Today I Buried a Man Alone……Or So I Thought

Over the past 20 years as a Chabad Rabbi, I’ve officiated a lot of funerals. The number of participants ranged from hundreds to a lone brother burying his estranged sister. But never before have I had no one in attendance other than myself and a shovel.

The Oxnard Jew who just passed away was 92 years old and sadly succumbed to the coronavirus…his out of town family could not attend in person due to Covid concerns and travel restrictions…so I did all of the traditional rituals and said all of the prayers as usual with one exception; the Kaddish. It cannot be recited without the required quorum of 10 Jews in attendance. While I was sad about this, I took comfort in knowing that it was the best I could do under the current difficult circumstances.

WAIT, the story isn’t over yet!

As I got into my car to leave the cemetery, something popped into my head (a voice from Heaven?) to drive in the complete opposite direction of the exit and onto a road that seemed to lead to a new section of the memorial park that was still under construction and clearly vacant.

As I turned a bend around a mountain, I see a family on the other side standing near a gravesite looking distraught and confused. I stopped, opened my window and asked if all was ok. “We need 1 more for the Minyan so we can say Kaddish for our dad who passed”!

Well the rest is history.

Not only did I help them recite the prayers, they helped me and we said the Kaddish for the man I had buried nearby just minutes prior.

So indeed apparently I wasn’t alone after all!

“G-d directs the footsteps of man” writes King David in Psalms. Nothing is by chance. Everything happens for a reason.

May we see opened and revealed blessings in 2021 and beyond.

With prayers for the true and complete redemption and a world free of illness, pain, suffering, death and war with the speedy arrival of Moshiach, Amen!