Transcription:
You come to synagogue and there’s a special service that is conducted in memory of the departed. Holidays for many people are times when you are attuned to the people who are missing, what they call the empty seats at the Seder table. Holidays always in Judaism have been times of gathering. And so when there are people who ought to have been there or who were there for many years but are no longer there, you really feel their presence in a profound way. And so the custom is that the rabbi will say a few words about making meaning out of grief and loss, that you’ll say some prayers, and most importantly what comes out of the service is you commit to either giving tzedakah or doing good deeds. But you say it in public because the things we say in public have greater permanence and they are heard more loudly. You say in public, I will do a good deed in honour of this person. I may not have them at my table any more but I feel their presence so strongly that I want to manifest that in a tangible way and I commit to doing that. And of course you say Kaddish as part of the Yizkor, as part of the Yizkor service. And there are some who will say you don’t go to Yizkor during the first year of mourning. There are some who say you do. You have to talk to your rabbi about these things. But certainly Ashkenazi Jews, after the first year, you try and make a special effort to attend synagogue on those four occasions.