Mourning, Grieving and Comforting the Mourner - It's Time for Us to Find New Words

I need to start with with an expression of Hakarat HaTov (expressing gratitude):  Those of you in my village, and yes, by necessity it has been a very geographically spread out and diverse village inhabited by the very best people have shown great concern, sympathy, love, support, caring, sensitivity - all of the feels.  I appreciate every word, intention, note, message, donation, call and visit.

My big language issue when my Dad died almost 7 years ago (I can't use the term "lost my Dad".  He's not lost; I know just where he is), was the part of Psalm 30 in the morning service after the preliminary blessings, where the closing verse is (and I'm paraphrasing because somehow I don't have a siddur with an English translation handy, but I know the Hebrew well enough) "you turned my mourning into dancing, your turned my sackcloth to happiness".  I was leading shacharit in my parents' apartment building with my sister's friends around me, and leading the service I was required to say those words.  I know that there are parts of the liturgy that aren't said in a house of mourning - why isn't that phrase one of the ones left out?  It made me angry, and I discussed that anger with the rabbi at Cedar Village, Rabbi Yuden, with my Rabbi, Mickey Safra, with my teacher and doppleganger Avi West, and I never came up with a reason why we make mourners say that.  Oh look, I guess I'm still a little angry about it, because I'm not at a point where my mourning has turned to happiness. I do smile daily when I think about my dad.

That rant was just to introduce my current rant, with all love and respect for the loving and noble intentions of the people who used these words to comfort me, because the words are those that our tradition teaches one is to say to a mourner.  There are two phrases that are bothering me, and leading me to think we need to change our language about mourning in the same way we are changing our ways of talking about race, gender and ethnicity.  The two phrases are:

May you be comforted [by God, literally HaMakom, the place] among the remnant of those mourning for Zion and Jerusalem; and

May your mother's memory be for a blessing (this one bothers me a little less and I'll explain why).

Why are these the words we say?  I'm a 21st Century Jew.  My Zion and Jerusalem are rebuilt, a beautiful, crowded city filled with hundreds of thousands of Jews who have returned from exile and call this place home.  Jerusalem is not in ruins; I don't need to see the Temple rebuilt.  I'm not a messianist.  I don't enact the ritual of kri'ah (tearing one's clothes as a sign of mourning) on the rare occasions I visit the Kotel (it's one of those synagogues I don't go to). So the people here are not a remnant.  The Jewish population of Israel is the single largest population of Jews in the world.  A modern miracle, as it were. So why should I be comforted among those who mourn for Zion and Jerusalem? Those who still mourn what was destroyed 1950 years ago, in my opinion, need to adjust their world view and be open to the miracle that is the modern State of Israel, even with all its imperfections (I note that at 243 years old, the USA has a few imperfections of its own).  I'm sorry, and please don't be offended, because I know your intentions were loving and sincere, but I don't find those words comforting.

Next, I would like for my mother's memory to be a blessing, and I'm working very hard right now to make it so, while I have some alone time in a peaceful, rural (even biblical - I'm near the site where David bested Goliath) setting.  To be honest, my mother wasn't very nice to me.  She could and did hold grudges for decades and she talked about me negatively to her friends, my siblings and my children.  I'm working very hard to declutter these negative feelings about my mother and leave them here, maybe buried in the hole I dug to plant a tree in her memory in Be'er Sheva. 

Years ago, at a therapist's suggestion, I asked my mother to stop using me to complain about others and not to complain to others about me; even with a masters degree in Social Work, she was not able to discipline herself and filter her words.  For my own health, I tried to keep a little distance between us, so I wouldn't have to be on the receiving end of so many hurtful words.  So right now, it's hard for those memories to be a blessing.  My daughter Abby, in her eulogy, found several positive ways to remember my mother - her love of yiddishkeit, her fascination with the Shoah, her desire to keep learning as she aged.  These are the memories I'm trying to turn into a blessing. But it isn't easy, it's going to take time, and I appreciate your sentiments, sincerely expressed.

I want to urge those of you, well versed in text and better with words than I am: let's find new language to comfort the mourner.  Unless we know about the relationship between the mourner and the met (the person who died) closely, let's not assume that the memories all bring blessing.  Let's try to find other words, that share our relationship to the mourner, something like, "As a life created in God's image I'm here to listen and be with you as you mourn" or "I'm here to share and help you manage the burden of your grief". Let's see if we can make progress with this.  I'm willing to put it on my Sanhedrin agenda (yes, I've been drafting it for years) somewhere between doing away with the second day of yom tov and definitely after making chicken parve.

At the very early part of my college career I had a friendly relationship with the University of Maryland Hillel Director, Rabbi Robert Saks. He was, for a short time, my landlord as well.  He wrote a meditation for Yizkor that appears in the margins of Mahzor Lev Shalem.  My mother was not abusive, though she could be hurtful, but I have found this meditation helpful in my process of grieving over the last two weeks.

Dear God,
You know my heart. Indeed, You know me better than I know myself, so I turn to You before I rise for Kaddish. My emotions swirl as I say this prayer. The parent I remember was not kind to me. Her death left me with a legacy of unhealed wounds, of anger and of dismay that a parent could hurt a child as I was hurt.

I do not want to pretend to love, or to grief that I do not feel, but I do want to do what is right as a Jew and as a child.

Help me, O God, to subdue my bitter emotions that do me no good, and to find that place in myself where happier memories may lie hidden, and where grief for all that could have been, all that should have been, may be calmed by forgiveness, or at least soothed by the passage of time.

I pray that You, who raise up slaves to freedom, will liberate me from the oppression of my hurt and anger, and that You will lead me from this desert to Your holy place.

— Robert Saks, Mahzor Lev Shalem