Thoughts on the mourning process so far
Jul. 13th, 2011 07:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhuI'm no Leon Wieseltier (which is undoubtedly a good thing) but there are certain thoughts and memories that I wanted to capture while they are fresh. This is a mostly disjointed post, there's no attempt to edit these into a coherent essay.
ANINUT (The period between the death and the funeral)
Being exempt from davening made sense -- we were frantically making phone calls and arrangements.
But not being able to make berachot over food was HARD. I've gotten used to doing it, and the way that it turns an animal act into a sacred moment of connection to God. And for those 30 hours, eating had returned to an animal act. I was unable to ask God's permission, nor to thank God, for the food I ate.
Breakfast the morning of the funeral was the triumph of the intellect over the body. I couldn't possibly eat, but I forced myself to, because I knew people had told me that I needed to.
FUNERAL
Standing beside my son, watching him climb to the podium and address heartrending words to 150 strangers with his grandfather's coffin before us, was one of the proudest moments of my life. Tani got it --- we should be grateful for the miracle of my father's life, and not fixated on the tragedy of its ending.
BURIAL
Saying tzidduk hadin, the "justification of the judgment," was incredibly painful. My father's coffin was lying in the ground, I was standing at the foot of the grave, and I was acknowleging the truth that all our lives are in God's control. I believed every word, I knew it to be true, but I wanted it to be false. "God gave and God took; bless God's name" escaped from me in a desperate shriek. And the burial kaddish --- I balked at the words "during your life, and in the lives of all Israel." But I screamed through them and made it to the end.
Watching others take their turns filling the grave, I kept thinking "Hold off the earth a while, until I have held him in my arms once more." I understood Hamelt and Laertes so much more.
I was glad to see that Alissa was able to bring herself to help fill the grave. I think it is an important part of accepting the fact of the death. We had previously explained to the children that Poppy's neshama, his soul, the lifeforce that made him Poppy, had already left his body, and that what we were burying was the body that his neshama had used during this lifetime. It was very important to us that the children not have any nightmares or issues about burying Poppy, so we made sure they understood the distinction between Poppy and his body.
As it turns out, Alissa was terrified the night before the funeral because she had assumed that when we got to the grave, we were going to open up the coffin and dump the body directly into the grave. The only coffin she'd seen was images on TV of Princess Diana's coffin, and she assumed that coffins were simply too ornate and beautiful to be buried. So we explained to her that in Judaism, the coffin is a plain pine box, and it goes directly into the grave.
SHIVA
Shiva was an incredibly powerful, holy, moving, cathartic experience. My mom had warned me not to expect much, but people surprised us. The conversation stayed on the subject of my father; at one point on the first afternoon someone saw me start to cry and tried to change the subject, and I told him: We just buried my father three hours ago; if I can't cry now, when can I? My parents' shul, my shul, individual friends, all got us food from a local caterer; we were fed for the whole week; friends provided the meal of consolation, had it set up for us when we arrived, and adamantly insisted on getting everything for us. Almost no one seemed to notice or care that we followed the tradition and didn't set out food for the visitors.
We had visitors the whole week, except for one 45-minute period, and except for the hour from 6-7, which we'd asked people to avoid so we could have family time for dinner. (I'm so glad we did that!) Some of the visitors were a real shock: one friend took the train from Boston just to pay a shiva call; another drove down to help make minyan and then turned around and drove home. Mom saw people she hadn't seen in decades. And two different families from down the block, neitherof whom Mom had met before, heard about the shiva and came to console us.
I think one of the points of shiva is that by telling the same stories over and over, we begin to edit them in our minds. Details that we didn't remember until the third or fourth telling become key points. We fix the narratives and they become family myths.
The kids were incredible. When they had too much, they went to a separate room to watch videos or read; but they came to sit with us when they could and they were both a comfort and a help. I don't think we had to ask them twice to do anything; they emptied the dishwasher, took out the trash, and helped with the laundry when shiva was over.
The other Hamlet line that came back was "Time is out of joint". For the week of shiva, time lost its remaining meaning. People told me it was time to eat and I ate. People came and told me to stand up and lead prayers and I did. People left and I went to sleep.
Each night, when a rabbi (R' Hochberg, R' Kogan, R' Bickhardt, R' Efron) would teach a mishna between mincha and maariv, and relate it to my father, I would let myself react. Each night, I found the grief a little less deep. It was, in retrospect, a good way to measure my progress through the grieving process.
Shiva was a way for the community to walk me back from the brink of dad's grave to the point where I was ready to rejoin society.
SHABBAT PARASHA
The parsha during shiva was Chukat, and Sylvia Kogan gave a great dvar torah at my parents' shul. Chukat is all about how the community responds to death. It starts with the laws of purification after coming in contact with a corpse. Then the Torah tells of Miriam's death, and how the people don't mourn her, they merely complain to Moshe about the loss of the water from Miriam's well. When God tells Moshe to speak to the rock, Moshe loses it. No one cares about his grief, and he lashes out. Later in the parsha, Aharon dies, and this time the people mourn for thirty days, because they have learned that it is necessary to share the grief of the family when they have lost a loved on.
Afterwards, I told Sylvia that her dvar Torah, which must have been written in advance of my father's death, was a great comfort to me. She replied that she was relieved, because it had indeed been written in advance, and she was afraid of how it would affect us.
And the community did, in fact, share our grief and make it more bearable.
YOUNG ISRAEL OF JAMAICA ESTATES
My parents' shul, Hillcrest Jewish Center, is the Conservative synagogue where I grew up. Since I left New York, HJC has become an egalitarian shul, and I have associated with Orthodoxy. As a result, I needed to find a nearby Orthodox synagogue at which to attend morning services. (Our family had worked out a compromise for mincha/maariv, but shacharit was best solved by going our different ways.)
The nearest such shul is the Young Israel of Jamaica Estates, led by Rabbi Shlomo Hochberg. On the night before the funeral, I sent Rabbi Hochberg an email with some questions about how I, as a mourner in shiva, should handle certain liturgical matters (e.g., Hallel) in his shul. The next thing I knew, he showed up at my father's funeral, then came to the shiva house with a kugel, the answers to my questions, and a schedule of servies at YIJE.
Throughout the week, Rabbi Hochberg, the gabbaim of the shul, and the YIJE community were remarkably supportive, all the more so considering that they had never heard of me before. People brought us food; people came to help make the evening minyan at the house; when I was at the shul they gave me every available opporunity to lead services there.
Entering shul on Friday evening after Lecha Dodi, having buried my father earlier that day, with my son by my side, and having each person, one by one, say "Hamakom yinachem..." as I passed, was a walk I shall never forget. They didn't know me, but they knew me. I was an ant in the colony, and though I was far from my home, I was still recognized as a member of Am Yisrael, and as a person in need of community. (I joked later that it was like using my Boston Museum of Science card with the reciprocity program at a museum in another city.)
One morning, a gentleman approached me and said, "I hate to impose on you, but I'm leaving on vacation right after shul. Would you mind sitting here for a minute and telling me a recollection of your father?" So I did, and he said "Hamakom yinachem..." and then HE thanked ME for allowing him to comfort me. I understand the halachic principles involved, but it still blows my mind.
The members of YIJE taught me what true chessed is. I was humbled by the menschlich way they treated me, and I only hope that I can live up to that standard in the future. They are truly a kehillah kedoshah, a sacred community.
KADDISH
The first few times saying the mourner's kaddish and the kaddish derabbanan were tricky. My brain isn't used to skipping around or adding words like that. But I'm getting the hang of it. (I'm also discovering, now that I am voicing my prayers and not just moving my lips, exactly where I've been cheating all these years. Alas, everyone else is discovering where those places are, too.)
The first few days, the kaddish was an affirmation of life. But a week in, its character has changed. It is part of my responsibility, my role, my job to say it. It both designates me as a mourner to others and allows me to express my identity as a mourner to myself. This doesn't make it less meaningful, but it's less immediate. Its meaning is found more in its symbolic value, and less in the contents of its words.
And it's so good to be saying kaddish in my home community. I felt so self-conscious at YIJE, as wonderful as they were to me there. At CST, I know the pacing, I know which voices to listen for to provide timing cues, and I have nothing to prove.
ANINUT (The period between the death and the funeral)
Being exempt from davening made sense -- we were frantically making phone calls and arrangements.
But not being able to make berachot over food was HARD. I've gotten used to doing it, and the way that it turns an animal act into a sacred moment of connection to God. And for those 30 hours, eating had returned to an animal act. I was unable to ask God's permission, nor to thank God, for the food I ate.
Breakfast the morning of the funeral was the triumph of the intellect over the body. I couldn't possibly eat, but I forced myself to, because I knew people had told me that I needed to.
FUNERAL
Standing beside my son, watching him climb to the podium and address heartrending words to 150 strangers with his grandfather's coffin before us, was one of the proudest moments of my life. Tani got it --- we should be grateful for the miracle of my father's life, and not fixated on the tragedy of its ending.
BURIAL
Saying tzidduk hadin, the "justification of the judgment," was incredibly painful. My father's coffin was lying in the ground, I was standing at the foot of the grave, and I was acknowleging the truth that all our lives are in God's control. I believed every word, I knew it to be true, but I wanted it to be false. "God gave and God took; bless God's name" escaped from me in a desperate shriek. And the burial kaddish --- I balked at the words "during your life, and in the lives of all Israel." But I screamed through them and made it to the end.
Watching others take their turns filling the grave, I kept thinking "Hold off the earth a while, until I have held him in my arms once more." I understood Hamelt and Laertes so much more.
I was glad to see that Alissa was able to bring herself to help fill the grave. I think it is an important part of accepting the fact of the death. We had previously explained to the children that Poppy's neshama, his soul, the lifeforce that made him Poppy, had already left his body, and that what we were burying was the body that his neshama had used during this lifetime. It was very important to us that the children not have any nightmares or issues about burying Poppy, so we made sure they understood the distinction between Poppy and his body.
As it turns out, Alissa was terrified the night before the funeral because she had assumed that when we got to the grave, we were going to open up the coffin and dump the body directly into the grave. The only coffin she'd seen was images on TV of Princess Diana's coffin, and she assumed that coffins were simply too ornate and beautiful to be buried. So we explained to her that in Judaism, the coffin is a plain pine box, and it goes directly into the grave.
SHIVA
Shiva was an incredibly powerful, holy, moving, cathartic experience. My mom had warned me not to expect much, but people surprised us. The conversation stayed on the subject of my father; at one point on the first afternoon someone saw me start to cry and tried to change the subject, and I told him: We just buried my father three hours ago; if I can't cry now, when can I? My parents' shul, my shul, individual friends, all got us food from a local caterer; we were fed for the whole week; friends provided the meal of consolation, had it set up for us when we arrived, and adamantly insisted on getting everything for us. Almost no one seemed to notice or care that we followed the tradition and didn't set out food for the visitors.
We had visitors the whole week, except for one 45-minute period, and except for the hour from 6-7, which we'd asked people to avoid so we could have family time for dinner. (I'm so glad we did that!) Some of the visitors were a real shock: one friend took the train from Boston just to pay a shiva call; another drove down to help make minyan and then turned around and drove home. Mom saw people she hadn't seen in decades. And two different families from down the block, neitherof whom Mom had met before, heard about the shiva and came to console us.
I think one of the points of shiva is that by telling the same stories over and over, we begin to edit them in our minds. Details that we didn't remember until the third or fourth telling become key points. We fix the narratives and they become family myths.
The kids were incredible. When they had too much, they went to a separate room to watch videos or read; but they came to sit with us when they could and they were both a comfort and a help. I don't think we had to ask them twice to do anything; they emptied the dishwasher, took out the trash, and helped with the laundry when shiva was over.
The other Hamlet line that came back was "Time is out of joint". For the week of shiva, time lost its remaining meaning. People told me it was time to eat and I ate. People came and told me to stand up and lead prayers and I did. People left and I went to sleep.
Each night, when a rabbi (R' Hochberg, R' Kogan, R' Bickhardt, R' Efron) would teach a mishna between mincha and maariv, and relate it to my father, I would let myself react. Each night, I found the grief a little less deep. It was, in retrospect, a good way to measure my progress through the grieving process.
Shiva was a way for the community to walk me back from the brink of dad's grave to the point where I was ready to rejoin society.
SHABBAT PARASHA
The parsha during shiva was Chukat, and Sylvia Kogan gave a great dvar torah at my parents' shul. Chukat is all about how the community responds to death. It starts with the laws of purification after coming in contact with a corpse. Then the Torah tells of Miriam's death, and how the people don't mourn her, they merely complain to Moshe about the loss of the water from Miriam's well. When God tells Moshe to speak to the rock, Moshe loses it. No one cares about his grief, and he lashes out. Later in the parsha, Aharon dies, and this time the people mourn for thirty days, because they have learned that it is necessary to share the grief of the family when they have lost a loved on.
Afterwards, I told Sylvia that her dvar Torah, which must have been written in advance of my father's death, was a great comfort to me. She replied that she was relieved, because it had indeed been written in advance, and she was afraid of how it would affect us.
And the community did, in fact, share our grief and make it more bearable.
YOUNG ISRAEL OF JAMAICA ESTATES
My parents' shul, Hillcrest Jewish Center, is the Conservative synagogue where I grew up. Since I left New York, HJC has become an egalitarian shul, and I have associated with Orthodoxy. As a result, I needed to find a nearby Orthodox synagogue at which to attend morning services. (Our family had worked out a compromise for mincha/maariv, but shacharit was best solved by going our different ways.)
The nearest such shul is the Young Israel of Jamaica Estates, led by Rabbi Shlomo Hochberg. On the night before the funeral, I sent Rabbi Hochberg an email with some questions about how I, as a mourner in shiva, should handle certain liturgical matters (e.g., Hallel) in his shul. The next thing I knew, he showed up at my father's funeral, then came to the shiva house with a kugel, the answers to my questions, and a schedule of servies at YIJE.
Throughout the week, Rabbi Hochberg, the gabbaim of the shul, and the YIJE community were remarkably supportive, all the more so considering that they had never heard of me before. People brought us food; people came to help make the evening minyan at the house; when I was at the shul they gave me every available opporunity to lead services there.
Entering shul on Friday evening after Lecha Dodi, having buried my father earlier that day, with my son by my side, and having each person, one by one, say "Hamakom yinachem..." as I passed, was a walk I shall never forget. They didn't know me, but they knew me. I was an ant in the colony, and though I was far from my home, I was still recognized as a member of Am Yisrael, and as a person in need of community. (I joked later that it was like using my Boston Museum of Science card with the reciprocity program at a museum in another city.)
One morning, a gentleman approached me and said, "I hate to impose on you, but I'm leaving on vacation right after shul. Would you mind sitting here for a minute and telling me a recollection of your father?" So I did, and he said "Hamakom yinachem..." and then HE thanked ME for allowing him to comfort me. I understand the halachic principles involved, but it still blows my mind.
The members of YIJE taught me what true chessed is. I was humbled by the menschlich way they treated me, and I only hope that I can live up to that standard in the future. They are truly a kehillah kedoshah, a sacred community.
KADDISH
The first few times saying the mourner's kaddish and the kaddish derabbanan were tricky. My brain isn't used to skipping around or adding words like that. But I'm getting the hang of it. (I'm also discovering, now that I am voicing my prayers and not just moving my lips, exactly where I've been cheating all these years. Alas, everyone else is discovering where those places are, too.)
The first few days, the kaddish was an affirmation of life. But a week in, its character has changed. It is part of my responsibility, my role, my job to say it. It both designates me as a mourner to others and allows me to express my identity as a mourner to myself. This doesn't make it less meaningful, but it's less immediate. Its meaning is found more in its symbolic value, and less in the contents of its words.
And it's so good to be saying kaddish in my home community. I felt so self-conscious at YIJE, as wonderful as they were to me there. At CST, I know the pacing, I know which voices to listen for to provide timing cues, and I have nothing to prove.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-14 01:39 am (UTC)It sounds like the community where you were really gets it. That's fabulous. I've never seen this process up close and wouldn't have expected that degree of chessed.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-14 01:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-15 04:48 pm (UTC)