Posted on October 4, 2025
On the 13th April 1888 Alfred Nobel awoke to discover that he had died. Or at least that is what one French newspaper was reporting, as it carried an obituary for the inventor. More shocking than seeing his name on the page was the description he found. The obituary stated: “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.” And it carried the line: “The merchant of death is dead”. Alfred Nobel was not only shocked to read about his death, he was also distraught at the way he was destined to be remembered.
As it turns out the newspaper had got the wrong Nobel, it was really his brother, Ludwig, who had died the previous day. This unfortunate error turned into something quite fortuitous, as Alfred Nobel gained something which few of us ever receive: an insight into the way he would be remembered after his death. Needless to say, he was less than thrilled about the prospect of being known as ‘The merchant of death’.
Ultimately, he lived for an additional eight years, and in that time he was able to transform the way that he would be remembered. In his last will and testament, the bulk of his estate was left for the establishment of prizes in the sciences, literary works, and peace. Alfred Nobel is still the inventor of dynamite, but today his name is first and foremost associated with prizes awarded to the great and good within society. 1
Few of us will get to read our own obituary and none of us can know how we will actually be remembered. But we always have the choice about how to live our lives to ensure that we are ultimately remembered in the way that we want to be.
As a Rabbi I do not write obituaries, but I have the immense honor of delivering a eulogy in memory of those who have died. I find writing and delivering eulogies to be one of the most humbling and extraordinary parts of my rabbinate. It is simultaneously an awesome and terrifying responsibility; how do you sum up a person’s life in just a few pages?
Finding the right words to encapsulate a life is a daunting proposition and one that I take very seriously. It is a sacred responsibility to stand before a person’s friends, family, and community and find words to give meaning, consolation, and comfort in the midst of loss and mourning.
Finding the right words to say in a eulogy can be difficult. Living a life worthy of a eulogy is even harder.
The columnist David Brooks addressed this subject in his book: “The Road to Character”. Brooks challenges us to rebalance the scales of our lives between our “résumé virtues” and our “eulogy virtues”. As he writes: “[Résumé virtues are] the skills that you bring to the job market and that contribute to external success. The eulogy virtues are deeper. They’re the virtues that … exist at the core of your being – whether you are kind, brave, honest or faithful; what kind of relationships you formed.”
We know that these eulogy virtues are the ones that need to be nurtured for our relationships, to be our best selves, and to contribute positively to our world and our society. But how much time do we dedicate to developing, growing, and nurturing them?
Think for a minute about the key sentence that you want to have shared at your funeral. What adjectives do you hope will be used to describe you and your character? What types of stories do you want people to tell? How do you really want to be remembered?
In considering this division between our eulogies and our résumés, Brook’s draws on the teachings of Rabbi Joseph Soleveitchik, the great Orthodox thinker of the last century. In his book, “The Lonely Man of Faith”, Rav Soloveitchik drew on the idea that the Bible offers two accounts of creation to present us with two Adams, representing the two types of humanity we find in the world.
In the first story, Adam is created in the image of God and is given the task to fill the earth and subdue it; this is the account in Genesis 1, where we read that God created the world in seven days. This first Adam is concerned with building, creating, producing and discovering things; this is Adam in pursuit of success, in pursuit of his résumé.
In contrast, in Genesis 2, with our second story, we are presented with an Adam who is made from the dust of the ground when God breathed into his nostrils, placing the Divine directly within him. This Adam was given the task of cultivating the garden and tending to it; he appreciates the natural world around us and is motivated by a desire to serve and take care off all of God’s creation. This second Adam pursues acts of charity, love and redemption; he lives his eulogy virtues.
Our Torah contains both stories of creation and we are the descendants of both of these Adams, containing the two halves within ourselves. Both are a part of who we are. We cannot and should not completely reject either part of our humanity. The problem is that in our society, we have focused far too heavily on the first Adam and we have neglected to nurture and grow the second.
Recent studies have shown that people are looking for this shift in focus in their lives. According to the findings of the Strayer University Success Project Survey, 90% of Americans believe that success is more about happiness than power, possessions, or prestige. As Dr. Michael Plater, the president of the University said: “It’s no longer about the car or the house. Instead, people are focused on leading a fulfilling life, whether that means finding a better career, achieving personal goals, or spending more time with their families.”
The question for us is: Are we investing our time and effort to really pursue these goals and live our eulogies? Or are we continuing to focus on living our résumés?
I’ll admit, there have been times in my life when I have been primarily focused on the accumulation of certificates, degrees and qualifications – résumé virtues. My wife Micol is probably laughing right now, because that is a gross understatement for which I will atone in a few minutes. And while it might look good on paper, in the end, what will I have really gained from these achievements? Will my life be any richer, any more fulfilled?
Today, as well as being our day for repentance and judgement, Yom Kippur is also our day of death. By abstaining from food and wearing white, we give ourselves a small taste of death. And at this point in the day, as we come together for our Yizkor service and remember our loved ones who are no longer with us, we are reminded all too painfully that we all must die. We have no choice over our ultimate fate, but through the way that we live our lives, we can choose the way in which we will be remembered.
It’s easy to stand up here and preach that we should live our eulogies; it’s much harder to do it. The first and most important step is to know what we want our eulogy to be. I didn’t want to just stand up here and tell you that we should live our eulogies, I wanted to practice what I preach, and so I took that first step and tried to write my eulogy. It was not easy, and these words that I will share are aspirational, they are the words that I hope will one day be recited, in the very very distant future, at my funeral.
As we come together to mourn Danny, we remember a man who was first and foremost a family man. Nothing made Danny as happy as spending time with his family. He loved playing with his children. His children described him as not just a parent, but a playmate. They were the center of his universe and he always made sure to find opportunities to spend real quality time together. When asked the most important lesson they learned from their father, his children responded that growing old doesn’t mean growing up and that there is no quality more important than kindness. He followed his love Micol halfway across the world; she says he remained as loving and caring through their many years together, as when they first met. Together they built a home in which all of their children’s friends felt comfortable inviting themselves over and rifling through the fridge and pantry, which was always stocked with treats. Their house was a home, not just for family, but for all who entered. His congregants refer to him lovingly as “my” or “our” Rabbi, not one of them without a story about how “their” Rabbi was there for them, fully present, when they needed him most. In our community Rabbi Danny will be remembered most for making synagogue life meaningful and engaging. In a world that is becoming deeply disconnected, he created entry points and places of connection for everyone who sought them.
I want to be very honest now. Writing that one paragraph was amongst the hardest parts of a sermon I have ever tried to write. After writing a first draft, which was no easy task, I showed it to my wife, Micol. She read it through and then gave me a knowing look only a partner could give. She pointed out, correctly as it turns out, that my first attempt, rather than being ambitious, spoke to the things I already did; much, ironically, like a resume. “Cop-out” was the phrase I believe she used. As we talked about it, it became clear to me that writing my own eulogy was about writing an aspirational document, the words I shared are not yet true; they are challenging me to live my life in a way that reaches up to my highest ideals.
Our resumes list our achievements, things we have already accomplished; when we try to write our own eulogies it is about looking forward to the type of person we want to be, to the things we want remembered at the very end. Putting it down on paper sets the standard to which I am aspiring, but it also means that there is the possibility for failure; the possibility that I will not live up to the ideals that I have set for myself. In part I think that is one of the reasons I struggled writing it, is because now it’s on paper I have set the standard for the way that I want to live my life, and moving forward I will know if I am succeeding or failing. As uncomfortable as it may be, it is a marker by which I can be judged.
This eulogy represents the way that I want to be remembered, and more importantly, the impact I want to make on the world and the meaning I want it to have. And as the story of Alfred Nobel reminds us, it is never too late to begin living your life for the eulogy you want written.
Writing this down was the first step, it provided me with a vision of what I want said and as such it provides me with a guide of how I want to live my life. The challenge is now to take these words and act on them.
Whether or not you choose to begin writing your own eulogy is up to each one of you. But I hope that in the quiet of Yizkor, on this day of Yom Kippur, all of us will think about the way in which we one day want to be remembered and begin to live our lives accordingly. We may not get to choose how or when we die, but we all get to choose how we live. So how will you be remembered? How will you live?