FAITHHACKER
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Judaism Does Death Right | |
| I didn’t know how Jewish I was until my mother died. | ||
 by Paulina Borsook, December 17, 2007
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Dealing with the slow-mo death of my Evil Demented Mother (hence, EDM) last year taught me two things, one that I’d always suspected and one that I hadn’t known. First, Jewish traditions around death and dying are simply the best; second, I’m more deeply Jewish than I could ever have expected.
That the Jewish D+D traditions made me the envy of my Gentile friends was, well, interesting; that habits of mind and values I thought were mine alone turned out to be Jewish in origin was a revelation deeper than a story idea that goes "assimilated exogamous Jewish girl comes home when confronted with death of mother."
I suppose it started in the autumn, when EDM was clearly declining. One way to redeem the fifteen years we had both suffered since she was diagnosed with dementia, I decided, was to donate her body to USC Dementia Research, the designated Southern California NIH research institution. (If you want to do this, it has to be arranged way in advance of need. There are human-subject experimentation forms to be filled out!) I was determined that some scientific/medical/educational value should come from the mess of EDM's life (and mine, by proxy, as her primary—if long-distance—caregiver).
The zebra t-shirt betrays a wild streak: Don't let med students anywhere near your cadaver This is, of course, a canonical-nigh-unto-mockable Jewish value. Historically, Orthodox Judaism hasn't liked autopsy, wanting to respect the bodies of the dead, but in modern times the value placed by Jews on learning has trumped. If you are Jewish and have the misfortune to not be part of the medical profession, at least you can help out those who are.
I chose a dementia research facility because of my own experience in a medical family— I know how cavalier medical students can be. With memories of cigarette-smoking cadavers dressed in funny hats dancing through my head, I decided against gross anatomy for EDM. I wanted defined explorations by experts in search of specific research goals, just like the Old Jews would have it: Respect for the body. Pursuit of knowledge.
But the point here, as in the rest of my management of EDM's death, is that I initially didn't think I was being observant or acting from a Jewish ethical point of view. I just thought I was being me, then realizing that what I was actually doing was being Jewish.
For example, the wondrous, skilled, sanity-saving geriatric case-manger I worked with, a former professor of gerontology, told me that she had never before had a client whose family went to such great lengths as I had in order to donate the demented elder's body to science. But according to her, almost all of her previous clientele was Gentile.
And so it went, during the three months of EDM's fade-out from this incarnation. Neither the facility where EDM was housed (Episcopalian), nor the medical staff attending her (lead doctor, Chinese-American), were willing to take her off her meds and just let her go—even though she had indicated to everyone, including all three of us with powers of attorney, that she no longer wanted to be here, not in this desolate condition of body and soul. Jews believe that resources are for the living and not for the dead: if no good can come through sustaining a life that no longer makes sense to the person possessing it, better to preserve resources for the family members who survive.
Then complicated timing issues arose with the actual day of EDM's funeral. I was arranging the ceremony from 400 miles away, people were coming in from out of town, and EDM, the Wallis Warfield Simpson wannabe, would want to have been buried with as big a party as possible, so the in-the-ground-within-48-hours thing couldn’t happen. When a saintly, kindly friend, a woman with a degree in Religious Studies who was also studying to be a hospice chaplain—but who, like most of my friends, is as goyische as they come—suggested having the funeral on a Saturday, I found myself snarling: "We don't have funerals on Saturdays." I couldn't believe my dear friend suggested such an outrage—a funeral on a Saturday! By then, I had to admit it. I was Jewish, she was not, so how could she know? Guess what, I did know, lord knows how. I was part of a "we".
Doing the right thing: We burn a candle after funerals for a reason So to the wonder of my almost-always-non-Jewish intimates, I explained that we don't believe in embalming; we believe in a simple linen shroud; we traditionally have someone wash and sit by the body. I have always personally found open-caskets barbaric, and generally that's something we feel is not comme il faut, either. My funerary aesthetic was Jewish.
But there's more. I found out it was entirely right to wear that torn black boutonniere for the week after EDM was safely placed in the ground. EDM might have been a truly nasty piece of work who shouldn't have been allowed to breed, but she was still, biologically speaking, my mother, and it fit my mood to wear a sign saying, "Hey, I am in Stage I mourning, so don't expect coherence.”
And the thick candle I was given to burn for that week—it did burn for a week. I felt it somehow guided EDM, sped her on her way. Again, if we define religious rites as "outward signs of an inward grace," it was exactly the right thing, both for my psychology and for my place in the community. (“Warning: recent death in this household. Proceed with caution.”)
And when the month of semi-official mourning was over, I really was done with the acute stage of dealing with D+D legal and financial fu. More important, more at the level of the woo-woo, I was beginning to feel unbound from EDM, and released from my handmaiden/caretaker role. The old Jews had it right: After a month of mourning (though it my case, it was really processing, of both paperwork and my own internal state) one is ready to get back to the business of living.
My Gentile friends marveled, too, when I explained about the unveiling to come about a year after EDM's departure for places unknown. We get to have a formalization of the end of the year of mourning. Or perhaps the unveiling marks the year it takes us to understand the shape of our lives without the one who died.
Gone but not forgotten: Grave stonesThese friends loved the sight of the stones placed on the gravestones in the cemetery wherein EDM was laid after I explained that these stones that turned headstones into cairns signified “You are remembered.”
In fact, these dear pals o' mine, as the secular humanist/maybe sometimes vaguely spiritual/classic 21st century American blendo types that they were, were jealous that I had this strong tradition to call on in a time of crises—that it showed me the way sure-footedly and told me what to do and mostly was a source of comfort and made it so I didn't have to make everything up from scratch at a time when I had enough on my mind. And that it was mostly a good tradition that made good human sense, and had the quality of found folk wisdom with a tried-and-true durability of millennia. They liked the Way of the Old Jews a lot, and I owned it by reflex.
So when I coincidentally got a recent email from an ex-boyfriend (yet another of my tawny super-shagetzim—he grew up riding his horse to school in rural Arizona) who had converted to Judaism, and kept kosher, and had taught Torah classes, and who talked about what we believe, I was startled.
For it made me conscious of the difference between Judaism as a culture, and Judaism as a religion. He was a convert to the religion; EDM, the original Marjorie Morningstar-style JAP, whose lunch every day in college had been a ham sandwich and a chocolate malt, who never attended a seder until her freshman boyfriend took her home to his parents'—was imbued enough with the tradition that she had passed it down to me. She taught me, without my knowing she had done so, who we are.
And in regard to D+D, I do feel we have the goods. What I did for EDM wasn't really about religious observance, but about doing right by the dead and doing right by the living. In our time of suppurating hostilities between those who make a fundamentalist claim to know the mind of God and those, as intolerant, who make fundamentalist claims that only fools speak of God, it was a fine thing to have a rite of passage that, while steeped in the majesty of time-honored rhetoric and gesture, had little to do with the problem of God.
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Paulina Borsook is a writer living in Northern California. Author of the book Cyberselfish, More... |
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zbird
Sorry to hear about your
Sorry to hear about your mother's death, and I found this an interesting take on the Jewish mourning process.
When my grandfather and uncle died (not at the same time) I also thought the Jewish traditions relating to mourning were sensible and comforting. But years later I started to question whether something was missing. Judaism goes a long way toward focusing on the living rather than on the dead--with the closed casket, the shiva calls, etc. All these things are a comfort.
But I wonder if, in focusing so much on the living, we miss an opportunity to face our own mortality. I remember visiting a monastery in Spain that had a skeleton hanging over the entrance. the message was clear to all the monks who had to walk through the doorway each day--your time is limited, seize the day and make your life meaningful while you still can.
I'm not saying the Christians have got death right, what with their unverifiable claims of an afterlife and (in some cases) horrendous make-up jobs on dead bodies. But I do wonder if Judaism could do more to address the problem of death head-on, rather than just "focus on the living," as if we won't all die one day.
--Z
Anonymous
Facing the reality of death
I find it strange that both the author and Z argue that Jewish death and dying rituals seem to focus on the living rather than the dead. I am a Jew, formerly a Catholic, and my first impression about the difference between Christian funerals (and that truly hideous tradition, the open-casket "wake") and Jewish funerals was that no one at a Jewish funeral could deny that a human being who had touched the lives of other human beings had died. Shoveling dirt into a grave, hearing the thud of the earth on the coffin, taught me more about my own mortality than looking at a grotesquely made-up dead body surrounded by stinking flowers and hearing people say, "She looks like she's sleeping...."
Faith
Death done well
I agree with anon. The shoveling of dirt into an open grave is one of the most meaningful D+D rituals I know. One is certainly forced to come to grips with the fact that a loved one is underneath.
The symbolism of rocks perched atop gravestones, however makes me a tad uncomfortable. It smacks vaguely of superstition, which, depending on the historical narrative you choose to believe, can either come from the permanence of stone (compared to flowers) to the calling card account to the keeping of the dead in their place.
By the way, I also wanted to note - I have an Evil Grandma B (EGB) so I completely relate to the EDM acronym.
Thanks for this article - lovely.
Adam Shprintzen
If nothing else...
the process of shiva is precisely to force one to think of that person. No drinking to mask the pain, no work to keep you otherwise occupied...you take the time to mourn and remember. And you also learn the lesson that you have to move on, that no matter how much you miss the person that after a week, and no matter how much you miss that person, that live invariably does go on. So, yes, I really do think that the entire process is focused on the person who passed, and more importantly ensuring that their spirit and memory lives on.
Paulina Borsook
thuds on the coffin
i too valorize thuds on the coffin --- but it turns out those shovelfuls of dirt are not unique to the jews (though who copied from whom, i dont know)
so i left them out of my narrative of the good stuff around jewish D+D
zbird
maybe I look like a fool here....
...but can someone explain the second "D" in "D+D". I'm smart enough to figure out that at least one "D" stands for death, but I'm not smart enough to know the other.
--Z
Baltimom
Dying
Death and Dying
Enjoyed the article.
Rochel Chana
D+D
Paulina, may G‑d console you, together with all mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
When my Dad passed away a few years ago, we decided to do everything in a completely traditional Jewish way. It was so comforting NOT to have to make a lot of awful decisions at a point where we weren't able to decide what to do about dinner (and the shiva meals took care of that too). Centuries before Kubler-Ross, the Jews understood about the stages of grief and mourning, and how to help people get through them with dignity, grace and strength (no matter what the relationships and circumstances invovled)--and then go on with the incredible gift of life we've all been given.
You'll find that saying Kaddish, lighting the Yarzheit candle and Yizkor are amazing moments, too. Sorrow, memory, loss for everything that was, wasn't, should have been, might have been--and still, above all, comfort and grace.
MrsPiggy549
Bravo!
Was your mother's body donated to USC Dementia Research? If yes, when did the actual burial take place?
Your article expressed both your bravery as a person and a writer. I found it most informative and interesting. It is nearly impossible to diagnose the actual type of dementia suffered, pre-death. We need more people, like yourself, to help future generations conquer & cure disease.
Thank you so very much.
Paulina Borsook
yahrzeit
i suspect yahrzeit would be a good tradition ---
although i've not had experience with it (my parents
chose not to do this for my brother, who
died when i was 11, so i have no felt experience
of what it would be like to light those candles
for someone whose death i truly mourn. other folks in that category were not jewish, so it didnt occur to me to perform the act.)
edm's unveiling is in a few weeks --- i may have more to report back on that!
so for that reason, the timing of the publication of this essay has
been very, well, auspicious.
and apologies for the extra spaces between lines of text! the comment form
just seems to be inserting them!
Paulina Borsook
usc dementia research
edm is buried at home of peace, the old jewish cemetary in east l.a.
the good-guy funeral director assured me that enuf was left of
edm's corporeal being that well --- let's just say in his enthusiasm
for his trade, he wanted to open the casket to show me! no thanx!
and you are so correct about inaccurate dementia diagnoses.
edm, while still living, had been diagnosed with parkinsons,
alzhiemers. normal pressure hydrocephalus, as
well as vascular dementia, a clinical picture borne
out by CAT scans and MRIs.
turns out she only had vascular dementia; and the nice
woman at USC told me that -50- percent of the people
they look at are misdiagnosed (with alzheimers being
the most common condition thot to be present,
but turns out not to be)
we need more bodies for research!
MrsPiggy549
Alzheimer has become a
Alzheimer has become a catch-phrase. At 94, they tried to pin it on my Dad and pump him full of Aricept...Great for the drug company, bad for Dad. Thankfully, he passed on peacefully & quietly, without a "label". I do, however, regret not making a contribution to medical science, as you did. Yes, we do need more bodies...
"To save one life is as if you have saved the world"
~the Talmud
one among many
A Jew among Gentiles
As a religions scholar in the United States, I have often found myself one of the few Jews in schools full of Gentiles. I did not want to become a rabbi, but instead have an interest in biomedical ethics. Specifically around end of life decisions. While so many people have seen this as a rather morbid pursuit of an interest, I have found it to be one of the most enriching of my life. To understand D+D for not just my own religious group, but for others, as well as the things that would make someone want to end their own life such as terminal or degenerative disease, has made me come to appreciate people as a whole more than I ever thought possible
As has already said, "To save one life is as if you have saved the world" ~the Talmud
While I hope the work I am engaging in helps to save people, both by helping them to understand what they ought to do, or not, I also hope that my work contributes to the understanding of the human condition. I think your article has done just this. D+D are facts of life, but for us to allow these things to help us to become better - both in healing, and learning - are in my opinion great mitzvot.
Anonymous
stones on graves
I had no concept of the stones on graves - either for or agains - other than that it 'was done'. It was also a nice way to remember my travels and how my parents would have enjoyed the trips, when I visited their graves and brought back stones from the various places I had been.
It held even more meaning in light of carrying on tradition. One reason i heard we do this is in remembrance of our historical times in the desert. Since the sands shift, and animals are likely to dig up remains, passersby were expected to continue placing stones on top of the cairns in order to keep the cairns intact and animals away. That's not a problem now, but the tradition continues.
Paulina Borsook
d+d
i so totally agree that the study of/delving into/understanding d+d is so important. a friend of mine have talked about how there needs to be a profession called 'ghoula' --- just as there are dhoulas to help folks with the birth process, there need to be folks to help both the dying and those around the dying with all the stuff that comes up: emotionally, logistically, every which way. ghoulas could be there from the time a terminal diagnosis is made til months after the death...
what amazes me is how so many people are in such denial of D+D --- they will talk about their sexlives and their mortgages and their substance abuse issues --- but so often just cannot begin to think about D+D.
so yes, anyone who has a mission in D+D --- you are doing holy work. imho
Susan
This is me, relating...
Hi - I lost my mom nine days ago, and while our relationship doesn't sound as bad as yours was with your EDM (love the acronym, btw!), I could relate to a lot of what you wrote.
I don't love, and have never embraced, the tradition of dirt on the grave, but my eight year old son grabbed a shovel at the funeral and shoveled for all he was worth. Shoveling and crying, shoveling and crying, until my spouse forcibly removed him from the scene. It was heartbreaking, but I think it did him good.
As a friend pointed out, I'll grieve for the relationship I wish I could have had with my mother. And one more thing. Now that both of my parents have died in December, I've never been so glad to be Jewish! Can you imagine how it would have forever ruined Christmas??
Susan
Paulina Borsook
death and xmas
three of my dearest friends died on over labor day weekend (separated
by a decade) --- but somehow while i think of them every labor day,
the bittersweetness of the changing of the seasons isnt discolored by
the memory of their deaths.
just as, a boyfriend of mine several yrs back dumped me
on my bday --- which is valentine's day! yucko!
yet, i can still approach that day every yr seeing it for
its own potential for joy, or misery...
so i dunno. i am not sure the anniversary of the death of
one close to you has to ruin that day/week/time of year
for you.
that being said, susan all comfort calm and peace to you
in the next whle...
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