So my son Jonah discovered the Warren Zevon tunes on my iPod and I’m kvelling to no end as he turns into a big fan. (I’m a lifelong Zevon-devotee; his 1981 concert in LA in 1981 remains for me an indelible musical memory). Jonah’s discovery has inspired me to go back and listen to the songs of the late, great WZ. In particular I’ve been appreciating his later stuff: the lesser known post “Werewolves of London” tunes that are at turns hilarious, morbid, touching and always so keenly intelligent.

I’m also listening more closely to his final album, “The Wind” – the project he worked on while he was dying from terminal lung cancer. When it first came out in 2003, just two weeks before he died, it was just to raw and painful for me to listen to at length. But returning to it now, I’m realizing what an amazing work it is – a kind of “musical living will” that touches on all of themes of his life’s work without ever being maudlin or over-sentimental. This is a artist who didn’t flinch from exploring his demons while he was alive and he was a true role model for how to make the most of one’s life down to the very end.

Check out the clip above, an excerpt from his astonishing appearance on the Letterman show several months before his death. Letterman (his longtime friend who featured Zevon countless times over the years) devoted the entire show to him and they talked at length. Even if you’re not a fan, I encourage you to watch. It’s truly an incredible TV moment: a dying musician speaking openly and honestly about his terminal illness on a late night talk show before performing some of his greatest songs in public for the final time. He couldn’t hit all the high notes, but it was still a muscial performance for the ages.

How do we live after the death of someone we love?

By acting with honor and loyalty…

Then Abraham rose from beside his dead, and spoke to the Hittites, saying, “I am a resident alien among you: sell me a burial site among you, that I may remove my dead for burial.” (Genesis 23:3-4)

By providing for our future:

Abraham answered him…”The Lord of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from my native land, who promised me an oath, saying, ‘I will assign this land to your offspring’ – He will send His angel before you and you will get a wife for my son.” (Genesis 24:6-7)

Through the eternal possibility of love:

Isaac then brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he took Rebecca as his wife. Isaac loved her, and thus found comfort after his mother’s death. (Genesis 24:67)

Through reconciliation, forgiveness and peace:

And Abraham breathed his last, dying at a good ripe age, old and contented; and he was gathered to his kin. His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah… (Genesis 25:8-9)

From the Ve’zot Haberachach, the final portion in the Torah:

So Moses the servant of the Lord died there, in the land of Moab, at the command of the Lord. He buried him in the valley of Moab, near Beit Peor; and no one knows his burial place to this day. (Deuteronomy 34:5-6)

Readers of the Torah often comment on the seeming unfairness of God’s decree that Moses must die before he can enter the Promised Land. But when we reach the final verses of the Torah, the tone feels anything but untimely or tragic. Rather, God’s treatment of Moses in his final moments hints at a spirit of love and tenderness.

Commentators have made much of the words “al pi adonai” – “at the command of the Lord,” which literally means “at the mouth of the Lord.” In the midrashic imagination, this verse is commonly read: “Moses died…at the kiss of God.” Some have pointed out the poignant symmetry of this image: just as God breathes life into the first human, God reclaims Moses’ soul with through a similar loving act.

The portrayal of God personally “burying” Moses is equally as powerful. The stark anthropomorphism of this verse is striking in the way it invites us to identify with this sacred act of kindness. The mitzvah of burying the dead, in fact, comes from this text. According to halacha, burial of the dead is one of our most sacred mitzvot in Jewish tradition, since it is performed with the knowledge that it cannot possibly be “repaid” by the recipient.

God’s care for Moses in the final days of his life is described in great detail in a famous midrash known as Petirat Moshe. At the end of this classic rabbinic text, God and the angels guide Moses, in a sense, through his final dying process. For his part, Moses seems to almost go through the various Kubler-Ross phases as he pleads with God for his life: i.e., anger, bargaining, denial, and finally, of course, acceptance. Among other things, this midrash powerfully portrays the gamut of Moses’ emotions from the sense of unfairness to his final moment of letting go.

I thought of this midrash recently for the first time in years as I was reading this portion, remembering that I actually wrote a contemporary rendering of Petirat Moshe during my final year of rabbinical school. I’m thinking it might be appropriate to share an excerpt from it in the spirit of Simchat Torah – as our latest Torah reading cycle now comes to a close. I’ll resist the intense urge to change and tweak the language of a young rabbinical student and offer it just as it appeared fifteen years ago. To read, just click below…

The Holy One said, “There is nothing to scared of, Moshe. I will command your nephew Eleazar to accompany you to your resting place on Mt. Nebo. You shall die atop this holy mountain, for death does not mean destruction, but elevation. You will see, Moshe. There is nothing to be afraid of.”

And at noon on the following day, Eleazar went with Moshe up Mt. Nebo. Eleazar was instructed to leave Moshe before they reached the top. Moshe climbed the rest of the way alone. When he finally arrived at the mountaintop, he found a beautiful golden couch which had been arranged for him by the angels. Moshe lay down upon it as God had instructed.

As soon as he lay down, Moshe beheld a wondrous vision. He saw the Temple in Jerusalem in all its luminous splendor, shining forth from its holy mount. Moshe cried out, “I thought you told me I wasn’t allowed to glimpse the Promised Land before I died.”

“Look carefully” said God.

Then Moshe realized that what he was seeing was not the Temple in earthly Jerusalem, but rather the Holy Temple which sits in the Jerusalem of the Heavens, of which our earthly Temple is but a pale comparison. This was the Temple constructed by God’s hand. It was made of precious jewels, pearls and gold – and it housed the holy light of the Shechinah, which was to be preserved for Israel to all eternity, to the end of all generations.

As Moshe beheld this glorious vision, his resistance began to melt. Yet no sooner did he begin to sigh, than the Angel of Death appeared.

Moshe froze up. Terror began to rise from the pit of his stomach. But as he looked on, he realized something odd. The figure wasn’t dark at all, but bathed in light. Then, as the form turned to face him, he recognized the face of his Beloved.

It was only then that Moshe finally let go. He said to his soul as it left his body, “Return, O my soul, to your tranquility, for Adonai has dealt bountifully with you.”

The Holy One thereupon reclaimed Moshe’s soul with a kiss, and Moshe, whose name means “drawn from the water” returned to that vast, limitless Ocean of All Being.

All streams flow into the sea, but the sea is never full. To the place from which the water flows, there it will flow back again. (Ecclesiastes 1:7)