One year ago, I stood on this bima leading our Kol Nidre service. I was physically present, sharing words of Torah, leading you all in prayer, but my mind was elsewhere. In a hospital room in Toledo, Ohio, my father was dying. I wasn’t sure how much time he had left. Would it be a day, a week, a month? That wasn’t clear. But I knew he was in the midst of leaving this world.
Kol Nidre is the moment each year when we are most reflective about life and death. Our rabbis teach that today is a rehearsal of our death. Some wear a kittel, a traditional burial garment. Many don’t eat food or drink, the sustenance that gives us the strength for living. Even our ark is emptied to be reminiscent of a coffin.
Our prayers this holiday are hauntingly beautiful and describe the fragility of life. The Unetaneh Tokef serves as a stark reminder: “Who shall live and who shall die?” while the Book of Life summons us to change our ways in order reach our highest potential.
Throughout that long day of Yom Kippur, I continued to reflect upon a date on the calendar, just four months in the future, February 21, 2026, my son Caleb’s Bar Mitzvah. I knew on this holiest of days, with certainty, that my dad wouldn’t be physically present at the simcha. How then could I celebrate and be filled with joy if my dad wasn’t there? My dad was so excited about his eldest grandchild chanting Torah and leading the congregation in prayer. How could I, how would I, navigate these mixed emotions?
I’ve always been moved by the words
from Ecclesiastes:[i]
To everything there is a
season,
A time for every
experience under heaven:
A time to be born and a
time to die,
A time to plant and a
time to uproot the planted;
A time to kill and a time
to heal,
A time to tear down and a
time to build up;
A time to weep and a time
to laugh,
A time to wail and a time to dance.
These words are so poetic, so
moving. They speak so poignantly about
the ups and downs of living. They remind
us of our journeys from sadness to happiness, anger to consolation, tearing
down to building up. But what happens
when both emotions occur simultaneously?
How do we sit in sadness while also donning our dancing shoes?
Just hours after break-the-fast, I received a midnight call from my mom. My dad was actively dying. It was imminent. It was time to say goodbye and to let him go. A few hours later, in the darkest hours of the night, I received a second phone call. My dad had left this world.
Step one. Mourning. Flights were made. Meeting with the rabbi. Shiva food ordered. Eulogies written. Burial, sitting shiva, minyanim. Walks, hugs, phone calls, texts. Tears, sadness, and remembrances.
Our rabbis teach us that life should always precede death. Celebration should always occur before mourning. I’ve always lived this dictum in my life and in my rabbinate. Joy is central to my Judaism, to my community. But what happens to joy when one is in mourning?
In our Talmud[ii]
we learn that when a wedding party and a funeral processional arrive at the
same intersection, it is the wedding party gets the right of way. Life should precede death. Joy should precede mourning.
But traditionally that’s not the case when we are the mourner. Our rabbis teach that during shiva and sheloshim, those first 30 days of mourning, we should refrain from celebrating. We should abstain from attending celebrations, simchas, or even listening to live music. Our rabbis weren’t trying to be meanspirited or cause us to suffer. They believed, and rightfully so, that each of us needs time to grieve before we can move forward. Mourning must come first.
I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to mourn. I know that many people don’t always have this luxury. A death and a wedding might occur at the very same moment. They need to make the difficult choice of which space to be in. Luckily, I had the gift of time: time to mourn, time to grieve, time to be comforted in my sadness.
As I moved forward, day by day, I began to feel a little bit of light. I began to glimpse small amounts of joy amidst the sadness. Rebbe Nachman of Bratzlav, the famous Hasidic Master, lived an extremely difficult life. He lost several of his children when they were in their infancy and he battled severe depression throughout adulthood. His mantra throughout life was to search for and find happiness in everything that he did. As he taught: “It is a great mitzvah to be happy always. Strengthen yourself to push aside all depression and sadness. Everyone has lots of problems and the nature of humanity is to be attracted to sadness. To escape these difficulties, constantly bring joy into your life—even if you must resort to silliness.”[iii]
Now, I don’t know about you, but I have always found this
teaching to be very problematic. We
can’t just push away our sadness and be joyous.
We can’t just pretend that all is fine and put on a good face. Too many of us spend our lives navigating
depression and mental illness. We might have
the support of therapy, medication, treatments, as well as loved ones and
dedicated professionals that surround us.
But we can’t just “Be happy.”
That’s not how it works.
What I believe Rebbe Nachman is teaching is that even in sadness there can be glimmers of happiness. Even in our darkest moments, we can achieve a sense of wholeness, gratitude, and community.
Judaism believes that at certain times, joy can follow sorrow. Throughout our calendar, the most challenging moments are often followed by laughter and love. Tisha b’Av, the 9th of Av, is the saddest day on our Jewish calendar. Just six days later is Tu B’Av, the 15th of Av, our Jewish Valentine’s Day. While we sit shiva for the destruction of Temple in Jerusalem, we are already looking for love! It is mind blowing! While today’s commemoration of Yom Kippur, a day of deep introspection, is followed just five days later by Sukkot. We will gather in our Sukkah for one of the most joyous celebrations of our year.
In our Torah, in Parashat Chayei Sarah, our patriarch Isaac mourns the loss of his mother Sarah. By the end of the portion, he’s newly married to his wife Rebecca. Here, grief moves towards comfort and love. Our Jewish response to grief is not to overcome it, not to pretend it doesn’t exist, but to look for solace, for community, for love.
As the fall turned towards winter, Brian and I were in full Bar Mitzvah planning mode. It kept both of us busy with all the “to-do” lists and the responsibilities to prepare for the big day. As the Bar Mitzvah was almost upon us, I thought deeply about a teaching by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. “Joy, happiness, pleasure, and the like are all states of mind, emotions. They belong to the individual. We can feel them alone. Simcha, by contrast, is not a private emotion. It means happiness shared. It is a social state, a predicate of “we,” not “I.” There is no such thing as feeling simcha alone.”[iv]
At the Bar Mitzvah I recognized that
I would not be alone. In my joy and in
my grief, I would be surrounded by so many others. The Bar Mitzvah was meant to be celebrated
not as an individual, but by a community.
Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav shares a beautiful analogy about a mourner who is about to celebrate a simcha. He explains that sometimes there are people at a simcha who are happy and dancing. They see someone outside their circle who is saddened. Against the person’s will, they bring that person into the circle of dancers to force the person to be happy with them. It is the same with happiness. When a person is happy, gloom will stand aside.[v]
Now, that statement might seem a little bit aggressive to you! That poor person who attends a Bar Mitzvah or a weddingand wishes to remain alone in their grief. Suddenly, they are bombarded by partygoers who force them into dancing the hora!
But Nachman so beautifully shares his reasoning. He says: “Greater is to gather courage to actually pursue sadness and introduce it to joy, such that sadness turns into joy. A person should transform sadness and suffering into joy.”
Rebbe Nachman realized that we each hold multiple emotions at once. He’s not downplaying our grief, sadness, depression, or gloominess. Instead, we should recognize that joy can occur amidst sadness. Sadness can be transformed into joy. Maybe not forever, but perhaps for a moment. This occurs when we’re amongst others, perhaps in a group of dancers.
At the Bar Mitzvah, I felt that
mixture of sadness and happiness. As the
hora began pumping, I thought about my dad, and how much he loved to dance. How proud he’d be to watch his grandson be
lifted into the chair. I was a little
bit teary-eyed. Sadness filled my heart,
but I also felt joy, simcha, overflow as well.
In the Talmud we are told: “Happiness has been turned into sorrow; joy
and suffering have become joined together.”[vi] At that moment, I recognized, that this is
life. Sadness and happiness
together. Joy and suffering fused as one. And so, I donned my dancing shoes, gathering
with my fellow dancers, to fill my heart with joy, knowing that the sadness was
still there too. I danced and I cried.
No comments:
Post a Comment