Learning & Grief

I’m learning daf yomi, a 2-sided page of Talmud a day. I say that knowing I’m done no learning today. I may not learn tomorrow. It’s no easy task. It takes focus and discipline, and I have neither just now.

Learning is a joyous task in Judaism, and is forbidden during shiva, the 5 day immediate mourning period following a funeral. In the days between the death and the funeral, one is exempt from learning, as your focus is directed elsewhere. So it was, just two weeks after embarking on this seven and a half year journey, that I found myself unable to learn, then forbidden from learning. Since, I have tried to get back in the groove, but to no avail. Maybe if I’d been doing it longer it would be easier. But I believe it’s likely part of my own grief cycle.

I want to learn. I want to get organized. I want to be able to focus. At the same time, I don’t want to learn. I want to spend my days binge-watching sappy movies and television. I want to lie in bed, maybe read, and sleep or wallow. I want to just have time alone with no obligations.

My reality lies in the middle. Obligations don’t disappear during mourning. The regular minyan cycle, during which I’d quickly pray and then learn a little, are missing during the current pandemic. Gandalf, our sweet, loving lap cat, died suddenly. He was my source of peace and calm in the crazy now, and he’s gone. Sleep is disrupted.

Grief alone can do that. But of course, so much is disrupted right now. I love having my children all home, but the volume is raised high. It’s not yelling, just boisterous. It’s active discussion. I want to celebrate it. But I see the circles under my daughter’s eyes. I see my younger son retreating inside himself to process losing a beloved pet not even two months after his grandmother. We’re all a little broken.

And the learning, the learning is so hard. What was a joy is a chore. Where the intellectual history I gleaned from the pages of Talmud fascinated, now I am frustrated. As I discover new ideas, I want to call my mother, or better my father, who discovered Talmud later in life. I know they’ll be interested. But there is no one to answer the phone.

So I don’t learn. I procrastinate. I waste time. The days pass, and I fall father behind. Ten pages, twenty, thirty.

And still I say I’m doing daf yomi. Well, I have seven and a half years to catch up.