Books to Comfort and Instruct the Bereaved
Miller, Avis
Books to Comfort and Instruct the Bereaved Reviewed by Avis Miller If there is one time when Jews want a male rabbi, it is when they are making arrangements for a funeral. Even the most marginal...
...Some may well feel inadequate, even guilty, at being unable to do all that is required, such as the congregant who felt uncomfortable every time she heard radio advertisements that featured musical jingles...
...In the most common scenario, a bereaved congregant who is arranging for the funeral will be comfortable with having his (female] congregational rabbi officiate...
...It also includes "Words of Comfort"— passages from classical sources and prayers in Hebrew, English translation and transliteration (with both Ashkenazic and Sephardic pronunciation...
...is 0. Milter is associate rabbi ait Adas Israel Congregation, Washington, P.C...
...They want to know not only what to do when but also the rationale for the laws and their historical development...
...Sensitive English readings make the service spiritually accessible even to those who understand no Hebrew...
...Of the 175,000 Jews living in my community, the greater Washington, D.C, area, less than half are known to any Jewish organization...
...Now committed Jews are turning their attention to death, too, as a rite of passage...
...The authors represented in the volume include some of the best-known names among American Jews—Joseph Soloveitchik, Abraham Heschel, Elie Wiesel, Jacob Neusner...
...Four other books deal with comforting the bereaved...
...1972, paperback...
...But he will face opposition from elderly relatives unfamiliar with seeing a woman in this role...
...A hands-on approach to Judaism, popularized by the Jewish Catalog (JPS, 1973, 1976, 1980) series has already transformed our expectations for such life cycle events as birth, bar and bat mitzvah and weddings...
...It is not surprising that there is a demand for books on the subject...
...The classic text is Maurice Lamm's The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning (Jonathan David, 1969, hardbound...
...Doing it right means anything from observing all the halachah (Jewish religious law) to doing it "the way its always been done in our family/community...
...Synagogues are returning to the tradition of a bereavement committee (chevrah kaddishan) of educated lay people who prepare the body for burial (taharafi) and perform services ranging from making funeral arrangements to cooking meals and leading shb/ah minyantm (prayer quorums during the seven-day mourning period...
...After all, the role of compassionate comforter is often assigned to women in American society as well as in the Jewish tradition...
...1987, paperback), edited by Rabbi Jack Riemer...
...I *iave found this collection of articles on death and our response to it to be particularly useful as a substitute for Torah study, which is prohibited for mourners because Torah study is viewed as being a isi.'able activity...
...We Jews wish each other: May you live ad mean esrim, bis hundert tzvantzik, until 120, like Moses, with eyes undimmed and strength unabated...
...These days, music comes to us in recorded form and usually falls in the category of culture rather than social festivity...
...Wi I shire, paperback) has been in and out of print since 1954...
...In former times, instrumental music was associated with parties...
...It includes readings, usually very brief, from both Jewish and non-Jewish sources...
...The authors tell the reader at the outset that "this is a book written for you with a pen dipped in tears...
...Lately, after five years as a pulpit rabbi of a large Conservative congregation, I have noticed a change in the way people react to me at their time of loss...
...In addition to wanting to know what is right and needing a rabbi for the final rites, people suffering the loss of a loved one need the comfort of community...
...Much of the information in the Lamm book is presented here as well, though in less encyclopedic form...
...The disadvantage for norvOrthodox Jews is that Rabbi Lamm's approach is uncompromisingly strict...
...Another volume with a similar purpose but an entirely different style is VWien Mourning Comes, A Book of Comfort for the Grieving (Aronson, 1982, 1990) by William 6. Silverman ta rabbi) and Kenneth M. Cinnamon (a clinical psychologist...
...The material is organized, detailed and easily accessible, almost in handbook style...
...Where can they turn for comfort and information...
...It is indeed a treasury, full of poetry and poetic prose...
...The Jews and the Muslim majority found themselves in a rapidly changing world...
...When mourning comes, every Jew should be surrounded by loving community...
...They take the bereaved figuratively by the hand and lead them through the landscape of grief...
...An inspirational self-help book that attempts to comfort and sustain the mourner, ft is especially useful for those with sudden or untimely losses of a child, a young spouse or a sibling who need help in coping with the pain and getting through each day...
...Still fewer are affiliated with a synagogue...
...When we confront death, we gather together, forming links in the human chain...
...But for the times when you need information and for those quiet times alone, you would do well to keep company with one of these books...
...Even the most marginal Jews then become traditional and insist that everything be done "right...
...A newly reissued volume, which originally preceded Lamm's book by five years, is A Guide to Lffe—Jewish Laws and Customs of Mourning (Aronson, 1989), by British Rabbi Tzvi Rabinowicz...
...For Jews newly committed to helping others during death and mourning, there is likewise a demand for information...
...we also need time to be alone with our thoughts and feelings...
...It is also comprehensive...
...Less observant Jews may find the prescribed behavior difficult, if not impossible, to integrate into their daily lives...
...Voluntary communal structures performing the mftzvot (commandments] associated with death have wrested control from institutions such as funeral homes...
...The nineteenth century—Stillman's starting point—marked the dawn of the modern age in the Arab world...
...For those who like to understand the "why" behind the "what" and the "how" of both customs and laws, this book is a delight (if we can use that word in studying about death...
...Confident that I can teach them what Jewish tradition expects them to do, they are coming now to value a woman's way of comforting, ft is not surprising for people to react this way once they become comfortable with the idea of a woman rabbi...
...Books are available that address these needs relating to death: information, study and comfort...
...are especially effective in highlighting the role of the minyan as community in providing solace to the mourner...
...It contains material suitable for discussions, such as halachic issues of life and death...
...This is the single best volume about what to do when...
...Certain readings ports, press articles and the like...
...In the time-honored Jewish tradition, they want to study in order to perform mftzvot with greater understanding and kavanah (directed consciousness...
...Sidney Greenberg's Treasury of Comfort (Hartmore, hardbound...
...Invariably, when I turn to it for material to use in eulogies, I find myself emotionally hooked...
...As the title suggests, the book is not restricted to mourning but deals with the whole range of philosophical and religious issues surrounding death...
...Another volume devoted mainly to comfort is Jewish Reflections on Death (Schocken, 1975, hardbound...
...That is the wish, but we all know the reality...
...For all of us, unaffiliated and committed, lay and professional, the helping and the helped, at one time or another, we also need help to reflect, to meditate and to give us emotional support...
...In the mystical system of the kabbalah, compassion is an attribute assigned to the feminine aspect of the divine, known in Hebrew as the Shechinah...
...Reading the selections in the chapter entitled "Some Personal Encounters," the mourners feel that they are not alone in having gone through the experience of bereavement...
...For example, many people find it difficult to refrain from listening to music for the entire year of mourning...
...More recently Greenberg has published A Minyan of Comfort—Worship, Study, and Reflection for the House of Mourning (Prayer Book/ Media Judaica, 1990), which is already transforming the worship experience in shivah houses in which it is used...
Vol. 16 • December 1991 • No. 6
