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One of my aims in this space is to help democratize the spiritual life. To that end, let me try to offer some helpful advice to those of you who will deliver a eulogy for somebody you loved (stay tuned for how to give a wedding toast).
More and more funerals these days are including eulogies delivered by people other than the presiding clergyperson. This is most pronounced in Jewish and Protestant funerals, but even the Roman Catholic Church, which once virtually prohibited eulogies, is now allowing them. I think this is generally a good thing because it reduces canned eulogies by clergy who did not really know the dearly beloved, and it also helps begin the grief work of family and friends. Of course it can get out of hand. Too many eulogies are repetitious and enervating; eulogies that are more about the eulogizer than the eulogizee are embarrassing; and musical eulogies are usually just plain stupid. Eulogies must be brief. Even though everything they say must be true, they need not say every true thing about the deceased person. Within the bounds of common sense, eulogies from family and friends generally have a poignancy and truthfulness that even the most eloquent clergy cannot ever hope to achieve.
On the catastrophic side, I recently was told about a funeral for a man in Florida. Following touching eulogies delivered by his sons, a total stranger made his way from the back of the funeral chapel to the lectern and said, "I have no idea who this guy was, but he does have a nice casket. My son knew him and told me to come over here and tell everybody that he was a hell of a softball pitcher. My son played shortstop with this guy and my son was really great! My son could turn a double play and hit like a pro. I told my son that he should never have quit the team, but he wanted to go out on top. What can you do? I guess that's it." Then he left. The rabbi who had been hired by the funeral home to do the service then calmed the agitated crowd with these comforting words, "Hey, I didn't know him either."
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On the other spiritual hand there was the funeral I conducted for Joan's sister, Dolores, who died at age 67 from pancreatic cancer after a career of teaching Shakespeare, Keats and creative writing to generations of disadvantaged students. Joan rose to eulogize her sister and told a story about how they had performed a short play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music when they were young girls and were taking elocution lessons from Mrs. Shapiro on Flatbush Avenue. The play was called, "The Fairy and the Doll." Dolores was the fairy and Joan was the doll. Joan remembered her sister coming on stage in her fairy costume and tiptoeing over to her as she lay motionless on the stage. The fairy asked the doll to stand, but the doll said that she was just a doll and could not stand by herself. Dolores the fairy touched her sister Joan the doll with her magic wand and said, "Tillie, tillie, talley tell. I will cast a magic spell. Tippey, tappy, tippy tup, now you'll find you can get up." And then Joan the doll got up and they danced together, bowed to the audience together, and left the stage.
Then Joan walked over to her sister's casket, kissed it and whispered, "Tillie, tillie, talley tell. I will cast a magic spell. Tippey, tappy, tippy tup, now you'll find you can get up." I thought it was the most perfect eulogy I had ever heard until Dolores's 8-year-old granddaughter, Pamela, came to the lectern and delivered a eulogy that was even better: "I believe we should not think of the bad times, just the good times which we had with my grandmother. I will remember the way she kissed me on the nose. I will remember the way she touched us some way in the heart."
The most important quality every eulogy should possess in addition to being egoless, true and brief is that the eulogy should be humble. One can speak words of deep love and respect for a person who has passed to life eternal without appearing to canonize a person whose most defining virtue may have been that he had no outstanding parking tickets and did not father any illegitimate children. Let us remember the eulogy God preached at the death of Moses:
The entire eulogy for Moses was 71 words! I suggest this sobering fact to all potential eulogizers. If it's good enough for Moses, it ought to be good enough for uncle Abe.
The only eulogy I ever heard of that may have been better (and briefer) than God's eulogy for Moses was the iconic eulogy enshrined by generations of Catskill comedians in the joke about the rabbi hired to do Sam's funeral. The rabbi was told by every member of Sam's family that Sam did not posses even one single positive quality. The frustrated rabbi asked them, "What am I supposed to say in the eulogy?" They said, "Rabbi, we have no idea, but frankly that's your problem." The funeral began. The rabbi rose, looked at Sam's coffin, looked at the family and at the congregation. Then he delivered a four-word eulogy: "His brother was worse."
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