When a parent loses a child, the community, friends and family gather round to try and find ways to support the parents and siblings, if there are, in this difficult time. But how about the others - friends and family who are not direct mourners*? In Judaism, there are no official laws for them. Are they not mourners?

In a humanly tragic moment, in Parshat Shemini, Aaron's children were killed before his eyes and the eyes of the entire nation. Moses, as uncle and teacher to Aaron's children and as leader of the people, is challenged. Aaron is crying over the loss of his children and Moses approaches Aaron and speaks with him about the event while he, Moses, is also mourning their passing.1,2 Later on, we find Moses giving even a different explanation about the death of the two children of Aaron.3 Why is the explanation different in the two places - one to Aaron's face and the second after his death? We also find Moses taking charge of the care of his dead nephews - all while nursing his own emotions. He is extremely aware of the difficulty of the situation as we see him turning to Aaron and his remaining sons. Moses notes that there is also a need for the nation itself to cry and mourn.4 A lot is going on here.

Maimonides looks at mourning and says that aside from the laws for the mourners (members of the immediate family) the close friends should be in mourning as well and view the death as a sort of catalyst for introspection.5 Following in that line, Rabbi Joseph Soloveichik contends with regards to Tisha B'av and the accompanying laws of mourning for the 3-week period preceding it, we are not true mourners but act as mourners.6 We see from these two sources, then, that there are different levels of mourning. In Jewish law and custom, our level of 'mourning practices' is determined primarily by our level of familial relation alone, though I have witnessed and heard of people who took upon themselves non-mandated mourning.

There are exceptions - a mentor, for instance. If a true mentor, a Rav Muvhak, passes away, one treats part of that mourning process as if mourning a parent - the highest level observance amongst the different mourners. It is a sort of mourning by choice or circumstance.

Grandchildren, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers-, sisters-, mothers-, fathers-, sons-, and daughters-in-law all feel the loss - some feel it even more than the 7 official mourners. The Rambam offers us one way of looking at it. The memorial services can serve as a way to allow these other relatives, the other mourners, a cathartic mourning. As Elizabeth Kubler-Ross writes, there is no "right" way to feel the loss. Therefore, arises a need to find a way. And furthermore, Ann Graber adds, comforting a mourner does not take away the pain of the loss.

How does a nation mourn? Western society has developed a mourning ritual for special circumstances by putting flags at half-mast or having a moment of silence. Jewish law prohibits certain happy occasions such as weddings during a national mourning period. There are prayers said, eulogies offered. In both places, we seem to have found a way.

I, too, have experienced the death of a close family member at the age of 13. It still hurts. I will not pretend to have answers to all of the above questions. Even the way this blog is coming out I feel is not exactly right - not "tight". Maybe that too is part of the mourning.

Other mourners found their own way to mourn. Some do not find that way and feel stifled or bottled up as if they weren’t assigned the task of mourning and had no legitimate way of mourning the loss they feel. I would be interested in hearing ways - traditional or innovative - that the other mourners have found to express their grief and sense of loss.

Let us open the dialogue, be able to feel our own grief with a sense of legitimacy and for those 'other mourners' to know that there can be ways for the pain to be expressed.

 

* Direct mourners refers to the 7 "official" mourners in Judaism - mother, father, brother,

   sister, son, daughter, spouse

1. Vayikra 10:1-3

2. Ramban

3. Rashi - Devarim 9:20

4. Vayikra 10:6

5. Mishneh Torah - Laws of Mourning 13:10

6. שיעורי תורה - ענייני תשעה באב 16

7. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, David Kessler, Maria Shriver. On Grief and Grieving

8. Ann Graber. The Journey Home

 

Have A Great Shabbat!laughing

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