The Funeral Party
The funeral yesterday was divided into two parts; the reverent, holy service by the graveside, where old friends meet and embrace, shoveling dirt into the hole, listening to the rabbi who leads us in prayer and exhorts God to allow this newly dead into his fatherly arms, and the remininces of the son, who will not allow a too accurate memory to disallow his father a chance before God. And the party, afterwards.
This is God's first hearing on the merits of the newly dead, and the ones who loved him are charged with petitioning for the mercy that we also desire for ourselves. And then we call on the awesome power of unconditional love and its ability to allay our fear of lying to God. And this is the way it should be.
And so, the son, who knew better, spoke only of the goodness of the man even as he alluded to the mortalness that should not keep him from God's good grace. So before God and friends, we heard the defense. There is no prosecution for death within death, only the love of a son, who explains how his father was human.
In Orthodox Judaism, the mourners are bound by traditions, which the rabbis believed would help the stricken through the period of grieving. Yesterday some of that structure was followed (the rending of garments which is to express grief rather than repress it...the covering of mirrors in the house of mourning so that mourners will avoid looking at themselves during the week of Shiva, and instead reflect upon the meaning of life and death) but the deep, introspective period that the Talmud asks, is mostly put away in the first days of mourning, in the modern home. Friends and lovers and acquaintances, and those who once were, most of whom will never be seen but at death's occasion, will pour in to comfort the afflicted. We will mourn our fathers the rest of our lives. We may never see these people again.
This is God's first hearing on the merits of the newly dead, and the ones who loved him are charged with petitioning for the mercy that we also desire for ourselves. And then we call on the awesome power of unconditional love and its ability to allay our fear of lying to God. And this is the way it should be.
And so, the son, who knew better, spoke only of the goodness of the man even as he alluded to the mortalness that should not keep him from God's good grace. So before God and friends, we heard the defense. There is no prosecution for death within death, only the love of a son, who explains how his father was human.
In Orthodox Judaism, the mourners are bound by traditions, which the rabbis believed would help the stricken through the period of grieving. Yesterday some of that structure was followed (the rending of garments which is to express grief rather than repress it...the covering of mirrors in the house of mourning so that mourners will avoid looking at themselves during the week of Shiva, and instead reflect upon the meaning of life and death) but the deep, introspective period that the Talmud asks, is mostly put away in the first days of mourning, in the modern home. Friends and lovers and acquaintances, and those who once were, most of whom will never be seen but at death's occasion, will pour in to comfort the afflicted. We will mourn our fathers the rest of our lives. We may never see these people again.
We gathered at the son's house, where laughter, tale-telling and regalements filled the air as even the sadness of the day was evident. But there would be time enough for sadness. When his sons and his wife continue to live and stop and think their thoughts, there will time enough for all of the tears that were held back today. Today is for the mighty will of memory, and the telling of the story of this life lived, sometimes well, sometimes not.
And to set sail this man's soul, who's life is now death, and although it seems impossible now, will too be forgotten.
When the world ends.
posted by Mr. Liberty at 9:13 AM
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