The Art of Mourning

Tragedies don’t have silver linings; they are black holes of sadness filled with pure pain. There is nothing good about death and destruction. Considering this, it would make sense for us to push tragedies out of our minds. So why do Jews focus on catastrophes?

Indeed, year after year, we have days of mourning for the various traumas of our history: exile, the destruction of the Temples, internecine strife and the Holocaust. Even on the holidays, we say Yizkor, a memorial prayer for family members who have died. We continually pick away at old wounds, repeatedly reviewing and remembering our saddest moments.

Why not forget? Some selective amnesia could make our lives, and our history, a lot more palatable. We could “move on”, and stop paying attention to dead relatives. We could consider the Holocaust, the Inquisition, the Crusades, and all the exiles and expulsions to be the irrelevant past, events that could only interest professional historians. And in so doing, the uncomfortable burden of Jewish history would finally be lifted off our shoulders. Perhaps we might even be happier.

Yet we make a point of revisiting our national and personal traumas. We do so because mourning is not merely a form of suffering; it can be a supremely creative act as well. There is a Jewish art of mourning. This remarkable art is actually a form of alchemy; it allows us to take the emptiness of suffering and transform it into redemption.

How does this happen? Well, first of all, we have to realize that discomfort is not such a bad thing. Who will change the world? The complacent, happy with their suburban homes and pensions? Serious change always begins with righteous anger. We revisit these dark moments to remind us that complacency in the presence of evil is the same as complicity to evil.

Even sadness can spur a positive response. Excess sadness can be extremely dangerous, and lead to debilitating depression. Yet the art of mourning can find a positive use for sadness as well. This is best expressed by the verse “and you shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” The newly freed slave may not become a master; he must become an abolitionist. The Torah is teaching us that the response to tragedy may not be depression or cynicism or hatred; the only correct response is compassion. Rather than feeding an endless cycle of violence, the suffering stranger is commanded to transform his anguish into love.

Tragedy and suffering in and of themselves are empty, meaningless events. But it is still possible to offer a meaningful response to suffering. The art of mourning is to use tragic memories as a roadmap for fixing the world. And in this way, the art of mourning becomes the first step on the road to redemption.

An old piece I forgot to blog......

Maximizing your 15 minutes

You can’t summarize a life in 15 minutes” is an oft-repeated platitude. While it’s true that you can’t recite a person’s biography in 15 minutes, you can summarize a life in 15 minutes. I know this, because I summarize lives all the time. I give eulogies.

Eulogies are more than mere summaries. When I perform a funeral for someone I didn’t know, often when I meet the families, they are (understandably) quite nervous. “You must mention this,” a family member will admonish me, as they recite critical information. Certain phrases are repeated compulsively, trying to make certain that I, an outsider, get the story right. It’s important to the family, because the eulogy is no mere summary. Rather, it is a public statement of legacy and memory. And legacies matter.

No one wants to live a forgettable life. This is not due to vanity. It is an essential, existential need. Man’s most powerful quest is the search for meaning. We hope that we’ve made a genuine contribution, that the sum total of our labours will have made this world a better place. And after all is said and done, we hope that’s how everyone else remembers us as well.

Maybe it’s because I’m closing in on 40, or maybe it’s because I attend too many funerals, but I’ve started to think about my own legacy. Perhaps it’s odd, but at funerals, when I listen to the family pay tribute, I wonder what the 15-minute summary of my life will sound like. I suspect I’m not alone in doing this, and that many of you think about your legacies as well.

My experience at funerals has taught me what a real legacy sounds like. First off, (for those of you in the market for sports cars), in the nearly 300 funerals I have been to, not once has the deceased’s car been mentioned. Nor have the person’s children spoken about how large his house was or which caterer he used for simchahs.These may be biographical facts, but they aren’t a part of a legacy.

The eulogies that I remember years later are about mothers who worked full time to support their family, and woke up at 3 a.m. to cook dinner; about teenagers who volunteered to fight in the Israeli army during the War of Independence; about grandmothers who lovingly baked cookies; about Holocaust survivors who had the courage to survive and rebuild; about restaurant owners who regularly fed hoboes.Genuine legacies are made of love and courage, determination and devotion.

Biographies can takes hours to recite, only to be forgotten immediately. Legacies can be summarized in a few short minutes, but they’re always unforgettable. For my 15-minute summary, I’m striving for an authentic legacy.

“The Point of it All”

““It’s all pointless; who cares what I do?”.

It was the first crisis of my young rabbinic career. I was 22 years old, and a summer intern at a California synagogue. I was on the phone with J.K., a young man who had attended several of my classes, when he started to tell me that his life was awful, his finances disastrous and his family bitterly dysfunctional. He was planning on solving all his problems by swallowing a bottle of aspirin. And he was confiding in me, (an extremely inexperienced Rabbi to-be), his grisly plan. (A call to the psychiatric hotline prevented J.K.’s suicide).

To this day, these words ring in my ears. I felt that I dropped the ball when I spoke to J.K.. With all my Rabbinic training, I wasn't able to answer a basic question: Why not commit suicide?

So let me try again.

Indeed, a long philosophical tradition endorses suicide for the distressed. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus writes: “Above all, remember that the door stands open. Do not be more fearful than children. But, just as when they are tired of the game they cry, "I will play no more," so too when you are in a similar situation, cry, "I will play no more" and depart”. Voltaire, Hume and Schopenhauer are all advocates of suicide. Today, Dr. Jack Kevorkian is the leader of those who believe in a “right to die”.

Philosophy aside, I get the gut feeling that a cavalier attitude towards suicide is often based on the nihilistic belief that “it’s all pointless”. If there’s no point to it all, there’s no reason to bother with a difficult life.

That’s why in Judaism there is no right to die. Life is a sacred gift, and we must survive, even in hellish conditions. Rabbi Ephraim Oshry, the Rabbi of the Kovno ghetto, was asked if it was permitted for someone to commit suicide rather than watch his family be murdered. Oshry’s response, (while filled with compassion), was absolutely not. Indeed, Oshry takes pride in the fact that there were few suicides in the Kovno ghetto, despite the enormous suffering.

Now life in the Kovno ghetto was pure torture. So why is Oshry so fanatical about suicide? Because he realized the value of life. The economics of suicide ordain that life is less valuable than suffering. And that is simply not true. If there is one lesson of Jewish history, it is that a life filled with ideals is worthwhile, even at the cost of suffering. That is why we still have Jews today, despite generations of persecution.

So, this is my belated response to J.K.

Rabbi Oshry and his compatriots suffered more than anyone else in history. Yet, despite their suffering, they persevered because they knew that the future of humanity depends on people who follow their ideals, no matter what the cost.

J.K., that’s the point of it all: idealism. Because life in the service of ideals is worthwhile, despite the suffering.

Free Hugs, and the Road to Redemption

It was probably meant to fill the editorial quota of quirky human-interest stories.

On May 10th, the New York Times had an article about two young men, Jayson Littman and Sipai Klein, who spend their Sunday afternoons in Washington Square Park in Manhattan giving out free hugs.

As you can imagine, giving out free hugs to New Yorkers can be difficult. They get rejected - a lot. The article describes some of their struggles:

“"How about a free hug?" he hollered at a man, woman and small boy dressed all in black. "How about not?" the boy shot back.

"I'm trying to cut down," said a banker from Kenya.

"Nothing's free," said another man, as he brushed past with his golden retriever.”

But these two quixotic huggers soldier on, hoping to start a worldwide hugging movement.

At this point you’re supposed to laugh, and dismiss this story as the comic antics of two guys with too much time on their hands. But I couldn’t dismiss this story. I felt these two guys might be on to something, and that there is a deeper truth to hugging that we often overlook. So I took out my Tanach (Hebrew Bible) to investigate the phenomena of hugging.

In fact, only one character in the Tanach ever hugs: Jacob. And he actually ends up being a bit of a hugger, hugging on three different occasions.

The first time Jacob hugs is when he runs away from his brother Esau to his mother’s ancestral home. There he meets his uncle Laban, who greets him with open arms.

The second time Jacob hugs is when he returns home, and his brother Esau, who has long promised to kill him, is coming with 400 men to “greet” him. After some skillful diplomacy on Jacob’s part, a disaster is averted, and the brothers reunite with a hug.

The third time Jacob hugs is at the end of his life. His two grandchildren that were born in Egypt, Ephraim and Manasseh, are presented to him for blessings. Before he blesses them, he gives them a hug.

Each of Jacob’s hugs has a different purpose.

The first hug is a hug of reunion: Jacob hasn’t seen his uncle Laban in a very long time.

The second hug is a hug of reconciliation: Jacob and Esau have had bad blood for some time, and are once again true brothers.

The third hug is a hug of bonding: a foreign born grandfather, Jacob, tries to cross generational and culture gaps, and explain to his Egyptian born grandchildren what his family’s legacy is really about.

In each of these hugs, a barrier to relationships is shattered. Obstacles of distance, age and hatred are overcome, and love now finds a way. Jacob transcends distance to reunite with Laban, he transcends hatred to reconcile with Esau, and transcends cultures to bond with his grandchildren. The hug transcends all obstacles in its path.

Hugs best express this sentiment, because in it’s own primal way, a hug expresses friendship without reservations. Hugs are not for those with stiff upper lips or complicated hierarchies; rather, they are for any two people who want to bond because they share God’s divine image. It is a simple gesture of openess and acceptance.

So, the Tanach’s message is this: hugs redeem lost relationships. And that fits very well with Jacob’s general image as the patriarch of exile, the refugee who leads the Jews into their first exile in Egypt. As the patriarch of exile, Jacob has to look for the little pieces of a future redemption. And hugs are one of those little pieces.

Now, I’m not going on a hugging campaign. But Jacob teaches us that the road to redemption is found wherever two people manage to bridge social gaps and find a way to express friendship. So, say hello to someone new in the synagogue; smile at a stranger; and if you have to…….. give someone a hug.

D-Day and the Little Guy

It is too easy to forget 60 year old heroism.

On June 6th, 1944, D-Day, 175,000 soldiers crossed the English Channel and stormed the beaches of Normandy. There, they encountered tripwires, land mines, flamethrowers and fortifications; by the end of D-Day, 2,500 soldiers were dead. But their sacrifice was not in vain. 11 months later, Europe, (and it’s concentration camps), was liberated from the Nazis.

The Allied soldiers were unlikely victors, a mixed multitude of (mostly)18 to 20 year olds. The army took everyone, from squirrel shooting rural boys to bookish big city scholars. Inexperience made no difference. Peter Masters, a Jewish refugee from Vienna, was in the British Army’s 10th Commando Brigade. When he enlisted, he was asked whether he could shoot a gun, handle a boat, or work a radio. He replied that he had once shot a bb gun, occasionally rowed a boat, and never used a radio. The army took him anyway! Remarkably, these amateur warriors developed into a courageous and powerful fighting force. And these average Joes are the true heros of World War II.

The Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle advanced the “great man theory of history”. According to this view, it is the exceptional people who decide the fate of humanity. The teeming masses are mindless followers, moulded by the great man in his image. Indeed, there is ample Biblical evidence for this theory. Abraham, Moses, Joshua and David seem to singlehandedly start religions, win battles and even stop the sun.

However, it’s usually the small, anonymous heros who save the day. The Book of Judges is filled with marginal characters who suddenly find themselves thrust to the forefront. Gideon, Jepthah, Deborah are everyman heros, the little guy filling a void in leadership. In Hasidic lore, God listens closely to the peasant woman’s sigh and the ignorant shepherd’s flute, and saves the world because of their simple petitions. The grandiose prayers of the great man cannot compare to the sincere words of the little guy.

D-Day was a triumph of the little guy. It was they who risked their lives, fought courageously and liberated Europe. General Dwight D. Eisenhower reported how he went to see the 101st Airborne division before they took off for D-Day. He says on the runway, he saw a short private, “more equipment than soldier” who turned to him and saluted. Then the private turned in the direction of Germany and said: “look out Hitler, here we come”.

It is because of privates like these that Europe was liberated.

Great men arrive all too infrequently; the rest of the time, it’s up to everyone else to rescue the world. As we find ourselves increasingly embroiled in an international war against terror, it’s time once again for the little guy to come to the rescue.

A Letter From Montreal: Tears at the Seder

A lot of people cry at Seders. Some cry for innocuous reasons, because they opened a jar of horseradish a bit too quickly, and the fumes have caused an outburst of tears. Others cry because they have lost a loved one in the previous year, and the empty seat at the seder is too overwhelming. I know of a holocaust survivor who cries bittersweet tears at her seder, unable to believe that she has lived to see her children and grandchildren surrounding her at the holiday feast.

This year, the Jews of Montreal had reason to cry at their seders as well. One of the community’s elementary schools, United Talmud Torah (UTT), was firebombed on the night before Passover. The resulting fire gutted the children’s library, burning nearly 5,000 books. As I arrived at the school the following day, I found the staff in tears, overwhelmed by this hate crime.

I cried as well; the sight was too overwhelming. Burnt books of course, are a frightening reminder of the old Anti-Semitism of Europe. Even worse was the sight of a children’s library in ashes. What sort of twisted hatred motivates someone to venture out at 2 in the morning and burn The Amazing Octopus, Curious George, and a teddy bear?

With the tears come fears. Even though this is considered a relatively “unsophisticated” attack, the fact that the bombers left a note signed “Les Brigades de Sheikh Yassin” is bound to raise Jewish anxiety in a city with a substantial Arab and Muslim population. (The note’s promise to escalate future attacks doesn’t help either). The perception that Canadian immigration policy prior to 9/11 was far too lax is also a cause for concern. And it was another reminder that all too often anti-Semitism masquerades as “mere” anti-Zionism.

But with tears of sadness, come a few tears of joy. On the following day a news conference was held at the school. It included the Mayor of Montreal, Montreal’s police chief, and three ministers from the Quebec and Canadian governments. All of them vigorously condemned the attacks. The Prime Minister of Canada, Paul Martin, plans on visiting the school in the near future. Clearly, this is no replay of Germany in the 1930’s.

In addition, our community can take personal pride in some of the ministers at the press conference. Lawrence Bergman, a fixture in the Montreal Jewish community (and a former synagogue President), is the Quebec Minister of Revenue. Irwin Cotler, the Canadian Minister of Justice (and a member of our synagogue), is an internationally renowned Jewish leader. Cotler, in particular, was able to speak very movingly about the attack because he is a UTT alumnus. This press conference was eloquent testimony to how well Jews have integrated into the Canadian mainstream.

There was also ample evidence of a community energized to respond. An impromptu rally held that day at the school brought out several hundred people at a moment’s notice. Everyone I meet is ready to help in the rebuilding. At issue is Jewish pride, and there seems to plenty to go around. A sign at the impromptu rally best expresses the community’s feelings: "You can burn our books, but you can't burn our spirits."

Yes, this year, the Jews of Montreal had tears in their eyes at the seder. But they were bittersweet tears, tears that expressed a mixture of pain and pride. Irwin Cotler put it best in a television interview. He said that at the seder, we say that “in every generation they rise up against us”. This, he said, is testimony to the enduring hatred of anti-Semitism. But he pointed out that this section is something more positive as well: it is eloquent testimony to the enduring nature of the Jew.

I entered the building with tears of sadness, overwhelmed by this awful hate crime. I left with tears of joy, with the realization that despite all, “am yisrael chai”, the Jewish people continue to endure and thrive.

The Interview

I’m used to asking personal questions, not answering them. As a Rabbi, I prepare for weddings and funerals with personal questions about the couple’s aspirations and the deceased’s character. So I probe personal lives, obliviously doing my job, searching for speechworthy material. But I must admit that it was unsettling when I finally found myself on the receiving end of personal questions.

It was a school project; Two high school students were interviewing me. They wanted to know about my heroes, my interests, and what inspired me to become a Rabbi. And I found it difficult to give answers. It’s always awkward to open up about personal matters, even if they’re trivial. But remarkably, I didn’t have immediate answers; I had never thought much about these questions before.

We don’t ask ourselves serious questions, and that’s a shame. Good questions are the difference between mediocrity and excellence. Indeed, the right question can be revolutionary. Theodore Herzl asks: “Can we wait in pious resignation till the princes and peoples of this earth are more mercifully disposed towards us?”. Because of this question we now have a State of Israel. Martin Luther King asks: “Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or the extension of justice?”. Because of this question the civil rights movement grows, and racism slowly begins to crumble. Simple, sincere questions can start revolutions.

What makes questions so powerful is the way they strip away the veneer of falsehood. Incessant logic has a way of exposing the corrupt realities hidden beneath phony explanations. Good questions persist until they finally get a genuine answer.

Unfortunately, our predisposition is to ignore and accept. Anyone who has fallen victim to fraud (as I have) knows that you always look back and wonder: “why didn’t I ask any questions?”. Just a little more scrutiny and you would have figured it out. But we’re simply not in the habit of asking questions, even of relative strangers, and blindly accept the status quo.

And the last person we’d ever ask questions of is ....ourselves. We have “excuses” (lies, actually) to explain why we are lazy and disengaged . Our true priorities get submerged under self deceptions like “I’ll do it when I have a chance” and “it’s not my responsibility”. We unquestioningly smother our souls in phony excuses, and as a result remain mediocrities.

The Talmud says that after we die, we are interviewed by an angel who asks us whether we lived a life focussed on family, ethics, spirituality and hope. Truth is, we need to ask these questions while we’re still alive. And that’s the exactly the point of the Talmud: it’s a terrible shame to wait until you’re interviewed, whether by angels or teenagers, before thinking seriously about life.