The Zeitgeist

 

A typical Jewish tombstone (left) and a Yahrtzeit (memorial) candle.

The End of Mourning:

Closure on a Year of Remembrance 

The Ba’al Tefila (prayer leader) was old, probably in his 80s, his complexion wan, his hair snow white and thin, his posture stooped, but his voice was strong enough to reach every part of the large main sanctuary. You could hear a pin drop as he commenced the haunting Yizkor (remembrance) prayers on the last day of Passover. What emanated from his essence was the sound of long ago, the echo of days and worlds that are no more – the cadence, accent and pronunciation were forged as a youth in some long vanished shtetl in Eastern Europe, most of who’s residents are now but dust and ash.

As the Kail Ma’aleh Rachamim (merciful G-d on high) wafted around the room, the deep Yiddish-inflected words penetrated the hearts and entered the souls of all those assembled to pay honor to their lost parents, siblings, spouses and sometimes their children. You see, the old man was a Holocaust survivor – one of the dwindling few who still tread this earth and the grief in his every note was tangible and palpable – an authentic cri de coeur that punctured the stoic reserve of most present and set the tear ducts in motion.

Attending Yizkor for a relatively recently deceased parent can be a gut-wrenching experience as it was with me last week. In a few days will be the Yahrtzeit (anniversary of passing) for my late mother. The Yizkor service so close to the end of my year of mourning dredged-up a matrix of emotions that thankfully have dramatically receded, especially over the last six months. Judaism demands that parents be honored in death as well as in life, even if it makes you uncomfortable or if it’s inconvenient.

The ancient Jewish stages of mourning have been engineered to help you process grief, help you deal with it and then help you move on and have closure. At the end of the year one is expected to completely rejoin the world of the living and lock the door to your sadness over the demise of a close loved one, at least until the next Yizkor service.

Mom has been gone for nearly a year now. As an observant Modern Orthodox Jew, that has meant saying a whole lot of Mourners Kaddish. When I mean a lot, we’re talking about at least six times a day, seven days a week for 11 of the 12 months of the year-long mourning period. It means showing up for three prayer services a day, the shortest of which can still last 15 or 20 minutes. It means saying the Kaddish prayer so often that you can recite it in your sleep, and sometimes you do.

The Mourners Kaddish is a prayer for the dead but it’s really for the living to affirm their belief in God in the face of great sorrow and loss – and affirm you do day in and day out come rain, sleet, snow or dark of dawn or night – you affirm it in ancient Aramaic with at least nine other Jewish men above Bar Mitzvah age. Business calls, emails and meetings have to be put on hold at midday, breakfast will have to wait in the mornings and working out will sometimes have to take a third back seat. Kaddish means that quite often you lead the whole prayer service from beginning to end, you’re not just a spectator, you’re the main actor on the stage (bima) and the star of the show.

It needs to be said that for my entire life I always assiduously avoided doing anything as outlandish as leading services (davening), but thrust into the footlights, somehow I let my anxiety over leading the services compete headlong with my anxiety over the loss of my mother – and those dueling anxieties, in time, miraculously and thankfully nullify one another for the better on both fronts. Teach a kid how to swim? Just throw him in the water.

Like any thespian in the spotlight, there are going to be critics of your performance. No end of early bad reviews came from my New York rabbi who scolded me for my lack of “choreography” (Bob Fosse should have been consulted, clearly) and “dry delivery,” meaning no Eastern European Yiddish-accented sing-song cadence to my recitation of the prayers (I use an arid Israeli Hebrew style with an American accent, the worst of everything in some religious circles). Initially I had many words pronounced incorrectly, not looking at the punctuation vowels (dots) below the letters. A gabbai (sexton) in New York asked me, “don’t you read the vowels?” I replied, “no, I go by word recognition the way Israelis do.” So, I had to look at vowels again to avoid brickbats and tomatoes from the crowd. Eventually, I got every word right. Two-thirds of the way through the year I relocated to Florida to escape the Polar Vortex and thankfully the clergy and congregation at the synagogue there was hyper-Americanized, very Zionistic and consequently tolerant of my Hebrew style.

The biggest criticisms when leading the davening (prayers) arise from speed or the lack thereof. In the mornings especially, people are rushing off to work, to catch a train, to conquer the universe or what have you, so speed is of the essence. On an average weekday you get kudos for plowing through something like 60 or 70 pages in the siddur (prayer book) in well under 30 minutes. On Mondays and Thursdays when the Torah (bible) is read, you’ve got around 85 or 90 pages and 35 minutes is the max before you hear audible shuffling and groaning in the pews. So, not only are you reciting a lot of Hebrew and Aramaic aloud, you’re doing it at warp speed. It reminds me of the vocal velocity employed by cattle auctioneers or that fast-talking guy in the old FedEx commercial from 1981 where business was conducted at the speed of sound.  Speed and accuracy are the prized skills of a mourner. You try to be like Jesse Owens on the track and Mark Spitz in the pool – average velocity doesn’t cut it, especially with the tough morning crowd. After leading services for enough months you’re so busy and focused on the task at hand that your grief gets pushed to the back burner, which is probably the main point of it all.

The famous 1981 FedEx commercial where business is conducted at the speed of sound. Leading morning prayers in synagogue can be analogous to this experience and speed skills are highly prized.

Then, suddenly, you stop – like slamming on the brakes at high speed. At the end of 11 months you are to lead the services no more, you are to recite the Kaddish no more. What had been an integral part of your consciousness has to cease and you return to being just a face in the synagogue crowd. You get one more shot at the Yahrtzeit to lead again, but then you retreat to the back benches thereafter.

The end of the year means you can now go hear live music, you can attend celebrations like weddings and bar mitzvahs, you can buy new clothes, you can let your mother go. The Angel of Death ensures that a steady supply of mourners will take your place at the ammud (podium) and you try to be there for them as the other congregants were there for you in your time of intense pain and sadness. You come to appreciate the kindness of strangers and hope you can give back in turn.

I’m proud to say that I didn’t miss a single day of davening during this past 12 months.  I’d committed to be there for Mom as she’d been there for me during my whole lifetime – but more importantly, I renewed my commitment to live my life in a way that would be a credit to her memory and give honor to the effort she put into me. It sure wasn’t easy at times to extricate myself from bed or a business meeting but it was probably the most meaningful experience I’ve had as a Jew. Judaism forces an end to things but it also creates a new beginning for a life rooted in the memory and values of the loved and lost. That their values endure ensures there’s forever a piece of them here on this earth.

The Zeitgeist

Portrait of my late mother, Alice Barbanel at 21.

The 90 Day Post-Mortem Mourning Report on Mom

Or, How Kaddish Helps.

I don’t know where to put Mom. Not Mom in actuality, but her portrait. Mom passed away roughly three months ago and my conundrum is where to hang a wonderful painting of her as a 21 year-old. The portrait had been languishing in my parents’ basement in a rotting frame and after her demise I rescued it (because I couldn’t rescue her) and had it remounted and reframed.

It’s not that I have a dearth of available wall space in my house, it’s that I have no idea where would be most appropriate – how often do I want to see this painting and how prominent a place do I want to accord it?

It’s not as though Mom isn’t in my heart and mind enough already. I miss her terribly and have been not just since she passed but also for the last year and a half of her life when she was afflicted with a serious case of dementia that in many ways stole her away from all of us long before she drew her last breath.

Grief is palpable, like a thick fog redolent with mist and oppressive humidity. It weighs on you by day and by night.  King David, author of many of the Psalms wrote in Psalm 6 that “I am wearied with my sigh, every night I drench my bed, with my tears I soak my couch.” My grief for Mom typically washes over me (and then exits) in a few 30 to 90 second tsunami-like waves of intense sadness and despair in the mornings and evenings (when I’m not working) and in all kinds of nightmares that pop me out of bed at 3:30 a.m.

There is no escape from the Angel of Death, we will all meet up with him eventually. The Sons of Korach, authors of many outstanding Psalms put it bluntly in Psalm 49, “Shall he then live forever, shall he never see the grave?” and “like sheep they are destined for the grave.” And so it was for my mother, notwithstanding her ferocious will to live, the Lord had other plans for her soul.

Dealing With It

Left behind in addition to her children and grandchildren is her spouse of more than five decades (no small accomplishment in this highly disposable modern world), my Dad. Unlike many in my generation, Dad has never lived alone before. He went from his mother’s house to my mother’s house. Dad loved my mother and he fought tooth and nail to keep her alive, but no man, no matter how determined and no matter how many resources he brings to bear can ultimately stay the hand of eternity.

Being a card-carrying member of The Greatest Generation, Dad may be heartbroken but he is not bent. He is resolutely steadfast, stoic and determined to still be a lion, even in winter, because he’s the patriarch of the family, a role he takes very seriously. Recent angioplasty? Handled with aplomb. Figuring out meals? No problem. Contemplating the acquisition of a new car and a significant other? Looking forward. Wallow in grief? Not his style. Got to keep on keeping on, even at 87.

Me? I’m not made of my Dad’s kind of tough stuff. My personality is more like my late mother’s for the good and for the bad (our parents are just human beings, they have their strengths and weaknesses like everybody else) which makes me a bit more sensitive to loss and the ramifications from that.

The Brothers Gibb once queried musically, “how can you mend a broken heart?” In Psalm 147 King David asserts that G-d “is the healer of the brokenhearted and the one who binds up their sorrows” which is one reason why religiously observant Jews say the Mourners Kaddish for 11 months after a close loved one has gone on to the next world. Kaddish is all about the mending.

The Jewish Mourners Kaddish, recited at services three times a day, every day, is not really so much a prayer for the dead or for the benefit of the deceased. It is rather a prayer in praise of G-d and a reaffirmation of the faith for the mourner who recites it – in a sense it’s a prayer for the living, for those left behind. It’s like an Eastern mantra (because it is repeated so often even within a given service) in that its purpose is to impart of measure of transcendental calm for someone who is anything but.

We also say Kaddish to honor the departed in the eyes of the living, as a sign of respect for their lives and the love they gave us, which is one key reason we stand while reciting it.

Until about four and a half years ago I was what could be called a “Shabbat Orthodox Jew,” my Judaism was primarily about Friday night and Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. The rest of the week, not so much. Services every day? Seriously? A huge percentage of my friends were and are still like this, as is a large percentage of my shul (synagogue) so it’s not like I was alone in this lifestyle, far from it. I wasn’t even putting on tefillin (phylacteries) in the mornings. As it is for many Jews, this changes when confronted with tragedy.

It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes. The Modern Orthodox extrapolation of that are increases in prayer and observance when dropped into that aforementioned foxhole. And dropped I was, big time. Concurrent with the then impending collapse of my business due to the recession and all its attendant personal financial challenges, my former wife decided to leave our home and file for divorce – a divorce I absolutely didn’t want. This threw me into two years of steady grief and intense anxiety owing to feeling as though I had part of my very soul ripped out and wondering how I’d put my life back together. It was so bad for a time that my friends and family were seriously worried about me. The stress of it all triggered a raft of serious health issues as well (which thank G-d are now mostly behind me). Confronted with these disasters I took to donning tefillin in the mornings and praying at home for the good L-rd’s mercy and salvation.

Just as things started to ease-up for me after a couple of years and I had a few months of relative tranquility, just then my mother started her two year steady descent into death by dementia, which put me back into daily high anxiety mode, meaning I essentially just spent a combined total of more than four years in a perfect purgatory culminating in my mother’s demise, which brings me to Kaddish.

To say the Mourners Kaddish you have to be a part of a Minyan, a quorum of 10 Jewish men (you can’t say it home alone) and where there’s a Minyan, there’s a service and in these services it is most often the obligation of a mourner to lead the prayers, particularly during the week. That’s going to get you into shul every day.

For me Kaddish works as a grief mitigator. In the Minyan there are folks just like you, who in the words of Bill Clinton, “feel your pain,” because they’re going through it themselves. It’s a Hebrew and Aramaic language support group with the people there also imploring the Almighty to prop you up. By forcing the mourners to lead the services it propels the mourner to publicly overcome his grief and acts as a catharsis of sorts as the barrage of Hebrew psalms and prayers wash over you and move through you. I wish there were Shiva and Kaddish for divorce, as it probably would have helped at the time.

When I was a kid in sleep away camp I remember that at Shabbat services (this wasn’t a religious camp, so what limited services we had were sandwiched in between a steady diet of nonstop sports) we kids would all look on in fascination at who might be saying the Mourners Kaddish, as the notion of this kind of loss was unimaginable to a 10 or 12 year old. Now I’m the guy standing for Kaddish at Shabbat services. In the very large shul I attend, somehow even though there are many mourners at the daily services, on many a Shabbat I seem to be the only person in a room with more than 400 people that needs to say Kaddish, so there I am often on Saturday mornings as the solo point person intoning the ancient Aramaic of the Mourners Kaddish to a hushed hall.  Cycle of life.

Not being married now, or anywhere near close to it and not having had kids I sometimes wonder who will be there to say Kaddish for me? I’m sure my brothers will, but that’s not the same thing.

On my way from shul a couple of Saturdays ago I ran into an acquaintance from the neighborhood who had also recently lost his mother. I asked him how he was doing and he asked me back, “how is the 11-month prison sentence going for you?” “Prison sentence?,” “Yeah, all that Kaddish for a year.” He was viewing it as something of a punishment. I told him that it’s actually been helpful for me but most significantly, I said that “my mother was always there for me, always. For sure I can be there for her for 11 months, it’s the least I can do.”

And so, in line with that, I have to find a place in my home to hang that painting of her, because that and Kaddish publicly demonstrate what I felt for her and my gratitude for all she did for me.