Rabbi Janet Marder

April 26, 2008

Mourners at the Seder Table: Pesach Yizkor 5768

            Amitai Etzioni, author and professor of sociology at George Washington University , wrote these words in 2006:

            “Soon after my wife died – her car slid off an icy road in 1985 – a school psychologist warned me that my children and I were not mourning in the right way. We felt angry; the proper first stage, he said, is denial.

            “In late August this year, my 38 year old son, Michael, died suddenly in his sleep, leaving behind a 2-year-old son and a wife expecting their next child. When, at Michael’s funeral in Los Angeles , I was about to say a few words to the people assembled, the rabbi whispered that I need not fear speaking publicly --- “Just go with the flow,” she urged.

            “On both occasions, I had a hard time not telling the free advice givers to get lost, or something less printable along the same lines. There is no set form for grief, and no ‘right’ way to express it.

            “In my eulogy I divulged that I believe in a God who brings meaning to the world, but that my belief has been severely tested. I missed seeing God in the killing fields of Cambodia , and he seems too busy to show up in Darfur, or to shine his face on either the Sunnis or the Shiites in Iraq . With a rising voice, I asked: How could God allow a son to be taken from his aging, ailing father? A devoted husband to be torn from the arms of his loving wife in the middle of the night? How could he allow a 2-year-old to be left searching for his father in vain, or deny an infant the chance to see the father even once?

            “After I shared a copy of my eulogy with a philosopher friend in Washington , he took me for a walk in the woods. ‘You must know,’ he lectured, ‘that God is not a micromanager. He does not dish out specific goods or condone specific evils. He leaves these acts – and the choices involved – to us. If the good and bad were given to us, we would not be choosing, moral creatures.’

            “This was all too intellectual for me. I did not choose for anyone to lay a glove on those I loved most, let alone send them on their last journey long before it was due. There might be an explanation for why God-awful things happen to very good people, but my colleague did not bring me an inch closer to accepting my ill fate.

            “There seems to be an expectation that, after a great loss, we will progress systematically through the well-known stages of grief. It is wrong, we are told, to jump to anger – or to wallow too long in this stage before moving toward acceptance.

            “But I was, and am, angry. To make parents bury their children is wrong; to have both my wife and son taken from me, for forever and a day, is cruel beyond words.”           

            There they were at the Seder table, as they always are. Between the first cup and the second cup, right in the middle of the telling of the tale, they made their appearance, right on schedule. First was the wise child, the one who seems to have all the answers; sober, sensible and responsible in everything he does. “We knew the end was coming,” said the wise child. “Mom had a long life, a good life. Her time had come. We wouldn’t have wanted her to suffer. To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.”

            Next to the wise child sat the wicked child – the rasha, we call him, a word which could just as easily be translated “the angry one, the one who is rebellious, defiant, alienated.” The rasha was full of emotions that made everyone else at the table uncomfortable.  “I’m furious,” he says. “I want to smash something or tear someone apart. How could my wife get cancer at her age? Young women aren’t supposed to die.” It’s no good putting your arm around the rasha. He takes offense if you try to console him. Rage and resentment radiate from him like an open flame – it is hard to be close to him.

            A little ways away sits the simple child, overcome by grief. Her throat aches; tears spill from her eyes; she feels lost and alone. “I miss my daddy,” she says. “I loved him. I need him.”

            And over in a corner is the one too devastated to say anything at all. The unthinkable has happened to her. She’s in shock. She walks around in a kind of daze. Half the time she doesn’t know where she is, or what she’s doing. She can barely force herself to get out of bed. Sometimes she stays there all day long.

            Four children at the Passover table – four human responses to the death of someone we love. One has found some peace; one, like Amitai Etzioni, is angry; one simply grieves and yearns; one, suffering unbearable loss, has nothing to say.

Each year, at Pesach, we revisit them in the Haggadah. Each year, all four are invited to our Seder. All of them are welcome. All of them are honored. We don’t try to change them. We don’t try to move them along or force them to progress. We don’t try to make the other three into the wise child. They all remain themselves.

             If the Seder were a lecture hall it would deliver facts and answers, resolving all doubt and confusion. If the Seder were a hospital it would dispense bandages and medicine, promising to take away pain. The Seder is neither of these. It’s a conversation. It’s a place for questions and stories, for open doors and open-ended discussions.

            If you come to the Seder table angry or sad or quiet nobody will force you to be different. You’re welcomed into the circle as you are. There’s hot chicken soup with matzah balls; there is singing; there are rituals and traditions; you are with family.           

            So it should be when a Jewish community gathers with mourners in our midst. On a day like today, all varieties of loss are present among us – sometimes within a single individual. One minute you are wise, reflecting calmly on a life that has ended; suddenly you ache with grief and your eyes overflow; or you see a couple holding hands and feel a stab of resentment; or someone asks you how you’re doing and you are all at once too tired to say a word.

            You come to Yizkor and you are feeling all kinds of emotions, but all of them have a home here. You sit in a quiet Sanctuary, surrounded by green trees and blue sky. You listen to the music or sing the songs.  There are no grandiose answers, and no remedies to take away all of your pain. But there are rituals and traditions, ancient words that those before you have said; and there are questions that all of us share, and open doors of possibility. Later there will be good food and conversation, a hot cup of tea. You take someone’s hand; someone gives you a hug. Whatever your loss, however you feel, you’re part of the family circle.

            Amitai Etzioni wrote this after the terrible loss of his son: “A relative from Jerusalem brought me some solace by citing this maxim: ‘We are not to ask why, but what.’ The ‘what’ is that which survivors in grief are bound to do for one another.  Following that advice, my family, close friends and I keep busy, calling each other and giving long answers to simple questions like, ‘How did your day go?’ We try to avoid thinking about either the immediate past or the bereft future. We take turns playing with Max, Michael’s 2-year-old son. Friends spend nights with the young widow, and will be among those holding her hand when the baby is born.

“….For now, focusing on what we can do for one another is the only consolation we can find.”

            Let all who are hungry come and be nourished. Let all who are angry, exhausted or lonely; all who are yearning for someone who’s gone; all who are grateful for love that was given; let all of us come and remember together.  Here, among family, may we find understanding. In reaching out to one another, may we find consolation.