A Time To Mourn, a Time To Comfort (2nd Edition): A Guide to Jewish Bereavement

By Dr. Ron Wolfson

A Step-by-Step Guide for Honoring the Dead and Empowering the Living

When someone dies, there are so many questions—from what to do in the moment of grief, to dealing with the practical details of the funeral, to spiritual concerns about the meaning of life and death. This indispensable guide to Jewish mourning and comfort provides traditional and modern insights into every aspect of loss. In a new, easy-to-use format, this classic resource is full of wise advice to help you cope with death and comfort others when they are bereaved.

Dr. Ron Wolfson takes you step by step through the mourning process, including the specifics of funeral preparations, preparing the home and family to sit shiva, and visiting the grave. Special sections deal with helping young children grieve, mourning the death of an infant or child, and more.

Wolfson captures the poignant stories of people in all stages of grieving—children, spouses, parents, rabbis, friends, non-Jews—and provides new strategies for reinvigorating and transforming the Jewish ways we mourn, grieve, remember, and carry on with our lives after the death of a loved one.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
• Release date: Aug 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781580236614

Dr. Ron Wolfson

Dr. Ron Wolfson, visionary educator and inspirational speaker, is Fingerhut Professor of Education at American Jewish University in Los Angeles and a cofounder of Synagogue 3000. He is author of Relational Judaism: Using the Power of Relationships to Transform the Jewish Community; The Seven Questions You're Asked in Heaven: Reviewing and Renewing Your Life on Earth; Be Like God: God's To-Do List for Kids; God's To-Do List: 103 Ways to Be an Angel and Do God's Work on Earth; Hanukkah, Passover and Shabbat, all Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs Art of Jewish Living family guides to spiritual celebrations; The Spirituality of Welcoming: How to Transform Your Congregation into a Sacred Community; A Time to Mourn, a Time to Comfort: A Guide to Jewish Bereavement and Comfort; and, with Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, What You Will See Inside a Synagogue (all Jewish Lights), a book for children ages 6 and up. He contributed to May God Remember: Memory and Memorializing in Judaism—Yizkor, Who by Fire, Who by Water—Un'taneh Tokef, All These Vows—Kol Nidre, and We Have Sinned: Sin and Confession in Judaism—Ashamnu and Al Chet (all Jewish Lights). Dr. Ron Wolfson is available to speak on the following topics: Building Good Tents: Envisioning the Synagogue of the Future God's To-Do List The Seven Questions You're Asked in Heaven Blessings and Kisses: The Power of the Jewish Family A Time to Mourn, a Time to Comfort Click here to contact the author.

Book preview

PART 1

Facing Death

HERMAN FEIFEL: In the old days, when you got seriously ill, you didn’t tarry long. The hevra kadisha (burial society) was dealing with you within hours. Now, with the new ability to extend and elongate life, medical technology has created a situation of dependency and dehumanization for many of the dying.

Remember that wonderful classic picture of a doctor sitting at the bedside of a child through the night? He was there, he was witness. Unfortunately, today we have tended to forfeit the laying on of hands with the dying and exchanged it for oxygen tents, respirators, and impersonal intravenous tubes—a doubtful bargain psychologically. We die in big, technological hospitals with their superior facilities for providing medical care and alleviating pain. But it tends to transform a person’s death into a public event, something that befalls everyone, yet no one in particular.

In terms of the Jewish tradition, there is now a reawakening in health circles to appreciating not only the ethical problems of dying, but also its spiritual dimension. The human being is mind and soul as well as body.

RON WOLFSON: Hasn’t there been a backlash to the use of medical technology to extend life through extraordinary means?

HERMAN FEIFEL: Definitely. The hospice movement, living wills, current propositions being offered on state ballots dealing with terminally ill patients all attest to the discomfort people feel about this. They reflect a growing demand by individuals to possess greater governance over their dying and burial.

Dying is part of the business of living. Yet, for most of us, dying is isolated from our daily lives. We rarely see death—real death. Our elderly don’t die at home; they meet their end in the cold, clinical environment of the hospital. Our society places a value on youth, on health, on living; death has been called the new obscenity. Despite the latest efforts to bring spirituality into our consciousnesses, there clearly continues to be a huge gap between human beings and ultimate issues like the meaning of life … or of death.

Yet, when we confront someone who is about to die, we are brought face-to-face with our own mortality. This shadow of a person lying on the bed could be me, will be me. I seek my refuge in the comfort of denial. Denial, as the T-shirt says, is more than a river in Egypt. Denial of death separates the dying from the living. The dying are sent to old-age homes and convalescent hospitals. Out of sight, out of mind. No need for reminders that someday it will be my turn.

Judaism rejects the denial of death. It asserts boldly and truthfully that we are formed from dust and to dust we shall return, as clearly expressed in a Jewish source often cited by the Rabbis:

Fear not death; we are destined to die. We share this with all other mortals, with all who ever lived, with all who ever will be. Bewail the dead, hide not your grief, do not restrain your mourning. But remember that continuing sorrow is worse than death … be consoled when the soul departs.

Seek not to understand what is too difficult for you, search not for what is hidden from you. Be not over-occupied with what is beyond you, for you have been shown more than you can understand.

As a drop of water in the sea, as a grain of sand on the shore are a person’s few days in eternity. The good things in life last for limited days, but a good name endures forever.

Adapted from Ben Sira

The Process of Dying

During the past twenty years, much work has been done to help people face death—their own and others’. Beginning with the pioneering work The Meaning of Death, edited by Dr. Herman Feifel, continued in the wellknown On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, and reflected in the many self-help books including M. Robert Buckman’s I Don’t Know What to Say … How to Help and Support Someone Who Is Dying, this literature concludes in a unanimous voice: Don’t ignore the dying. Every expert agrees that, in virtually all cases, a terminally ill person wants, indeed needs, to talk about what is happening. Family and friends are the crucial factor in the effort to enhance the quality of living for the dying.

Kübler-Ross popularized the idea of stages of dying. The five stages she identifies are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. As a result of the work done in the twenty-two years since her book, most experts now understand that these categories more accurately describe reactions to dying rather than discrete stages that all go through. In fact, any stage theory is subject to the vagaries of individual differences. Most people evidence a variety of emotional reactions at every step along the way to death, and it is highly likely that several different emotions may be expressed simultaneously. Even so, for those attempting to comfort the dying patient, recognizing these factors can lead to better communication and support.

When someone gets the news that he or she is dying, an avalanche of feelings is unleashed: shock, disbelief, denial, anger, guilt, hope, despair, fear, depression. You, who are trying to comfort and support, may experience the same feelings as you identify with the patient (she feels despair—you feel despair), or you may feel opposite feelings (she feels hope—you feel fear), or you may be reacting to the emotions sent your way (he feels anger and directs it toward you—you are angry in return).

Offering emotional support depends on how you fit into the sometimes complicated picture of the relationships between the patient and significant others. You should expect variability of emotions and repetitive discussions of feelings and situations.

Be careful when offering advice; the patient and his or her medical team are already planning a course of treatment. Learn enough about the disease to be informed, but be alert not to be a source of conflicting opinion. Although the condition may be incurable, there are realistic hopes that can be supported: hope that pain can be relieved, hope that dignity can be maintained and, most importantly, hope that you will not abandon the patient. Perhaps the greatest support of all to a terminally ill person is the assurance that she or he will not die alone.

Being ill brings with it a variety of physical symptoms and emotional responses. With some diseases, deterioration of the body does not happen immediately, but eventually the disease begins to take its toll. Then, the daily regimen of fighting the illness becomes the central factor in the patient’s life. There is an awful uncertainty that begins to develop. As the physical symptoms manifest themselves, certain things will bother the patient more than others. For cancer patients, it is often the loss of hair. For others, it may be the need for a catheter or oxygen or a wheelchair. Eventually, the patient may express the feeling that the treatments and machines are a waste of time and money: What difference does it make? I’m going to die anyway.

There are no simple answers to combat strong feelings of despair. In fact, for some of those seeking to comfort the patient, the same feelings of frustration and hopelessness can easily creep into the mind. Your life significantly changes when caring for a dying person. There is no doubt that you feel some resentment at the loss of independence and the weight of the demands made on you. These are normal reactions. One of the best ways to overcome feelings of malaise is to act. Find ways to help the patient make choices—choices about treatments, care, the quality of life. By discussing available options and ongoing feelings, the comforter will help to keep the patient on track and focused on what can be done, rather than wallowing in despair or self-pity.

Finally, a sense of acceptance emerges in the last stages of a terminal illness. The emotional climate moves from anger, denial, and uncertainty to a soft, tender sadness—a sadness at leaving family and friends, a sadness that the joys of life are about to end, a sadness for the sadness experienced by the loved ones surrounding the patient.

It is a cliché, but also a likely truth, that people die as they have lived. If a person is generally cheerful, then once acceptance sets in, death is approached in an easy, unafraid manner. If a person is generally difficult, the death is unlikely to be easy. Supporters of the dying are advised to help let the person die in his or her own way. This is the time to consider writing a living will and a durable power of attorney to make known the patient’s desires with regard to extraordinary life-sustaining measures.

Medical experts point out that most people experience a kind of emotional calm as the moment of death approaches. If goodbyes have not been exchanged yet, this is the time. Observant Jews may wish to recite the last confessional, the Vidui, with the help of family, friends, or a rabbi. Often, the person will slip into a state of unconsciousness in the hours or minutes before death. The struggle finally over, it is a time of peace.

Visiting the Dying

While the patient may have accepted fate, often we feel we cannot. But we must. There are important ways that supporters can help to enable the patient to let go. Among them are helping with last wishes, arranging wills, contacting long lost relatives or friends, funeral arrangements. Sometimes the patient would prefer to die outside the hospital. The hospice, a homelike environment for the terminally ill, has proven to be a tremendous comfort to the dying and his or her loved ones. Most have medical staff and social workers specially trained to care for those near the end of life. There is usually a very high level of support for the patient and the family and a special camaraderie among all who are in residence.

Finally, for the family and friends, the most important message to the dying at the end of life may be to say, You will not be forgotten. Everyone wants to feel that his or her life has had meaning to someone. Everyone wants to feel that a contribution has been made to this life that will be remembered. It is important for the dying person to hear from loved ones that he is loved, that she has changed your life, and that he will be remembered.

With the advances in modern medical technology, the time between the onset of serious illness and death is often days, months, or even years. Jewish tradition values life above all else; virtually anything is permissible within Jewish law to save a life, except for adultery, murder, and idolatry. Thus, when a loved one is sick, we are asked to visit them as often as possible, attend to their needs, and cheer them up. The mitzvah of bikkur holim, visiting the sick, is one of the most important obligations in Jewish tradition.

Various suggestions have been made by Jewish commentators and authorities throughout the centuries about how to fulfill the mitzvah of bikkur holim. For example, close relatives should visit the sick immediately, but friends are to wait until the third day of the illness so as not to unduly scare the patient. However, if the illness is quite serious, even friends should not delay their visit. Since the ultimate goal of a visit is to comfort and cheer the ill, it is important to take into consideration the time of one’s visit.

One source suggests that a visitor should not come in the early hours of the morning when the doctors and nurses are busy with the patient nor late in the evening when the patient is most likely to be tired. Although this advice sounds like the rationale of a modern hospital’s visitation protocol, it is actually found in the Babylonian Talmud (Niddah 40a), written nearly two thousand years ago!

Other advice includes additional points that could be taken right off a statement of visitor’s policies:

•   One should not visit when the patient’s needs are being attended to (Maimonides Hilhot Avelut 14:5);

•   One should not bring sad news to a patient nor weep for the dead in his or her presence (Yoreh De’ah 337);

•   One should not stay too long during a visit (Abrahams, Hebrew Ethical Wills, p. 40).

What should visitors do? Make the patient comfortable, try to cheer him or her up and pray for his or her recovery. In Jewish tradition, it is common practice to ask a rabbi or other official of a congregation to offer a Mi Sh’beirakh prayer during the synagogue service, usually at the time of the reading of the Torah. The prayer for the sick reads:

May the One who blessed our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, bless and heal ___________. May the Holy One in mercy strengthen him [her] and heal him [her] soon, body and soul, together with others who suffer illness. And let us say: Amen.

In some congregations, advance notice of the person who is sick should be given to the rabbi or another official of the community, while in others, anyone who wishes to call out the name of the one who is ill can do so on the spot. It is helpful to know the Hebrew name of the patient, or if it is not known, most congregations will say the English name.

Another important, yet often neglected, act of kindness toward those who are ill is to belong to a bikkur holim committee at a congregation. In most congregations, the obligation to visit the sick falls upon the rabbi or cantor. Most rabbis and cantors make hospital rounds weekly. These visits are a wonderful comfort. Yet the obligation to visit the sick is for everyone.

When death is imminent, the value of being with a loved one is so great that it is even permitted to violate the rules of Shabbat in order to visit the critically ill near relative (Kol Bo’al Aveilut, p. 22). According to Rabbi Isaac Klein, a great modern commentator on Jewish law within the Conservative movement, Human life is so precious that its preservation takes precedence over nearly every other consideration. Therefore, we may even violate the rules of behavior on Shabbat, if necessary, in order to visit the critically sick and help a person afflicted with a dangerous illness (Klein, A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice, p. 272, quoting the Orekh Hayim 328:2).

Finally, although according to Jewish law one may not do anything to diminish the hope of the dying, there is one exception specified in the law: One should help the dying person arrange for the disposition of her or his property, if this has not already been done. See the chapter on How to Prepare for Your Own Death for advice on this sensitive issue.

Talking with the Dying

RON WOLFSON: Do you find that dying patients are willing or even anxious to talk about their death?

HERMAN FEIFEL: The problem is more with the living. A goodly number of dying patients prefer honest and plain talk about the seriousness of their illness. They evince a sense of being understood and helped, rather than becoming frightened or panicky, when they can talk about their feelings concerning death. There is truth in the idea that the unknown can be feared more than the most dreaded reality. There is almost nothing as crushing to a dying patient than to feel that she or he has been abandoned or rejected. It seems that in many circumstances it’s not what the patient is told, but rather how it is done that counts. Patients can accept and integrate information that they are to die in the near future, but want a gradual leading-up to this, rather than, as one patient put it to me many years ago: "Don’t give me a cold-shower