Give Me a Sign: Death and Mourning at a Distance
“How were you related to the deceased?” the rabbi asked the 12-year-old girl snuggling close to her mom. At her child’s confused stare, my wife’s cousin, the daughter of the man we were there to bury, replied, “She is his granddaughter.”
We were a small group: the wife, children, grandchildren, siblings, nieces, and nephews of the deceased, and all the spouses, me among them. We waited to enter the hall where the funeral for my wife’s Uncle Evan would soon begin. As the rabbi confirmed last-minute details of the order for the ceremony, he began handing out the black ribbons that symbolize mourning in some Jewish communities. Worn over the heart, they are ritually torn, an outward marker of inner grief.
Pulling back his hand, the rabbi casually replied, “Oh, you don’t get one, then,” and moved to the next person in our little circle, handing out the ribbons to the “designated mourners” and leading them in the ritual of keriah, symbolically (through the ribbon) or literally (through their shirt) rending the fabric that protects them from the world.
There is of course context I’ll provide later, but first, just hold this image: a tearful granddaughter, emotionally close to her grandfather her whole life, facing the finality of death, reaching her hand for a marker of her grief that she can touch, that all can see… only to be told, in so many words, that her grief doesn’t count in the same way that others’ grief does.
According to the Torah, one is obligated to perform the formal rituals of mourning for one’s parents, siblings, spouses, and children (G-d forbid). Most authorities of traditional Jewish law allow for “discretionary mourning” as well: meaning, a person not technically obligated is not barred from participating in these rituals. There is wisdom, of course, in distinguishing between “inner” and “outer” circles of grief, especially as it relates to the practices of what Susan Silk called “comforting and dumping.” For Silk, who coined the term “ring theory” to guide how we might better respond to grief, the crisis at hand was terminal disease, with the dying person at the center. The inner circle might be the immediate family of the dying person, followed by close friends and more distant family members next, colleagues afterward, and so forth. Silk advises that we “comfort in” and “dump out”: those further from the center offer comfort to those occupying the inner layers, but vent their feelings and seek support only to those in a more removed layer. This practice prevents comments that might be well-intentioned but ultimately misguided, placing the burden of absorbing the fear and sadness and grief of other people onto the dying person themselves.
When a Jewish person is buried, the outer circle of friends and colleagues and acquaintances and more distant relatives physically enacts a distinction between mourner and comforter in ways that helpfully align with ring theory: as the close relatives of the deceased leave the cemetery, the rest of those gathered form two rows. Before the burial was completed, the entire community had one task: to bury the dead with honor and dignity, to return them to the earth. And now there are two tasks: to mourn and to comfort. And we who are further from the central point of pain and loss stand in two rows and recite, “HaMakom yenachem…, May the One Who Is in All Places bring comfort…”
Jewish tradition has long held the wisdom that everyone who touches death is affected by it and deserves to process that death emotionally and spiritually before we can turn to others and offer our comfort and condolences. This is why the mitzvah of nichum aveilim, comforting mourners, begins precisely after the burial is completed, not before. The shiva, the seven days of acute mourning, when those closest to the person who has died gather in their very home, sitting on low stools and covering the mirrors, reminds mourners that it’s perfectly okay to feel low and they don’t have to worry about things like their physical appearance. There is no receiving line of grief while the body lies cold in a coffin and folks shake hands and say, “I’m sorry for your loss.” Because it isn’t time yet. It’s too hard. It leads to experiences like mine, standing at my father’s Catholic wake, receiving the well-meaning condolences of folks who were trying to offer solace while also mourning their loss of their friend or colleague or, in the case of my father’s dentist, their loyal (frequent!) patient. One acquaintance strangely echoed my own feelings when he stammered, “I don’t know how I’ll live without him.” In my head I’m thinking, What do you mean, you don’t know how you’ll live without him… he was my Dad…
By the time folks bring kugel and baked goods to the shiva house, the entirety of all the circles, from innermost to outermost, have had a chance to cry at the funeral, to hear eulogies, and to cover the coffin lovingly with earth, shoveled by hand, according to Jewish tradition. And then it is time to follow the lead of the mourners: if they feel like telling raucous stories of the deceased’s humor and generosity, pitch in with yours! If they feel like taking a quiet walk, walk beside them, silent but present.
The Jewish laws of mourning give us signs and symbols to hold on to: the shoveling of the earth as a sign of our care for the deceased until the absolute last moment before their soul is commended to the Next World; the members of the inner circle walking between the two rows of those ready to offer support; the covering of the mirrors; the sitting on low stools.
Such structure is necessary in the face of the utter destruction of death: an entire world, as the Talmud reminds us, destroyed. Death and loss unravel us: think of the chaplains and nurses and doctors and other essential hospital staff these days, who not only aid the dying in their final moments, but also attempt to be present for loved ones barred from the bedside. And all this while experiencing their own grief, day in and day out, as they witness one death after another. (Please listen to the BBC’s recent interview with my friend and colleague, Rabbi Rachel Van Thyn, a chaplain at Mount Sinai).
When my father died, my heart was broken, and wearing a torn cloth over my heart helped me: it gave me an outward sign that I could point to when the banality of life got too much for me. I could point (literally or figuratively) to that torn, black ribbon (in a strict following of Jewish law, it would have been my actual clothing that I tore) and say, “No, I don’t really care that your car broke down and it’s really inconvenient for you. My Dad just died!”
The thing is, I think that 12-year-old granddaughter deserved an outward sign, too.
As a member of the queer community, I think often about the harshness of the categories of mourning, given that our families of origin might be abusive or rejecting and our families of choice unacknowledged. Who’s to say who is in the “inner circle” under such circumstances? That is precisely why most authorities allow “discretionary mourning,” and why I so often wish I could reverse the clock to the moment just before the rabbi withdrew his hand, and that black ribbon, from that 12-year-old granddaughter. She needed to be seen and acknowledged as a member of Uncle Evan’s (her Zaidy’s, her grandfather’s) innermost circle.
And, oh, how we all grieve that not even the innermost circle, in so many cases, can be present to rend their clothing and expose the grief in their hearts. Oh, how we mourn the loss of those two neat rows embracing us as we walk away from the newly-filled grave. Oh, how we wish we could return to a home miraculously filled with deli and coffee and folks milling around telling stories of the person we held so dear. Those at the center of loss stand graveside, if they are fortunate enough to live in the same locality, wearing masks. And the funeral director is there with the rabbi, and they’re both wearing masks. And everyone is six feet apart. And there are no rows, because safety precludes those charged with the mitzvah of comforting the mourners.
In this pandemic, we all become like the priests, described in this week’s Torah portion, but experienced, too, throughout Jewish history. As sacred keepers of the Temple and its traditions, which centered on that mysterious and precarious line between living and dying, the kohanim, or “priests,” were forbidden to even come near death, unless it was one of their closest relatives. We read:
וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יי אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה אֱמֹ֥ר אֶל־הַכֹּהֲנִ֖ים בְּנֵ֣י אַהֲרֹ֑ן וְאָמַרְתָּ֣ אֲלֵהֶ֔ם לְנֶ֥פֶשׁ לֹֽא־יִטַּמָּ֖א בְּעַמָּֽיו׃ כִּ֚י אִם־לִשְׁאֵר֔וֹ הַקָּרֹ֖ב אֵלָ֑יו לְאִמּ֣וֹ וּלְאָבִ֔יו וְלִבְנ֥וֹ וּלְבִתּ֖וֹ וּלְאָחִֽיו׃ וְלַאֲחֹת֤וֹ […]׃
“The Eternal said to Moses: Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: None shall defile himself for any [dead] person among his kin, except for the relatives that are closest to him: his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, and his brother; also for a sister […]” (Vayikra/Leviticus 21:1–3).
The tradition continues to this day to those whose family history includes a connection to the kohanim (often, folks might even have the last name Cohen or Kahan, etc). When these priestly-descendants’ parents-in-law died, they could not stand graveside. When their community members died, they did not attend the burial. Poet Shulamit Surnamer describes it acutely in her work The Kohain’s Wife, excerpted in The Torah: A Women’s Commentary:
“It is lonely to be
the wife
of a kohain
at funeral time
by myself I sit
in the front row
at the funeral chapel
listening to the eulogy
over my nearest flesh and blood
knowing my husband
and sons
are standing in the parking lot
of the funeral home
listening
to the same eulogy
piped over a loudspeaker
outside
just for them
who may not be in the same room
with death”
We’ve got to figure out a new way to “get in the room,” safely. We’ve got to rend our clothing and display the tear to those who might offer us comfort. We’ve got to form rows around those like my colleague, Rabbi Van Thyn, who walk home on empty streets full of the stories and the tears and the last breaths of so many people. Mindful of the messiness of “inner” and “outer” circles when the globe grieves, we must put up scaffolding for those who are suffering, that they might weep, and eulogize, and bury their dead, and be comforted.
It sounds morbid, but these days I’ve been writing a lot of condolence letters. The professional organization for Rabbis which I serve, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, sends out notes to our membership, announcing good times and bad, weddings and births and deaths. As someone who didn’t grow up “in the movement,” as they say, I don’t often encounter the names of folks I knew personally, or went to camp with, or went to rabbinical school with. But every time I read the announcement of a death, I write to the mourner whose address is provided in the message. I write things like, “I can only imagine how strange it might be to mourn during this pandemic.” It’s become my way of standing in those two rows, offering a listening ear (or a reading eye, I suppose). Perhaps it’s also my way of reaching into my imaginary pocket and handing our young cousin the ribbon I wish I had thought to bring, myself, to Uncle Evan’s funeral that day. I don’t know what else to do. Perhaps you don’t either.
Let’s figure it out, together.
