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. 

