From the Desk of Rabbi Jacobs

In these war-torn days, we note that 30 days have elapsed since the incursion of Hamas into Israel which has escalated into open warfare in Gaza, attacks by artillery from Hezbollah in Lebanon, rockets fired by Iranian-sponsored fighters in Yemen, and increasingly strident calls internationally for a cease-fire. 

The now thousands of deaths that are directly attributable to massacre and response-in-kind leave me shocked; it is overwhelming to mourn without end for old and young, lives exterminated in the name of political gains. Reliable sources report 1400 as the death toll for the opening salvo, most of whom have near relatives who have taken up the mitzvot of properly mourning the loss; for some, however, there is likely no survivor ready to take up the challenge of a world re-ordered.

Through hundreds of generations, the Jewish standards for remembering and mourning have been elaborated, even though most will not experience some of the most extreme cases that authoritative Jewish sources try to provide for. 

The most senior in our midst no doubt recall the unifying effect of the revelation of the destruction of European Jewry to the world at large in 1945. Clearly, many in the Jewish community were aware of the enormous losses earlier, but at war’s end in May 1945 [Europe] or August 1945 [Japan], mourning took more than 7 days of shiva, 30 days of shloshim or even 75 years of Yahrzeit after liberation. Never Forget became a slogan for Jewish solidarity many years ago. The USHMM—United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (https://www.ushmm.org), Yad VaShem (https://www.yadvashem.org), and uncounted memorials that are the landscape of Jewish remembrance are part of concretizing those memories for generations ahead.

In the early 1990s, as the top of the USHMM was set in place alongside the Mall in downtown Washington, DC, there were those who expected the number of visitors to be small and eroding. In fact, they continue to grow, and the stunning verification of the cruel and evil reality of the Nazi attempt to eradicate Jews and Judaism, continues to be highly effective in the on-going search for justice and equality. The battle to achieve that lofty goal has not ended.

We learn in Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De’ah 375, regarding the early period of mourning:

For whomever it is their custom to send the deceased to another city in order to bury him and they don’t know when he will be buried, from the time when they turn their faces away from accompanying, they begin to count shiva and shloshim and they begin to mourn. [Sefaria.org]

Shloshim was used in some communities as the proper time for both erecting a matseva—memorial stone—and a fuller hesped—eulogy. The gathering under more rational circumstances then at the first shocked moment after a death, was an incentive to return to the fuller range of usual activities and behaviors. While the entire shnat ha-eyval—year of mourning—retains its role as a time of transition, the looser restraint marks the focus on tending to life and the living that are central to Jewish practice, and to acceptance of loss that is one goal of grieving.

More than one Jewish organization has suggested wearing the blue and white of Israel’s flag on shloshim for October 7th as demonstration of solidarity with the struggle in which Israel is engaged. Public meetings, in-person or virtual, sponsored by an array of Jewish organizations, are built upon the foundation of traditional mourning practice. May they provide solace to all who are in need, and all who participate in them. 

Any one of us may say Kaddish for another, an act of chesed shel emet—true lovingkindness—that rose to predominant custom following the Sho’ah. In my experience, older ideas about insulating the young and inexperienced in life from these difficult experiences, including departure from the prayer hall when yizkor or even mourner’s kaddish are said, have also abated. Nonetheless, another serious trend in Jewish practice was to limit the number of mourners in order to better allow the life of the community to face reduced impact from the loss.

What then should we do? I suggest expressions of continuing support and concern for the captives (the latest number I have heard is 240), good will toward the Israel Defense Force [IDF], and sustained efforts to meet the needs created by war for all Israelis. We are taught, kawl Yisraeil areivim zeh bazeh—all Jews are intertwined with one another.

Keep the faith.