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Rabbi´s Message, from February 2006 bulletin: Jewish custom asks Jews to recite the prayer for mourning, or the Mourner’s Kaddish, at every prayer service – even during days of celebration. In a Jewish wedding, the couple will break a glass at the end of the ceremony – many explain this custom by speaking of the idea that even though a couple is in their most perfect moment of celebration, they still need to remember that the world has needs, that loss still exists, and that there is still work to be done once the celebration ends. Many Americans might call this a morbid obsession with tragedy and loss. I would perhaps turn this around and identify a problem with American culture, a culture that continues to deny loss and death. We devote ourselves to living in the moment, a search for “closure,” and a desire to “get over it.” When we turn our attention back to the tragedies of September 11th, 2001, we may all remember how quickly our society turned to find closure, within weeks, if I remember correctly. Judaism reminds us that death and loss always remain with us, even in the course of our regular and celebratory rituals. Jewish traditions maintain that closure is truly unattainable. Whenever we experience pain, we do not escape without a scar, physical or emotional. Even if we heal from the experience, whatever the nature of the injury or loss, we carry it with us for the rest of our lives. To ask us to “get over it” is to ask us to ignore a part of ourselves, making us bury the painful experience and continue to allow it to have influence over us. Even Jewish mourning rituals focus on coping with loss – the seven days of sitting shiva, and the longer periods of mourning admit that loss must be coped with over time. Coped with, but never forgotten, since every year we return to the loss by saying Mourner’s Kaddish at the anniversary of the loss, the yahrzeit. With all of this, what then can we do with our loss? If we can’t find closure, and put pain behind us, then what are we supposed to do? Last week in our Kabbalah discussion group I reflected on a notion raised by Mitchell Chefitz, in his novel, The Seventh Telling. We can view all painful experiences as losses, losses that create holes and absences in our very being. Through the telling of stories, the characters explore their difficulties by confronting them, even years later. In reflecting on the stories that make up their lives they recognize how old difficulties have dwelt within themselves, eating away at them when they have remained unattended. So one Jewish answer to the question of loss lies in simple acknowledgement – when we recognize the difficulty, we have to work to live better with it, and not bury it within ourselves. This requires attention and effort, and perhaps is not as satisfying as saying we can merely “get over it.” It also means that even after we have worked to live with something, we allow ourselves to face it and feel it again in the future, without self-recrimination. I realize that this Jewish answer to loss may not feel helpful – “living with it” probably feels less complete than “finding closure.” Less complete may not be a problem though, since Judaism continues to remind us that we are “works in progress,” completion means the end of our lives. As a fellow work in progress, I hope that all of us manage to avoid too much loss and pain in our lives. And yet, when we encounter it, may we not brush it aside, bury it, or hope it disappears – instead incorporating it into who we are, so that we learn to live with it and learn from it. |