Remember screen savers? You had to have them, those cows on motorcycles, or flying toasters, or endless miles of what looked like moving PVC pipe. Why? Because of the ghosts. In those days, if anything stayed on your screen too long without moving, it got “burned” into the monitor and was visible as a faint outline, a ghost that was always there no matter what else you were looking at. Technology has solved the problem of burn-in, so that, pretty as they are, we no longer need screen savers. There are no longer any ghosts.

Or are there? I happen to think there are. How do I know? I’ve experienced them myself. I guess that makes me, according to a survey, one of the 45% of the people who say they believe in ghosts, and even among the 10% per cent who say they’re seen ghosts. OK, to be perfectly truthful, I’ve only heard them, not seen them. But I know they’re there.

By the way, I’m in good company. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is visited by the ghost of his dead father who tells him of the terrible treachery that has occurred: he was murdered by his own brother! The ghost even comes back later to urge Hamlet on when he hesitates to avenge his dead father.

In our own tradition, Saul, the first king of Israel, asks what God wants of him, but God is silent. In desperation, he consults a medium in the town of En-dor, a woman he asks to put him in contact with the ghost of the dead prophet Samuel, the one who anointed him king in the first place. Samuel’s ghost brings Saul little consolation, instead telling him that he will soon be defeated by the Philistines. Ghosts can be like that.

By definition, of course, ghosts are the spirits of those who are dead. The thing is, though, no one else can hear Hamlet’s ghosts, or Saul’s, or mine, or yours. I can hear my mother’s voice reminding me to be sure I have a handkerchief when I leave the house. Thank God no one else can hear her! As we walked onto a Disney ship for a cruise with our grandchildren, I heard my father warming up to tell a story about one of the fishing boats he was on, and what he caught, and when, and where…

What do you think would happen if I answered those voices? “Mom, I’m a grown man with children and grandchildren. I don’t need you to worry any more about whether or not I have a handkerchief.” Or, “Dad, was that the time you went on the party boat to catch bluefish, or the time on the rowboat you accidentally knocked all the bait overboard?” If I didn’t get taken away to someplace with soft, padded walls, at the very least, people would stand as far away from me as possible in public places.

But those voices are very real. Mine are, and yours are. Our departed loved ones are still alive in us, talking to us, and in the words of our prayerbook, “moving us to live, as in their higher moments, they themselves wished to live.” What makes them ghosts is that we alone can hear them. We alone experience their existence.

We Jews have evolved a wonderful way of making our ghosts real, at least for short periods of time, bringing them out into the community and openly speaking with them, without being thought the least bit strange. On Yom Kippur, on the last day of Sukkot, the last day of Pesach, and on Shavuot – four times a year -- we come together with our whole community to recite Yizkor, memorial prayers in which we evoke our dead by name, address them publicly, and thereby, for at least a few brief moments, give them life once more.

There is one more occasion each year, the Yahrtzeit, the Shabbat service during the week of the anniversary of their deaths, that our loved ones mingle with the loved ones of whoever else observes a Yahrtzeit that week, and the entire community recognizes their reality by rising to recite Kaddish together with the mourners.

Yes, our ghosts can live, for a little while, if we let them. I want to share with you a beautiful little story about, well, you’ll see…

Zoltan Kramer certainly didn’t look or feel like a millionaire.

The wool suit he bought last night was starting to itch. He leaned on his aluminum cane and began fidgeting with his neatly trimmed Van Dyke beard as he waited for the State Police cruiser.

The state trooper met the old man outside the front door of the Hebrew Home For The Aged.

“Mr. Kramer, my name is Sergeant Warren D. McLeary,”, the young, spit-polished New Jersey trooper said. “I’ve come to drive you to the Lottery Ceremony in Trenton.”
Though liberated from the concentration camp for more than fifty years, Zoltan still distrusted policemen, guns and police cars. The trooper helped Kramer slide into the back seat, and started driving toward Trenton.

“You’re the third instant millionaire I’ve chauffeured,” McLeary said. “How does it feel to be an instant millionaire?”

“I’ll tell you when I get the check,” the old man said. “But what happens if I don’t take the money?”

The officer glanced back at his passenger in disbelief. “Who doesn’t want $27 million?”

“Winning the Lottery is nice,” Kramer said, “but to me it’s a joke. All I did was play my old lucky number, the one my Margaret picked. It didn’t require skill or special intelligence. I didn’t discover a cure for cancer. I just got lucky. Look, I’m 90 years old and I don’t have much time left, but today I will have $27 million.”

“I remember my years in the concentration camp. I was a limping, wheezing skeleton. I had nothing. I was totally penniless and alone. Today I’ll have $27 million and I cannot buy back what was taken from me. It’s a joke -- a sick, tragic joke.”

“But I, myself, was lucky. The Americans saved me. And I eventually came to the United States. I went to night school, where I met Margaret. She was an American girl who taught me English -- and how to laugh again. I married her in 1950. For a living, I sewed piecework in a dress factory. It was my only job for 35 years. And Margaret was my only love. I still speak with her every day. As time passes, my memory gets a little hazy, like I’m seeing ghosts. But I still talk to Margaret about all the years we were together and all the things we did. I still hear her voice reminding me to smile, reminding me that there were still things worth laughing about. She died in 1975. And, I miss her very much.”

“I’m sorry,” McLeary said as he changed the subject. “In one hour you’re going to get $27 million,” the trooper said. “You can still buy a lot of happiness and excitement with all that money.”

“I found my great happiness with Margaret,” Kramer said. “And I found excitement playing the numbers game.” “But that’s against the law!” the trooper declared, grinning at his passenger through his rear view mirror.

“Yes, it was illegal when I placed my nickel and dime bets at Saltzman’s candy store. I’d give Saltzman my spare change and he’d write my numbers on a paper. And we both hoped we wouldn’t get caught by the cops. Today you stand and wait in crowded lines by a computer at an official Lottery Agency. It’s all high-tech and legal because the state gets its piece of the action. That’s life.”

“Did you win often?” the sergeant asked.

“Not often, but when I won, I celebrated with Margaret. We’d take the train into the city and I’d hire a taxi cab to take us to a fine restaurant. I’d order two steak dinners and a glass of French wine for Margaret and an ice-cold bottle of beer for me. Once, when I hit on a quarter bet, I also bought her flowers. Margaret loved camellias. She called me ‘Diamond Jim Brady’ and she called our feast ‘our night of opulence’.”
“You really miss her, don’t you?”

“I miss her very much,” Zoltan sighed. “I also miss the youth I could not enjoy. I’d give every nickel of that $27 million if I could spend one more day with my Margaret.”

“What would you do?,” the young trooper asked.

“First, I would hug and kiss her and watch her smile. She had a warm and beautiful and lovely smile. Then I would apologize for anything I ever said or did that hurt her. And then we would make love.”

“At age 90?” “Love is more than young bodies,” the old man lectured. “Love is an ongoing ageless affair of the heart and soul. Are you married?”

McLeary said he married Lori eighteen years ago. They have a 15-year-old son, Billy, and a nine-year-old daughter, Nancy.

“But Sergeant, you still haven’t answered my original question: What will they do if I don’t take the $27 million?”

“I don’t know what they’ll do with the money, but they’ll probably lock you away in a nuthouse -- an insane asylum. They’ll say you’re crazy. Turning back $27 million is very un-American.”

Kramer smiled. “I guess you’re right but I’ll tell you what. Later, when they take pictures of me with that great big check, I want you to call Lori. Tell her and the kids that tonight ‘Diamond Jim’ is going to give them a ‘night of opulence’. I’m going to buy us all steak dinners. And a glass of wine for Lori, two bottles of ice-cold beer -- one for you and one for me -- and a Coca-Cola for Billy and a Shirley Temple for Nancy. It’s my treat. Believe me, tonight I can afford it.” As a matter of fact, I can hear Margaret telling me that’s what she’d want me to do.”

Sergeant McLeary changed the subject again. “You never did tell me what your lucky number was, the one Margaret picked for you...”

Zoltan Kramer laid his cane across the back seat, unbuckled his seat belt, slid his arm out of his suit jacket, rolled up his shirt sleeve and placed his arm over the front seat, revealing his concentration camp tattoo.

Both men continued their drive in silence. [Source unknown]

And so will we. Let us continue in silent remembrance and listen to the voices of the loved ones who still live, far more than ghosts, inside all of us.