OF GRIEF AND GREATNESS
INTRODUCTION TO PARASHAT
HASHAVUA
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In memory of
Yakov Yehuda ben Pinchas Wallach
and Miriam Wallach bat Tzvi
Donner
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PARASHAT
RE'EH
OF GRIEF AND
GREATNESS
By Rabbi Yaakov
Beasley
Parashat Reeh marks a turning point
in Moshes second discourse to the Jewish people. For the last two parashiyot, Moshe has
outlined the fundamentals of Jewish belief; now, he turns his attention to the
halakhot, the laws that will guide their day-to-day behavior. He begins with the laws that describe
the sanctity of the Land of Israel, and the rituals and prohibitions that will
accompany the centralization of the service in Jerusalem, and its effect on the
dietary habits of the people. The
punishments that accompany false prophets and the inhabitants of a wayward city
follow. Before the parasha ends,
the listener will hear about the financial aspects of debt cancellation,
behavior appropriate to festivals, the need to mark the firstborn flocks, and
the various tithes due the Kohanim and Leviim.
However, the switch from philosophical
discourse to legal treatise
is not smooth. Even when discussing
the regulations regarding mourning, we note that the laws are framed between two
decidedly non-legalistic statements:
"You are children of
Hashem your G-d. Do not cut yourselves or shave the front of your heads for the
dead, for you are a people holy to Hashem your God. Out of all the peoples on
the face of the earth, Hashem has chosen you to be His treasured possession"
(Deut. 14: 1-2).
Jewish tradition has
interpreted these words in often surprising directions. They inspired Rabbi Akivas famous
maxim: "Beloved is man because he was created in the image [of God]. Beloved are
Israel for they are called children of the All-present" (Avot 3: 14).
Chazal imaginatively understood the prohibition of "Do not cut yourselves" as
referring to the Jewish body politic, prohibiting divisions within the community
(Yevamot 14a). A person cannot practice against the communitys custom; a
single town should not have two or more religious courts giving different
rulings.
However, it is clear
that the plain sense of the verses refers to what is appropriate behavior at a
time of bereavement. Even when coping with the death of a loved one, a Jew is
commanded not to engage in excessive rituals of grief. Despite the shattering
experience of the death of a family member, the Torah proscribes wild
expressions of sorrow, whether it is lacerating one's flesh, or tearing out
one's hair. We are not required to
stoically assume all sufferings without pain or reaction; Rabbi Joseph
Soloveitchik zt"l often stated that a person who observed all of the eleven
required expressions of mourning without internally feeling any sadness or
discomfort did not perform the commandment of mourning. However, sadness and grief that destroys
boundaries, suggests the Torah, is not fitting to a holy people. Why is this so?
To answer this
question, we shall look first at later appearances of mourners that lacerate
their flesh and tear out their hair in the Tanakh, and then examine the
relationship between the prohibitions and the surrounding statements of the
uniqueness of the Jewish people.
The prophet Yermiyahu
lived at the end of the seventh century B.C.E. Many of his prophecies attempted
to inspire the Jewish people towards repentance by describing for them the
upcoming calamities that they faced if they continued on their present path of
licentiousness. Chapter 16 contains
some of the bleakest prophecies recorded in the Tanakh. Yermiyahu advises the people not to
marry or bring forth children in the land of Israel for they will only end up
burying their carcasses:
1 The word of Hashem
came also unto me, saying: 2 You shall not take thee a wife,
neither shall you have sons or daughters in this place. {S} 3 For
thus says Hashem concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born
in this place, and concerning their mothers that bore them, and concerning their
fathers that begot them in this land: 4 They shall die of grievous
deaths; they shall not be lamented, neither shall they be buried, they shall be
as dung upon the face of the ground; and they shall be consumed by the sword,
and by famine; and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and
for the beasts of the earth. {S} 5 For thus says Hashem: Enter not
into the house of mourning, neither go to lament, neither bemoan them; for I
have taken away My peace from this people, says Hashem, even mercy and
compassion. 6 Both the great and the small shall die in this land;
they shall not be buried; neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves,
nor make themselves bald for them; 7 neither shall men break bread
for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead; neither shall men give them
the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother. 8 And you shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them,
to eat and to drink.
(16:1-8)
Both Rashi and the
Redak attempt to explain the warning against self-laceration or tearing their
hair out in verse 6, if in fact the Torah had prohibited them in our
parasha. Rashi suggests that though
these behaviors are forbidden, they were prevalent enough among the surrounding
peoples to be understood as symbols of mourning. The Redak goes one step further and
suggests that even the Jewish people were engaged in these behaviors, despite
the prohibition mentioned above. He
also suggests that the nature of the catastrophes and misfortunes that would
strike the people would be so numerous that they would be unable to escape for a
moment to tear out their hair or gash themselves, even if they so desired.
That the Tanakh sees a
linkage between these mourning customs and the surrounding idolatrous culture is
also strongly alluded to in the encounter between Eliyahu and the prophets of
Baal on Mount Carmel. In 1 Kings 18, Eliyahu challenges them to a test: Let us
each make a sacrifice and see which of us can bring down fire from heaven. The
Baal prophets accept the challenge, and begin their service in front of the
entire people:
Then they called on
the name of Baal from morning till noon. "O Baal, answer us!" they shouted. But
there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they
had made. At noon Eliyahu began to taunt them. "Shout louder!" he said. "Surely
he is a god! Perhaps he is relieving himself, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is
sleeping and must be awakened." So they shouted louder and slashed themselves
with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. (I Kings
18:26-28)
Though this was not
performed as a mourning ritual, it provides us with a graphic connection between
the rite of self-laceration and idol worship. Clearly, the Torah wishes to
emphasize that this behavior as incompatible with kedusha, holiness.
Why? To answer, we should analyze
how the commentators understood the interpolation between the commandment of
restraint in mourning with our being the "children of Hashem our G-d," a holy
and chosen people?
[1] The 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. The equation he suggests is that a person of
true faith will accept his sufferings without any excessive reaction.
[2] The 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. Unlike the Ibn Ezra, the
father image of God is not of the benevolent punisher, but an Eternal father
whose timelessness we share.
[3] R. Ovadiah Sforno and
the Chizkuni say that because we are "children of God" we are never completely
orphaned. A Jew must internalize that though we may lose our earthly parents, we
are never without our ultimate Father; therefore, we place limits to our
grieving.
[4] Rabbenu Meyuchas
suggests that just as members of royalty do not defile themselves by causing
disfiguring injuries on their persons, the Jewish people, who are children of
the supreme King - may not do so either.
However we understand
the relationship between the parts of the verses, the fundamental principle is
clear. What the Torah strives to
create is a balance between too much and too little grief. Halakha, Jewish law,
delineates several stages of bereavement: aninut (the period between the
death and burial), shiva (the week of mourning), sheloshim (thirty
days in the case of other relatives) and shana (a year in the case of
parents). Each stage has its own qualities and requirements: the initial, numbing moment of loss
itself, when a person does not engage in any positive commandments to
concentrate on the burial; the return home from the funeral to be comforted by
friends and community; to extended periods when the mourner slowly reintegrates
himself into daily life, yet does not engage in activities associated with joy.
However, though bounded, the mourner is given reign to express their
sorrow. In his legal code, the
Rambam outlines the balance as follows:
Whoever does not
mourn the dead in the manner enjoined by the rabbis is cruel [achzari]
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' [Yer. 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).
We shall conclude
which an insight first noted by the Ramban in his commentary. This is not the first appearance in the
Torah of prohibitions against excessive mourning. They appear first in Parashat
Emor:
Hashem said to Moshe,
"Speak to the priests, the sons of Aharon, and say to them: A kohen 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." (Vayikra 21: 1-6)
There it applies
specifically to kohanim, priests, because of their holiness. What Moshe
does is expand these rules to the people as a whole (a difference noted in the
original audiences; Sefer Vayikra is mainly a set of instructions to the
priests, while Sefer Devarim presents Moshe's addresses to the whole
people). By applying the laws of sanctity that apply to priests to the entire
people, Moshe is demonstrating the democratization of holiness that is central
to the Torah idea of "a kingdom of priests." Ultimately, Judaism rejects the
centralization of ritual behavior among a closed cadre of priests. From here, we understand how Rabbi Akiva
could derive from these verses the universal impulse that animates the Torah.