It’s been a busy week, so it took me a while to collect my thoughts - but here they are. I hope you find them meaningful.
Yom Kippur and Grief
When I was younger, I hated Yom Kippur. I hated how long the services were. I hated having to dress up in clothing that always seemed to be itchy and uncomfortable. I always got migraines from fasting, which made it even more miserable. It’s hard to contemplate anything when it feels like you have an ice pick shoved into your temple.
The older I get, though, the more I appreciate the spiritual aspects of this most holy of days; particularly since my parents passed so close together. Dad died in November 2013 after a long, painful journey with Alzheimer’s. Mom left us suddenly and unexpectedly in March 2015.
One component of Yom Kippur is the Yitzkor service, where we honor and remember those who came before us but are no longer here.
When I worshipped at an orthodox synagogue, it was a tradition that if both of your parents were still alive, you left the synagogue for Yitzkor. It made it a mysterious ritual, a club that you didn’t want to join. I remember the Yom Kippur when my father was nearing death, sitting outside the synagogue and crying, because I knew that next year, I would be inside for the service. And sure enough, I was.
When I switched to a conservative synagogue after Mom died, I realized that I preferred the custom there, that anyone could stay for the service. It seemed healthier, somehow, that grief wasn’t something that was hidden away, that kids could see adults becoming emotional about loss, but then recovering. It reminded me of when I was hospitalized in 2001, and I told the psychiatrist that I cried in the shower so the kids wouldn’t see. He asked me why I felt the need to hide it, and suggested that maybe it wasn’t so awful for kids to see that their parents experience a full range of emotions, because it models that they can, too.
Because if I’ve learned anything about grief, it’s that it comes in waves, and sometimes hits you when you least expect it, even a decade later.
I’d written this Gail Sheehey quote on a Post-it when I was researching Life, After, long before my parents passed. I found it after both of them were gone, when I was cleaning out my study to move:
It rang even more true then than when I’d first read it all those years before.
My parents passing in such short succession made me appreciate the humanity of Jewish mourning rituals. The fact that we are not just allowed, but prescribed to grieve, and that the rituals give us a way to re-enter the world after such a loss. They allow us to continue our grief, while still appreciating that we do have to “get on with life.”
I’m coming up on the 10 year anniversary of Dad dying in November. I also turned 60 this year, and knowing that both my parents died in their 70’s has made me think a lot about my own mortality, and how I want to spend the unknown number of days I have left on this earth. During Yizkor, I felt my parents near, surrounding me with love. It made me even more determined to use my time wisely - to try to make a difference as best I can.
Rituals vs. Our Day-to-Day actions
My feelings about God are complex and mutable; I don’t believe there’s an old white guy with a beard somewhere up in the sky, judging our everyday lives. What I do believe is that there is a common force in our universe that we call by various names, and that we are all praying to that force, but sadly we don’t focus on our commonality as humans but rather act divisively because we’re so convinced that OUR way is the ONLY way to worship.
My first novel, Confessions of a Closet Catholic, which won the 2006 Sydney Taylor Award for Older Readers, was an attempt to work through some of the Deep Thoughts I’d had about God as a teenager.
I sold that book twenty years ago this year, and those thoughts have continued to evolve as I’ve gone from worshiping at an Orthodox synagogue to a Conservative synagogue to a Reform synagogue and back to Conservative again.
Recently in the city near where I live, there have been a lot of news stories about two property management company, owned by observant Jews, which have been acting in an unethical manner toward their tenants. A similar story came up in 2008, with a major kosher meat packer was employing undocumented immigrants, including children, in addition to committing financial fraud and money laundering. (Side note: Former President Trump commuted this person’s sentence in 2017.)
During my journey of varying levels of observance of Jewish rituals, I’ve struggled with what to me is a critical question: if one obeys the all the ritual laws on Sabbath and dress and holiday observance to the letter, but behaves unethically in day-to-day life, how can one claim to be truly observant? What truly matters to God? The answer for me came in these two paragraphs from the High Holy Day prayer book, and I think it has much in common with the ideas of other faiths:
If we are obeying religious rituals but oppressing and mistreating others, then who are we? If we are treating those who are not like us with “the finger of scorn and the tongue of malice” as I see extremists from all faiths doing, then we are not doing the work that’s been given to us as human beings.
I am so tired of people of all faiths who are convinced that theirs is the only way, that anyone who doesn’t accept their world view is a sinner. I’m so tired of faith being used as an excuse for bigotry and hatred.
One of my favorite Christian prayers is that of St. Francis of Assisi.
As we go forward into 5784, which ends right before the next Presidential election, I hope that we can remember these words. That if we claim to be people of faith, we must look to spread love and light, rather than bigotry and hatred. We must remember that our country was founded on the principles of religious liberty, not Christian nationalism.
May people of all faiths reach out hands to each other in love, to do the real work of repairing our broken world.