My Rav Z"L: All Honour To LARabbi™ and To Us
So, I've been reading a lot about suicide, and I have been reading about
the "shame" and "stigma" of suicide. I now have, as so many others have, experienced the muzzled, dirty consequences of that taboo. In addition, I remember, very clearly, when Ofra Haza, a popular Israeli singer, died, someone I did not know, and all the mystery surrounding her premature death at the time; no one wanted to admit that she died from AIDS. I also remember countless newspaper obituaries, where the word "suddenly", accompanied without cause of death, could readily be deciphered as "suicide". So great and pervasive is the shame.
I suspect that shame is also what led the family of my Rav, to ask the Executive Committee not to release details of his death until after the funeral. Rumours burbled throughout, and loshon hara grew exponentially- all because suicide is so complicated an experience, and so heart achingly raw that it fills you so full of guilt and grief and confusion, that understandably, anything remotely publicised would feel like standing naked in front of the world.
I have fretted about this for weeks, about what to say, if anything, and have been caught up in the shame and the sense of mortification that everyone attached in some small way to my Rav, feels. I have heard more than one person say, this all belongs to us, and we should not air our dirty laundry. This belongs to us. And I bought into it for a while (though not faulting them).
Yes, it does belong to us. And because it does, we can share. And there is no laundry dirtier, in my opinion, than the minds of those who determine that it is best to keep it amongst ourselves, out of shame. We point to dirt when we see dirt. And I was swayed by it, wandering in a world of really cheesy crap, till I got a clue, today. Because in my little world, there is nothing dirty or shameful about suicide, especially my Rav's suicide. There is shock, devastation, anger, guilt, grief, anguish, even blame, but not shame. Because, ultimately, there is a wanting to understand, and there is love, and a desire to make the future better.
I am not willing to define my Rav by the way that he died, but by the way that he lived. And "so", Kurt Vonnegut would say, "it goes".
Labels: community, LARAbbi™, loss, mourning, shabbat, suicide
posted by Barefoot Jewess at 6:51 pm
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7 Comments:
When I was 18 a close friend jumped in front of a train. he was 18 as well. It was a very well thought out act, he'd planned it meticulously. It is still unbelievable at times. And yet I ultimately believe one can do w one's life as one pleases, and that it includes one's death. Still hard to accept though, even after all these years.
I agree with you that hiding it makes it dirtier. For whatever reasons that was the way he chose. That should be respected and again, agreed, it doesn't reflect on who he was in the sense that it takes somethong from it. Death is always heartbreaking, I hope he is in peace now. I hope you some day will be too.
Oh and I am very sorry to say I don't expect our clergy, any clergy, to be pure. Too much stress, too much sorrow, too many constraints. I like it as a conceptual idea but then reality proves it impossible. I think the burdain of purity is one of the very problems, how can you be human and remain a level of purity that encompasses everyone else's dreams and neuroses?
I always think it's best to air that laundry because if you let dirty laundry sit in a wet, dark basement, it will eventually grow mildewed and rot. Far better to let it be what it was...rather than let is become so much MORE than it ever could have been. That's my philosophy.
I have lost several friends over the years to cancer/suicide/drunk driving. Every loss was difficult and each hurt and part of what hurt so much were the questions I asked myself about whether I could have done anything to help prevent it.
Ultimately I was always forced to grudgingly accept their deaths and to make sense of it. I have always tried to remember the lessons I learned with them and to not focus on the tragedy of their deaths. It is not an easy thing to do, but I think that it helps.
There isn't any one thing that causes suicide.
And if the person is determined, there's nothing that can be done to prevent it. No double locked doors, no 24 hour cameras, no shackles.
My uncle, almost five years ago (curiously enough, on the night before Tu B'Shevat, though he didn't know it) killed himself, after a lifelong struggle with depression.
What we struggle with, as Jews, is that the rituals after a suicide are so changed. It's almost as if halachically, at least according to what I remember from Aryeh Kaplan's books, our mourning is supposed to be truncated.
That's not so. Our grief is deeper, our world view thrown into sharp relief, our souls ripped from our bodies and shredded into little pieces. The shame should not be on the families, who have done all that they could - nor should it be on the suicide; you can argue that he or she was living in Gehanna on earth, his sadness and anger magnified, his every nerve ending raw with pain.
May you, his family, and his congregants be comforted among the mourners of Zion.
Chuck
http://redsneakz.blogspot.com
BJ,
I read about this death in the Jewish Journal. Anytime a person dies by suicide, he/she must be experiencing a tremendous amount of pain. My heart goes out to his family, and his community. May he be comforted among the mourners of Zion.
Dear Barefoot Jewess,
I spent many good years in Los Angeles, and you have me worried: which Rabbi committed suicide? I live in Israel now, but my heart goes to you!
B'vracha,
Sharon Ra'anan
sraanan@nds.com
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