Vayidabeir Adonai el-Moshe acharei mot sh’nei b’nei Aharon…
And Adonai spoke to Moshe after the death of the two sons of Aaron…
(Vayikra 16:1)
As a rabbi, I
have attended a lot of funerals. At some I have been the officiant. At some one
of many clergy or speakers, and at some an attendee paying respects to the
deceased or the mourners. At every funeral I cried. And at every, I am
interested in how the funeral rites inform our mourning process.
Those who know
me well are not surprised by my crying, no matter the relationship. I am a
great crier. I cry at Hallmark cards and at sappy commercials. The other night,
Keren and I cried at a scene in Marvel’s
Agents of Shield, a superhero
television show. In ancient, and even not so ancient times, I might have found
employment as a professional mourner. Even now, hired mourners are popular in
Asia and the Middle East. Rent-a-Mourner is a real thing in England. Some see
this as a breakdown of the family, but others point to the respected history of
the profession, and see it as one more way to honour the dead. It’s not false
mourning. A mere thought of the hole left by the deceased, and the tears flow.
The loss of any life changes the world.
Jewish mourning
laws and rituals are very specifically designed to move mourners through these
earth-shaking changes. Grief is a part of life. It is not something to be
avoided, nor to be experienced alone. Rabbi Ruth Langer, a Boston College
Theology professor, writes, “the rituals surrounding death are…the most
tightly choreographed and the least liturgical…. Jewish rituals tend to be
accompanied by a…[expansive liturgy], the performance of funerary rituals are
striking in their combinations of silence and free speech. The result is the
creation of a time that is markedly different, that responds powerfully to the
emotions of the moment, and that effects the dual transition of accompanying
the deceased to the grave and only then of comforting the mourners….
[effecting] first the transition of deceased from the world of the living to
the world of the dead/afterlife; and, second, it places the mourners into a
liminal state from which they gradually emerge to reintegrate into a social
realm reshaped by their loss.”*
Unfortunately,
in today’s world, this change is often glossed over. Many people want to grieve
privately. Shiva is cut short, or severely limited in its hours. We are in a
hurry to return to “normal” life, not taking the time needed for shiva, shloshim,
and shanah. Each step marks a change from one world to the next. And, while
directed at the mourner, they are meant for all of us in the community to
share.
Shabbat shalom.
* Langer, Ruth, “Jewish
Funerals: A Ritual Description,” https://www2.bc.edu/~langerr/Publications/jewish_funerals.htm
