Chayay Sarah – Dvar Torah
Two verses. Only two verses. 127 fully lived years and the span of only two verses is given in the Torah for mourning and eulogizing. And then what? How can I just continue as if nothing had happened. My mother was only 86 when she died. I need more than the space and time of two verses to mourn her.
I want to mourn my mother but I don’t really know how. The gripping pain, the broken heart, the guilt, have all lost their sharpness but the deep sense of loss, the realization of irreversibility, are hanging over my head, in the back of my heart, in the sadness.
I want to mourn my mother. I also want to mourn my father whom I lost when I was too young to mourn. I want to mourn my grandmother who was raped and murdered in the ghetto. I want to mourn my half-brother who was shot in the selection-line in Auschwitz when he was fourteen years old. I want to mourn my grandfathers, my grandmothers, my uncles and aunts whom I never met. I want to mourn my ancestors whom the great wave of darkness enfolded never to be seen again.
I need to go deep, to crawl into the Cave of Machpela where all my ancestors, men, women and children are buried, and feel the pain of their lives and their deaths. I need to live with them for a while, but I can not. I cannot access this pain. I cannot access Sara’s pain for losing her only child, of Avraham’s loss of his beloved wife, of Yitzchak’s sadness for loosing his mother, and on and on…too much pain. If I would allow this Pandora box to crack open who knows where would it lead to. I will need then to deal not only with the pain but also with the anger - deep buried anger at God for the injustice of it all.
I don’t know if this is the fear of what might be exposed, or a healthy instinct of survival, but I’d rather go out to the field to ponder the beauty of nature, meditate and drink from the deep well of the Living-One Who-Sees-Me. I’d rather fall in love with life again and again. I’d rather dream weave into my life the good memories and the legacy, because at the end of my life I too, like Avraham, would like to send my children and grandchildren in the direction of the rising sun with the gifts of my lived life. When I am gone, I would like them to be able to mourn their lost, crawl into the cave, see the blessing of life through it, and meet me in the field where all words are gone.
Cause, as in falling-in-love, what we really mourn is, ourselves. We mourn what we miss, what we lack, misunderstood, took for granted, the love we could have given, the lessons we could have learned. And when we realize the irreversibility of the loss we have the opportunity of freedom, the freedom to move forward, to swim up the stream and discover life all over again. When one can fully meet the loss, one can trace it back to its source, the well of the Living-One Who-Sees-Me.
I know that my mother and father live in this Well. They invite me to transmute my salty tears of sadness into sweet tears of joy. They whisper to me about the possibility of arriving at the Well and clearly seeing through the illusion of death.
They tell me that the story of my life, that like the story of the Torah Portion itself, is framed by the death of the physical body, but in truth, its all Life comprised of many lives, and the Well is ever flowing.
Two verses. Only two verses. 127 fully lived years and the span of only two verses is given in the Torah for mourning and eulogizing. And then what? How can I just continue as if nothing had happened. My mother was only 86 when she died. I need more than the space and time of two verses to mourn her.
I want to mourn my mother but I don’t really know how. The gripping pain, the broken heart, the guilt, have all lost their sharpness but the deep sense of loss, the realization of irreversibility, are hanging over my head, in the back of my heart, in the sadness.
I want to mourn my mother. I also want to mourn my father whom I lost when I was too young to mourn. I want to mourn my grandmother who was raped and murdered in the ghetto. I want to mourn my half-brother who was shot in the selection-line in Auschwitz when he was fourteen years old. I want to mourn my grandfathers, my grandmothers, my uncles and aunts whom I never met. I want to mourn my ancestors whom the great wave of darkness enfolded never to be seen again.
I need to go deep, to crawl into the Cave of Machpela where all my ancestors, men, women and children are buried, and feel the pain of their lives and their deaths. I need to live with them for a while, but I can not. I cannot access this pain. I cannot access Sara’s pain for losing her only child, of Avraham’s loss of his beloved wife, of Yitzchak’s sadness for loosing his mother, and on and on…too much pain. If I would allow this Pandora box to crack open who knows where would it lead to. I will need then to deal not only with the pain but also with the anger - deep buried anger at God for the injustice of it all.
I don’t know if this is the fear of what might be exposed, or a healthy instinct of survival, but I’d rather go out to the field to ponder the beauty of nature, meditate and drink from the deep well of the Living-One Who-Sees-Me. I’d rather fall in love with life again and again. I’d rather dream weave into my life the good memories and the legacy, because at the end of my life I too, like Avraham, would like to send my children and grandchildren in the direction of the rising sun with the gifts of my lived life. When I am gone, I would like them to be able to mourn their lost, crawl into the cave, see the blessing of life through it, and meet me in the field where all words are gone.
Cause, as in falling-in-love, what we really mourn is, ourselves. We mourn what we miss, what we lack, misunderstood, took for granted, the love we could have given, the lessons we could have learned. And when we realize the irreversibility of the loss we have the opportunity of freedom, the freedom to move forward, to swim up the stream and discover life all over again. When one can fully meet the loss, one can trace it back to its source, the well of the Living-One Who-Sees-Me.
I know that my mother and father live in this Well. They invite me to transmute my salty tears of sadness into sweet tears of joy. They whisper to me about the possibility of arriving at the Well and clearly seeing through the illusion of death.
They tell me that the story of my life, that like the story of the Torah Portion itself, is framed by the death of the physical body, but in truth, its all Life comprised of many lives, and the Well is ever flowing.