Dear readers, tomorrow I will officiate my cousin’s funeral. Writing my homily this week has been the most sacred and challenging writing of my life.
Following last week’s post, I received a note from my dear friend, Rabbi Joseph Edelheit about the Jewish concept of Aninut. Knowing that I would not have the capacity to write something this week, I asked if he’d guest post for me, and he agreed. His post is below, and I am grateful for it. (You can find more of his extraordinary writing here.)
As a special gift, I’m making this post free for all.
The Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible contains a significant amount of death, but the first funeral and burial takes place in Genesis 23 after Sarah dies and Abraham purchases a family plot in Hebron. It is curious that the biblical text does not offer any modeling of this basic human experience prior to Sarah’s death; I have always taught that the narrative waited for a death within a family context to offer us lessons for own lives.
Though the biblical text offers no details about Sarah’s death, we read that, “Abraham proceeded to mourn Sarah and to bewail for her. Then Abraham rose from beside his dead…” ( Gen 23:2b-3a) The biblical Hebrew describes this human behavior for the first time.
The text specifically notes that Abraham was with Sarah when she died and “rose” in order to make the arrangements for her burial. The text uses two different words for Abraham’s unique human emotional experience, but then immediately and regardless of his emotions, there is a need to bury those for whom you mourn and bewail.
Jewish traditions and rituals regarding mourning are rabbinic interpretations of the Hebrew Bible, which are further developed over several centuries. This first biblical description does offer us two very significant foundational values that illuminate the universal human challenge of the family dynamic of grief.
After a death there is both an immediate emotional shock and an equally immediate need to prepare many necessities: post-death family/community notices, funeral, burial, and public mourning. The first and most compelling challenge is what the text describes as “bewailing,” the ancient biblical Hebrew verb for cry, contextually suggests a stronger experience — “bitter” weeping — hence the translation bewailing.
The rabbinic idiom is entirely different, Aninut, which does not actually translate into English. The meaning of the word conveys a strong even uncontrolled grief as compared to the public/communal mourning that begins at the funeral and continues for the first 30 days.
The Onen/mourner — those challenged by Aninut — are defined by Jewish ritual law as specifically parent(s), child, spouse, and sibling(s). These are the most intense family relationships, and when we experience death within one of these relationships, there is an intensity does not translate beyond ancient idioms.
I have explained this sudden uncontrolled experience of death’s shattering of intimate family relationship as “throwing feathers into the wind.” I use this expression to illuminate a reality that is experienced but cannot be critically defined or even fully explained. Until you personally face the challenge of hearing, knowing, and attempting to fully integrate the reality of death and the finality of a family relationship, you cannot possibly fathom the uncontrollable urge to “wail,” “cry bitterly,” and be disoriented as never before.
As Rabbi Maurice Lamm has observed:
The onen [mourner during aninut] is a person in deep distress, a person yanked out of normal life and abruptly catapulted into the midst of inexpressible grief. He is disoriented, his attitudes are disarrayed, his emotions [are] out of gear. The shock of death paralyzes his consciousness and blocks out all regular patterns of orderly thinking. (The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning, p. 21)
In other words, until the finality of burial, the closest relatives may be overcome with a bitter grief. Being occupied with emotions of such intensity, they are fully connected to their environment, hence, Aninut is a period of detachment. Only after the burial comes the period of public and communal mourning and reconciliation, when the traditional ritual law guides us slowly back into normal interaction with the world.
My dear friend, Tony Jones, has recently written about the death of his cousin, Alli (Williams) Zomer, of blessed memory, and his family/clergy role at the funeral. Then he wrote that the family was in ”limbo” as they waited and prepared for the funeral-memorial, I wrote again explaining that the “limbo” he described has a technical name in Judaism, aninut. He wrote back thanking me and asking me if I would write about it, to spare him a column this week as he faced the painful task of writing the eulogy—the very first word used in Genesis referencing Abraham’s mourning is the word that is later used for eulogy!
Of course, because friends and community are required to help those who are profoundly disoriented by the death within their family. Though traditional Jewish law specifically defines a small group, we all are aware that grandparents, cousins, aunts/uncles and yes, best friends, create such inexplicable dislocation and bitter grief.
Many people have asked me during my more than 50 years of being a rabbi, “What should I say or do, to help someone whose life has been dislocated by death?” My answer has always been: Be present, stand nearby and offer them your hand, your shoulder, and maybe just a hug. Words do fail sometimes, so don’t use words, but always be fully present to affirm that they are not alone, though at that moment that is all they feel!
For Alli Williams Zomer’s family and community, I sincerely pray that her courage and resilience during her life will offer those whose grief is bitter, a source of loving memory.
For my dear friend Tony whose words will comfort so many, I pray that his family will add a measure of concern and love, to renew the broken heart of the family’s ever present source hope for eternal peace.