On Sunday night, I dedicated my Torah study session to those who lost their lives in the terrible explosion in Beirut. In this blog post I share some key ideas of that talk, as a small gesture of solidarity.
When my dear friend Mohamed’s father passed away overseas, I was invited to attend a Koran reading session with members of his community. The practice of reading sacred texts when someone dies is also part of Catholic custom, as I learned last week when the father of a Catholic colleague died. What is it about reading scripture when someone dies?
The following story offers a clue, from a Jewish perspective:
Rabbi Akiva was walking in a cemetery… He came across a naked man, with skin as dark as coal, who was carrying a huge load of thorn branches on his head. Rabbi Akiva noticed that he was running like a horse. Rabbi Akiva ordered him to stop and asked "How did you get into this situation of such difficult work? Are you a slave? If so I will buy your freedom…"
The naked man replied: "Please do not detain me, lest my overseers be angry with me. "What's the story here", asked Rabbi Akiva. "I'm actually dead", the man explained, "and every day they send me to cut down trees."
"What was your job when you were alive", Rabbi Akiva asked. "I was a tax collector", the man answered, "and I would favour the wealthy and kill the poor."
Rabbi Akiva then asked him whether there was any way he might be relieved from his punishment. The dead man explained that he could get relief if his son would say a prayer praising God in the community. Rabbi Akiva found his son and taught him to say the prayer and indeed the dead father was released from his torment. (1)
This story illustrates the concept that the living can provide benefit to the souls of the departed through good deeds or worship. In my community, when someone dies, friends and family will divide up the entire set of 63 books of the Mishnah between them, each studying one book to add to the merits of the departed soul. My study session on Sunday was intended as a similar effort for the benefit of the souls of those who died in Beirut.
In addition to trying to assist the dead, religious texts and ideas also comfort the living by providing a different perspective on death. The Torah forbids excessive displays of mourning, (2) such as pulling chunks of hair out of one’s head when someone dies (3). The constraints on sadness are based on the idea that, while the dead will lose the companionship of their loved ones on earth, they are now with their loving Father in Heaven (4). The bereaved are instructed to think of it as the departed being a child returning home to loving parents (5). The mourners have lost one cherished family member, but grief without restraint would deny the continued existence of a more honored relative, namely God, in Whom they can continue to place their hopes (6).
Bereavement is a very personal and intense experience. Yet, our sages seem to offer comfort by suggesting that despite the legitimate pain and feelings of loss, death must also be regarded as a good thing, because it comes from God Whose benevolence is beyond our understanding (7). Another perspective is to contrast the experience of a polytheist, who could legitimately feel victimised by a harsh god who killed his relative, with the experience of a monotheist, whose one God is the source of both death and mercy. That being the case, every act of a unified God includes an element of mercy (8).
I offer these traditions with a recognition that words might fail to be of any use to people confronted with the tragedy unfolding in Beirut. In fact, the laws of comforting mourners advise those seeking to offer comfort to talk less and wait for the mourner to speak first (9). However inadequate these words might be, this is what I have. I offer this in a gesture of solidarity to my Lebanese friends in Australia and in Beirut at this difficult time with my prayers for the living and the dead.
PS. In addition to prayers and gestures, we must also donate to relief efforts to alleviate the suffering of those rendered homeless and without basic necessities.
1) Machzor Vitri, Laws of Shabbos 144, cited in Leon Wiesielter, L. (2000)
in Kaddish, Vintage books, New York. Translation is based on https://www.sefaria.org/Machzor_Vitry%2C_Laws_of_Shabbat.144.2-12?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en with some modifications by the author.
2) Talmud Moed Kattan 27b.
3) Deuteronomy 14:1.
4) Ramban on Deuteronomy 14:1.
5) Ohr Hachayim on Deuteronomy 14:1.
6) Seforno on Deuteronomy 14:1.
7) Ibn Ezra on Deuteronomy 14:1.
8) Gur Aryeh on Deuteronomy 14:1.
9) Maimonides laws of mourning chapter 13, 1-3, and 9.
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