This is What I Will Do (Yom Kippur 5787)

Transcript This is What I Will Do Yom Kippur 5787 Rabbi Rebecca Rosenthal Do you remember the first time you saw someone you considered to be all-powerful cry? Now, my dad is a crier, and you can often find him welling up at the holiday table when we recite the sheheciyanu, but the first time I saw his tears of mourning was different. Perhaps for you it was also a parent, or a teacher, or a celebrity or a political figure. Perhaps it was in response to a national crisis or a personal tragedy or perhaps you don’t remember why at all. But that image of the tear-stained face remains. The person who you thought was a rock, who was strong, or tough, or even invincible bearing their grief to the world. 1 In my line of work, I get a lot of phone calls from parents who are going through something difficult and who don’t necessarily want their children to know or to see their pain. They want their children to hold onto the image that they will never cry, or be sad, or think that it somehow makes them worse parents if they take time for their own emotions. But hiding our pain can often have the opposite effect. Early childhood educator and author Miriam Beloglovsky teaches, “Children do not simply wait for adults to explain complex ideas to them. They observe, question, compare, connect experiences, and construct theories that help them make sense of their world.” Without that visible response to painful moments, children cannot learn. Conversely, when children safely encounter the grief and mourning of adults, they use that input to shape their own approach to responding to difficult moments. And this is true for adults too, even as we might notice it less. So despite this protective instinct that parents have towards their children, and even that many of us have towards the adults in our lives, we should consider the benefits of others seeing our pain and grief. Especially if we are in positions of power, our outward signs of mourning create a permission structure for others to engage with their own emotions. I’m not suggesting that we should lay every emotion out there at every moment but death, or illness, or even the tragic events of the world can and should elicit a response. In allowing ourselves to mourn, to cry, even to rage, we teach an important lesson about what it means to be authentically human. We teach that death and grief are a part of life, and that our response to it isn’t a burden. The midrash on the book of Lamentations roots this idea in our Jewish tradition. Every year on Tisha B’Av, we read this book, which describes the destruction of Jerusalem in horrifying detail; the city physically weeping desolate, burned, starving, abandoned to the whims of her enemies. Her gates, the book tells us, have sunk into the ground and are smashed to bits. 2 Nothing remains but anguish. The rabbis imagine God looking out at this landscape of death and devastation trying to figure out how to appropriately mourn. God asks the ministering angels how human beings mourn and is given a series of instructions that may sound familiar to us as traditional Jewish mourning practices. First the angels tell God that human beings hang sackcloth in their homes, a practice that you may see as people covering mirrors in the shiva house. God responds, kach ani oseh, “This is what I will do.” The angels advise God that human mourners sit and sleep on low benches or chairs, and God says, kach ani oseh, “This is what I will do.” The angels tell God that human beings tear their clothing, a practice that is known as kriyah, and God responds, kach ani oseh, “This is what I will do.” After a few more back and forths, the angels tell God that human beings weep when they are in mourning, and God says, kach ani oseh, “That is what I will do.” 3 God cries. God cries because we cry. Through our own mourning, we give God permission to mourn. Through God’s own mourning, God gives us the same. Kach ani oseh, this is what I will do, God’s refrain from the midrash reminds us: If God can do it, so can we. In fact, God looks around at the destruction of Jerusalem and realizes that mourning is not optional. God needs a way to mourn. God needs a structure and plan, because the feelings of grief are too overwhelming. And if God needs that, we certainly do. When faced with personal or communal loss, we need something to do and a way to behave, both as the direct mourner and those who surround them. This midrash reminds us that there is no set timeline for grief after loss. Maybe you are currently in the first few days or weeks of mourning a loved one, when the pain of their absence is felt most acutely. Maybe you are within the first year, or maybe this yizkor service is bringing back the memory of someone you lost long ago, or even someone you have never met. Judaism helpfully provides the structure of shiva and shloshim and the first year and the yahrzeit and yizkor. But anyone who has ever lost someone precious to them knows that reminders and their accompanying grief can appear at any moment. Expected and unexpected, planned and unplanned. And so God’s lesson – kach ani oseh , this is what I will do – can be applied at any moment. We can sit on the floor and cover the mirrors at shiva, we can recite the mourner’s kaddish at the yahrzeit, but we can also call a friend at any moment and say I need you. I need to be reminded that grief doesn’t follow a script and that it is ok to feel sad. Rabbi Tali Adler teaches, “The “how” of mourning is not intuitive. Like so many other human activities, to do it well, we need someone to model it for us first.” She notes that in our society tears are so considered a sign of weakness, making it difficult to find the role-models we need. But without them, “we become trapped, unable to truly feel our pain, to vent it in tears—but equally unable to avoid it.” The remedy is found “when those we love and respect allow us to see them cry.” and give us, “a gift, a lesson in how to move through grief when we inevitably meet it ourselves.” 4 We know that moment will come for us, when we will be the mourner, but often we are the ones supporting the mourner. If, in our own moments of mourning, we show our sadness, we give others permission to be sad in front of us. We show them that we are not afraid of their grief. We show up for shiva, or offer a meal, or check in on a random Tuesday. We do not shy away from our loved ones in pain. Children learn how to react to the world by watching their parents and teachers, we learn by looking to our role models, or to our tradition, or even to God. And even God needs somewhere to turn to learn about mourning. So who helps God? The midrash tells us that while God learns the mourning practices of human beings, it is the ministering angels who actually respond to God’s query. It is the angels who show God the way, and in doing so, remind God that God is not alone in mourning. When we support our loved ones, our community, even those we might not know in their most difficult moments we are doing the work of angels. So when loss inevitably comes for each of us, take the time to mourn. Kach ani Oseh – this I will do. And when you are in the position to support someone through their grief, remember that you are doing the work of angels. Kach ani Oseh – this I will do. 1 https://miriambeloglovsky.subs... 2 Lamentations 2:9 3 Eicha Rabbah 1:1 4 https://voices.sefaria.org/she...