AUGUST 10 • 2023 | 43
anniversary of the martyrdom of Imam
Hussein, the prophet’s grandson, at
Karbala. People flagellate themselves
with chains or cut themselves with
knives until the blood flows. Some
Shia authorities strongly oppose this
practice.)
The Torah sees such behavior as
incompatible with kedushah, holiness.
What is particularly interesting is to
note the two-stage process in which
the law is set out. It appears first in
Vayikra/Leviticus Chapter 21.
The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the
priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to
them: A priest may not defile himself
for any of his people who die, except
for a close relative … They may not
shave their heads or shave the edges of
their beards or cut their bodies. They
must be holy to their God and must not
profane the name of their God.” (Lev.
21:1-6)
There it applies specifically
to cohanim, priests, on account of their
holiness. In Deuteronomy, the law is
extended to all Israel (the difference
between the two books lies in their
original audiences: Leviticus is mainly
a set of instructions to the priests,
Deuteronomy is Moses’ addresses to
the whole people). The application
to ordinary Israelites of laws of
sanctity that apply to priests is part of
the democratization of holiness that is
central to the Torah idea of “a kingdom
of priests.”
WHY RESTRAINT?
The question remains, however: What
has restraint in mourning to do with
being “children of the Lord your God,”
a holy and chosen people?
• Ibn Ezra says that just as a father may
cause a child pain for his or her long-
term good, so God sometimes brings
us pain — here, bereavement — which
we must accept in trust without an
excessive show of grief.
• Ramban suggests that it is our belief
in the immortality of the soul that is
why we should not grieve overmuch.
Even so, he adds, we are right to mourn
within the parameters set by Jewish law
since, even if death is only a parting,
every parting is painful.
• R. Ovadiah Sforno and Chizkuni say
that because we are “children of God”
we are never completely orphaned. We
may lose our earthly parents but never
our ultimate Father; hence, there is a
limit to grief.
• Rabbenu Meyuchas suggests that
royalty does not defile itself by
undergoing disfiguring injuries (nivul).
Thus Israel — children of the supreme
King — may not do so either.
Whichever of these explanations speaks
most strongly to us, the principle is
clear. Here is how Maimonides sets out
the law: “Whoever does not mourn the
dead in the manner enjoined by the
rabbis is cruel [achzari — perhaps a
better translation would be, ‘lacking in
sensitivity’]” (Hilkhot Avel 13:12). At
the same time, however, “One should
not indulge in excessive grief over one’s
dead, for it is said, ‘Weep not for the
dead, nor bemoan him’ (Jer. 22:10), that
is to say, weep not too much, for that
is the way of the world, and he who
frets over the way of the world is a fool”
(ibid 13:11).
THE SEQUENCE OF GRIEF
Halachah, Jewish law, strives to create
a balance between too much and
too little grief. Hence, the various
stages of bereavement: aninut (the
period between the death and
burial), shivah (the week of
mourning), sheloshim (30 days in the
case of other relatives) and shanah (a
year, in the case of parents). Judaism
ordains a precisely calibrated sequence
of grief, from the initial, numbing
moment of loss itself, to the funeral and
the return home, to the period of being
comforted by friends and members of
the community, to a more extended
time during which one does not engage
in activities associated with joy.
The more we learn about the
psychology of bereavement and the
stages through which we must pass
before loss is healed, so the wisdom of
Judaism’s ancient laws and customs has
become ever more clear. As it is with
individuals, so it is with the people as
a whole. Jews have suffered more than
most from persecution and tragedy. We
have never forgotten these moments.
We remember them on our fast days
— especially on Tisha b’Av with its
literature of lament, the kinot. Yet, with
a power of recovery that at times has
been almost miraculous, it has never
allowed itself to be defeated by grief.
One rabbinic passage epitomizes the
dominant voice within Judaism:
After the Second Temple was
destroyed, ascetics multiplied in Israel.
They did not eat meat or drink wine …
Rabbi Joshua told them: “Not to mourn
at all is impossible, for it has been
decreed. But to mourn too much is also
impossible.”
In this anti-traditional age, with its
hostility to ritual and its preference for
the public display of private emotion
(what Philip Rieff, in the 1960s, called
“the triumph of the therapeutic”), the
idea that grief has its laws and limits
sounds strange. Yet almost anyone who
has had the misfortune to be bereaved
can testify to the profound healing
brought about by observance of the
laws of avelut (mourning).
Torah and tradition knew how to
honor both the dead and the living,
sustaining the delicate balance between
grief and consolation, the loss of life
that gives us pain, and the reaffirmation
of life that gives us hope.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (1948-2020) was a
global religious leader, philosopher, the author of
more than 25 books and moral voice for our time.
His series of essays on the weekly Torah portion,
titled “Covenant & Conversation” will continue to be
shared and distributed around the world.