The Prayer Book -- Week 12
Jewish University in Cyberspace (J.U.I.C.E.)
THE PRAYER BOOK: A WINDOW ON JEWISH THEOLOGY
Instructors: Barbara and Reuven Sutnick
questions/comments: sutnick@internet-zahav.net
Lesson 12
MOURNING IN PRAYER
I cannot think of a more appropriate topic as we are about to "finish
off" our course on the Internet! And if that doesn't kill you, try this
one:
There was once a man standing outside the Jewish funeral home as a lengthy
procession passed. He had the look of a mourner. His dear friend came up to
him and asked: "Why so sad?" "Two weeks ago my uncle died,"
the bereaved man answered. "Oh dear," said his friend sincerely, "I'm
so sorry." "But," the mourner added, "he left me $20,000."
"That's not bad," the second chimed in, "But why so sad?"
"Well, last week my other uncle died." "Oh, I'm so sorry,"
his friend offered soothingly. "But," the first continued, "this
uncle left me $30,000." "Wow, that's pretty good!" But why so
sad?" The mourner answered sheepishly, "This week nobody died!"
Now, some of you will see this as still another example of tasteless humor.
However, at the risk of sounding crass, I would like to pursue the reasoning
inherent in this joke. The joke does more than show that there is a silver lining
to every cloud. It illustrates the emotional schizophrenia that plagues human
existence. Poor us! Our parents (after 120 years) die and we inherit money and
insurance. The first act of re-entry into normative society after getting up
from shiva (the seven-day morning period) is to probate the will before the
out-of-towners return to their homes!
The sense of dichotomy also exists for the Jewish ritualized side of mourning.
On the one hand, we are confronted with the overwhelming experience of loss
and grief; on the other, we are responsible to a religious, devotional system
which demands that we acknowledge any and all benefits that accrue to us at
any time:
It is forbidden for one to take benefit from this world without first [saying
a] blessing, and anyone who BENEFITS from this world and does not say a blessing,
has STOLEN (from Heaven)!
(Talmud, Berachot 35a)
We find a remarkable discussion in the Talmud, in the Rif's precis:
"A person must bless over the BAD just as he
must bless over the GOOD" -- A person must bless on the bad "Blessed
is the Righteous Judge" (baruch dayan ha-emet) and receive it (the bad)
upon himself with joy, in the same manner as he accepts the good, as it is written
"Justice and Mercy will I sing." [This means that] if it is mercy,
I will sing; if it is [harsh] judgment, I will sing ... (Rif, ch. 9, 44b)
Rabbeinu Yonah (on the Rif) is even more explicit. He tells us that one must
bless on the bad with joy and a full heart, and should experience even the harsh
judgment as expiation for one's sins.
Before I start bringing some of these ideas into focus, I want to mention two
other related texts that really belong in our discussion this week. After the
"call to prayer" (Bor'chu) in the morning service, we recite the first
blessing before the Shema (see Lecture 6):
Blessed is ... Who creates LIGHT and fashions DARKNESS,
Who makes PEACE and creates EVERYTHING.
This blessing is an adaptation of a biblical phrase. We read in Isaiah 45:7:
I am the Lord, and there is none else, I form the LIGHT and create DARKNESS;
I make PEACE, and create EVIL: I, the Lord do all these things.
True to biblical poetry, we see here the use of parallel phrases. In each phrase,
the first element is the positive; the second is its negative. Furthermore,
light and darkness are opposites; peace and evil are opposites. The prophet
tells us that the belief in total monotheism brings with it the awful (and sophisticated)
realization that God is the source of EVERYTHING -- even of opposite extremes.
Returning now to the blessing from the siddur, we can see that the precise symmetry
of language is not there. In the blessing peace is still parallel to light;
but here EVERYTHING is placed in the position parallel to darkness. Instead
of saying (as did Isaiah) "Who creates peace and evil;" we say in
our prayers "Who creates peace and everything."
Question: Do you personally consider this alteration of the language a welcome
change? a necessary change? a change that you would have left unchanged? Please
e-mail your thoughts.
Now, I see a common thread in all the texts quoted. Evil, suffering, discomfort,
death, mourning are all part of the overall fabric of God's creation. There
is no monotheism, no "I am the Lord, your God" if we don't attribute
all that we experience as negative to the God who took us out of Egypt. Even
our suffering bears the specific mark of the Divine. Therefore, for Isaiah and
indeed for those who fashioned the blessing of the siddur based on Isaiah, "everything"
deserves its proper acknowledgment in ritual! Make no mistake about it, even
though Isaiah's language has been smoothed over a bit in the siddur, most students
of the Bible hear very clearly the echo of his words in the prayer we recite.
The upshot: amazingly, the blessing "Who forms light and creates darkness"
is a general blessing which also blesses over evil!
I submit all of this to you because I think the Jewish religious philosophy
is highly integrated. I furthermore think the rituals of the siddur display
this integration in words and lead us to experience it in action. What do I
mean by this?
Think for a moment about the experience of bereavement. If we consider the
elements in this experience which might occasion prayer, we would have to include:
the immediate care for the person who has died, considerations of the afterlife,
the needs of the survivors, and the expression of the community towards one
of its bereaved members. At a later point, we would want to add to this list
annual commemorative behavior. Now when I stated that the siddur leads us to
experience in words and action the full integration of Jewish theology, I meant
that:
a. Ritually, we affirm that the Source of our bereavement is God, the same
Source of our greatest joys and successes;
b. Ritually, we acknowledge the correctness of a judgment which we don't like,
which runs contrary to our human concept of pleasure;
c. Ritually, we acknowledge that the Source of our recovery, will be the same
as the Source of our current misery, which is also the Source of our joys, etc.;
d. Ritually and publicly, we undertake to affirm at each daily prayer service
the correctness of the judgment;
e. Ritually in tandem with our community, we reenact the acknowledgment that
the judgment was correct, over a protracted period of time, the length of which
depends on the relationship with the deceased;
f. Ritually, we acknowledge both in the funeral service and in the annual
memorial service, the dual aspects of Judgment and Mercy which prevail in the
situation of bereavement.
Please don't miss my favorite word: RITUALLY. As has been pointed out many
times before in this course, to understand the siddur's spin on Jewish philosophy,
think RITUAL!
To affirm the source of bereavement and acknowledge the correctness of judgment
are connected ideas. As part of the burial service we recite the words "God
has given, God has taken away -- may the great Name of God be blessed."
This clearly acknowledges, no less explicitly than the passage from Isaiah quoted
above, the connection between our suffering and the Source of our joy: the God
who takes is the same God who gives. However, there is another moment in the
mourning service which expresses the same idea even more poignantly. At the
time the mourners tear "k'riyah," (rend their garments, which is done
just before the funeral service begins) they recite the blessing "Baruch
Dayan ha-Emet" -- "Blessed is the Judge of Truth". This is a
riveting moment, since the sound of a garment tearing in a quiet room shocks
like no other sound. However, the moment of tearing k'riyah, which is combined
with the blessing "Judge of Truth" is also significant in its uniquely
ritual context. After a person dies, but before the funeral, the closest relatives
of the deceased immediately attain the status of "anninut". This is
the time period prior to burial when it is assumed that the relatives will be
attending to the needs of the deceased. Consequently, in Jewish law, these relatives
are free from all positive commandments (i.e. the "thou shall's" --
as opposed to the "thou shall not's!"). They do not pray with the
community, wear the tallit (prayer shawl) or tefillin (phylacteries); nor do
they count towards a minyan. They are, in essence, free from ritual and from
community involvement. But, the act of tearing k'riyah and reciting the blessing
affirming the judgment of the "Judge of Truth", draws the mourner
immediately back into the world of ritual. In the same way that not eating matzah
the day before Pesach intensifies the experience of eating matzah on seder night,
so here the mourner's ritual deprivation makes his/her "acknowledgment
of the correctness of the judgment" (Tzidduk HaDin) even more intense.
After all, what ritual experience is there anywhere in Jewish life more theologically
critical than a person's affirmation of Divine Judgment while his "dead
lies before him?"
To summarize briefly: the mourner's recitation of "Judge of Truth",
particularly in the context of a ritual deprivation which temporarily removes
him/her from the community, derives from the siddur's integrated theology. The
mourner acknowledges the Source of bereavement, not unlike Isaiah; s/he affirms
the judgment s/he has suffered as s/he reenters the ritual community.
The concept of a ritual community, particularly as it relates to prayers of
mourning, features prominently in the final moments of the funeral service.
As the mourners turn away from the now closed grave of their relative, they
pass through two lines formed by members of the community. They are greeted
with the words "May God grant you comfort along with all those who mourn
of Zion and Jerusalem." These are the words traditionally used by members
of the community to comfort mourners during the shiva visit. They are also spoken
to newly bereaved mourners by the community of pray-ers when the mourners enter
the synagogue on Friday night. These words are a corollary to Tzidduk HaDin
(acknowledging that God is the Judge of Truth): the mourner affirms Divine Justice
and the community reassures him that he will find comfort in God, like all those
of the community of Zion who have suffered bereavement before him.
This ritualized "give and take" (i.e. responsive verbalizing) between
the mourner and the community is also a central feature of the most well-known
mourning prayer, the Kaddish. Please read the following excerpts from Kaddish:
May His great name grow exalted and sanctified in the world that He created
as He willed. May He give reign to His kingship and cause His salvation to sprout
and bring near His Messiah, in your lifetimes and in your days, and in the lifetimes
of the entire family of Israel, swiftly and soon. Now respond: Amen.
(congregational response) AMEN. Y'HEI SH'MEI RABBA M'VORACH, L'OLAM U'LOLMEI
ALMAYA. (May His great Name be blessed forever and always.)
We notice that within the text itself there is a directive to the community
to respond. Scholars of Jewish prayer have noted that the communal response
is actually the most ancient part of the Kaddish text. They also note that these
Aramaic words (the Kaddish is written in Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Jews
of the Talmudic period) -Y'HEI SH'MEI RABBA M'VORACH, L'OLAM U'LOLMEI ALMAYA
- is actually the same as those found in a classical Bible translation (Targum
Yerushalmi) of the verses Genesis 49:2 and Deut. 6:4: "Blessed is the Name
of His glorious kingdom forever and always." The Hebrew of this verse is
cited throughout the Talmud and midrash as a community response to prayer (the
second line of the Shema, for example). Thus central to Kaddish, both practically
and textually, we have the Aramaic version of our most significant Scriptural
community response.
*SIDDUR SEARCH* The mourners' Kaddish may be found at the end of most services
in most prayer books. *EUREKA* It is recommended that you read through it in
English to fully absorb its meaning and style.
Looking at the text the mourner recites, we can understand that it is ritually,
psychologically and theologically reminiscent of his experience of bereavement.
This is true, even though the Kaddish does not refer to the dead or to death
at all. Its words acknowledge that God is responsible for EVERYTHING (remember
Isaiah 45:7) according to His will, and that this is a cause for sanctifying
God's name. This is an acknowledgment of Divine Justice, the key religious element
in the mourner's reentry to the ritual community. Here too, the community answers.
Please read the following statement about this community response, and see if
you can explain why the Talmud finds it so significant:
R. Yehoshua b. Levi says: Whosoever answers "Amen. May His great Name
be blessed forever and always" with all his might, the harsh decree is
averted (i.e. he is forgiven for sins)...
(Shabbat 119b)
It is because "Tziduk HaDin" and its associate "Sanctification
of the Name," are a great statement of faith and trust in God's justice.
In addition, they achieve significant weight, since they are expressed PUBLICLY
and in community dialogue. (Certainly to make a theological statement publicly
has more weight and accountability than to make it privately.) The community's
response actually activates the process of public sanctification of God's name.
As the verse says: "I will be sanctified amongst the children (plural)
of Israel". (Lev. 22:32)
The relevance of a continued public acceptance of Divine Justice throughout
the period of mourning is understandable. Think of the normal response an individual
has when faced with the loss of a close relative. He frames his rancor in the
terminology of justice: "Why me?" "Why him/her?" "S/He
was so good?" "Why did s/he have to suffer?" "Why do the
good die young when there are so many rotten people out there, who live to old
age?" "THIS IS NOT FAIR!!!" In Jewish theology, the ritual of
Kaddish is the mourner's publicly declared acknowledgement that IT IS FAIR (even
if this is difficult to face.) To this the community responds "Amen."
Ritual and practical theology go hand-in-hand.
There is one other prayer for the dead which I wish to touch on. Both at the
funeral service and at the annual memorial (Yahrtzeit in Yiddish; Hazkarah in
Hebrew), and during the holiday memorial service, we recite the Prayer for Mercy,
E-l Maleh Rachamim:
O God, Full of Mercy, Who dwells on high, grant proper rest on the wings of
the Divine Presence ... for the soul of (mention name)...May his/her resting
place be in the Garden of Eden...
Three elements are striking here: 1) there is specific mention of the deceased
by name, 2) we pray on behalf of the dead for the repose of the soul in the
Garden of Eden, and 3) God is represented in one attribute only, vis. as Full
of Mercy. This conforms more closely to the pattern of request that we have
seen before in petitionary prayer, than to the other prayers of bereavement
we have discussed in this Lecture. However, it is the last point which catches
my attention. The entire experience of bereavement and the ritual affirmation
of Divine Justice (Tziduk Hadin) is based on a recognition that God is the Source
of EVERYTHING. He is the Righteous Judge, even when His judgment does not fit
our own concept of what is fair. We are directed to publicly acknowledge God's
righteousness, specifically at that time when every fiber of our being screams
that our suffering is not right. Yet here, we turn to God in the aspect of pure
mercy! What's going on here?
For me, the answer lies in the contrast and in the sequence. Both in the short
term (the funeral service) and in the long term (the larger calendar year),
the Prayer for Mercy follows Tziduk HaDin. As for my second point, in Gesher
HaHayyim (an important work on Jewish mourning ritual by R. Tukachinsky, see
vol. 1, ch. 33, 2:7), we learn that there are those communities in which the
mourner does not recite Yizkor (including the Prayer for Mercy) during the first
year after bereavement. While the author feels that this custom is inappropriate,
he nevertheless acknowledges that it has its basis in traditional sources. I
simply wish to note that refraining from reciting Yizkor/Mercy until after the
full run of Kaddish has been completed, expresses important religious sensibilities:
we can be prepared to see God in the aspect of Pure Mercy only when the year-long
process of Tziduk HaDin has been completed. Likewise at the funeral.
It has been a pleasure and a learning experience for me to teach this course,
as I hope it has been for you out there in Cyberspace. At this time, I would
like to thank my husband, Rabbi Reuven Sutnick, for the copious research, original
ideas, unique turns of phrase, and never-ending supply of jokes that he generously
contributed to every lecture of this course. We have all been the beneficiaries!
I would also like to thank the many students who participated in "Siddur
Discussions" in Cyberspace, and to let you know that the gates of Cyberspace
have not closed simply because the last lecture of the semester has gone out!
Please keep your questions and comments coming.
Barbara Sutnick
FOR FURTHER THOUGHT
Why do you think a minyan is required for reciting Kaddish?
* * * * *
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