led by an unlikely astronaut, Ryland Grace. The astronaut meets an extraterrestrial in a spaceship who has come from their home planet to likewise investigate the Eridian star’s dimming. Grace and the alien establish communications; Grace dubs the alien ‘Rocky’, due to their spiderlike and rocky carapace, and the two develop a deep, transcendent, sacred bond: ‘Rocky and Grace save stars.’
The plot, as preposterous as it sounds, is emotionally resonant. At a time of polarization, division, conflict, falsehood and war, this story rises above the crises and despairs of our time through its set of opposing values. It is a tale of friendship, sacrifice and love, of not seeing the other (or stranger) as a threat but to approach sentience with expansiveness and generosity. Across unimaginable difference and at the highest stakes possible, this strange-looking alien (five angular tentacles, a geometric body, no eyes, no face) becomes the greatest expression of humanity. As Rocky tells Grace in the book: ‘I am scary space monster. You are leaky space blob.’
By the end of the film, your heart has grown in your chest and your spirit has lifted. Life, loss, death—these are topics not sidestepped by the film, but embraced and metabolized in emotionally mature ways. What does it mean to risk one’s life for love? To leave behind a dying world? To form an indelible bond in unexpected ways? To be loyal and kind, courageous and, well, menschlik?
‘Moneh mispar l’kochavim, l’chulam shemot nikra’, the Psalmist tells us, ‘the One who numbers the stars, and gives each one a name.’ Each one. Rocky and Grace teach us that each one of us has a name, memory, place, belonging, love—no matter where we are from, even if it is from beyond the galaxy.
Yizkor embeds our personal losses into a bigger story. It holds us; allows us to reflect and reminisce, to love and be expanded by that love. Yizkor helps us become both more tender and better human beings. Our culture needs stories such as this—stories of remembrance and humanity; permission structures to quietly wipe a tear away at the Mourners’ Kaddish among the warmth of community, or to sob into our popcorn in the cinema. To hold tenderly how heavy and despairing our world is and to be reminded of our humanity. To dream of unseen worlds not as places of darkness but as doorways into eternal hope.
Great stories and rituals remind us that we are not alone.
As we stand here, at this Pesach Yizkor, after having told the greatest story of Judaism – the Exodus of Egypt – we recall those who have loved and lost. Through remembrance, we bring them back to life, if only for a fleeting moment like a flash of light. We hold the fullness of their humanity. We hold their memories at our tables, in our homes and our hearts. We smile or cry or laugh or process a range of emotions towards those who are no longer with us. But above all, in this moment, standing shoulder to shoulder, we know we are not alone.
In ‘Project Hail Mary’, Hyland Grace faces existential loneliness as he hurtles through black space. Far above the achievements of near-lightspeed space travel and near-future technologies stands the true glory of the human spirit: the ability to form bonds and to love bravely. After Grace meets his Rocky, he tells his new friend: ‘well, you’re not alone, buddy… neither of us are.’
We hold our losses tenderly, but we are not alone. We have each other, as we hurtle on this pale blue dot through black space. We count the stars and bind each other’s wounds. Indeed, love is stronger than death.
Chag Pesach Sameach.
