Necromancy Romance

I have a friend who sees and hears dead people. I am well aware of the interdiction in the Torah regarding mediums, and all forms of magic and prophecy-- avoid! It took me a long time to understand that the Torah was not debunking supernatural phenomena, but simply, telling us to stay away. And I wish I had.

My rav z"l died by suicide over a year ago. I come back into a world, my former shul, that is still torn apart, even more so, to the point of emptiness and darkness. Dramatic, I know, but true, nonetheless. The nature of his death has left everyone reeling, without compass, and of course, the vultures rush in to fill the space; not nasty, grasping, obvious vultures, but the ones that seduce and fill the hole, whether by authority, complacency, or smoke and mirrors. Take the vulnerable, and you can do anything with them, as the messianics have shown.

There have been people who have contacted mediums, because the trauma is so great, and the need for answers a driving, hungry, relentless force. The idea of dead people hanging out on this plane creeps me out, just as any notion of talking to the dead creeps me out, because...Why? Because I have a notion of life beyond the grave and that notion is as idealistic as the torch I carry for Judaism. Better to believe what tradition alludes to- that once dead you get 11 months of soul searching and then you move on.

So, it freaks me out when my granny shows up in my friend's eyes after 14 years, and her urgent message saves me from something psychologically terrible. My friend, who is terribly burdened by a gift which she largely keeps to herself. My friend, who ends up corroborating that my rav is still hanging around, confused and concerned. Not around me, alas, but around others who desperately need him, still.

And it seems to me, that the earthly plane continues in some grey land of souls, in an alternative and corresponding plane, where the dead need to work out their stuff. And there is no shining light of awakening, remorse, and moving on. Yeesh. I want to know that souls move on! Though others may be comforted, I am not.

My accidental foray into this shadow world makes me grateful for the Torah interdiction. I would like to think that G-d is not so unkind, that G-d shows us the way once we are dead. That life after death is not another ordeal or another trial that leaves us hooked to this planet, and material and emotional life. Honestly, it's so unimaginative! So, deadening.

The upshot of what I've learned that I must do, is that while my rav continues to be embroiled in earthly matters, all we can do is pray, and that other than that, nothing but "a higher power", in my friend's words, can release him. Well, I am praying double time, just in case, but I am pissed.

In the end, the Torah is my comfort on so many levels. More so, every day.

Letter to My Rav: Between Two Worlds

(A month before his yarzheit.)

Dearest Rabbi,

I have so many words and so many tears, and neither wants to come- to show itself so I would know that I am mourning you. Instead, I get stomach aches and I sleep so very little and I go around feeling down and depressed when all I want to do is wail, if I remembered that it was you that I wail about.

Why can't I remember that it is you? Why can I not bring it to the forefront? Why does it linger in the shadows like an ill-willed ghost, taunting me instead of making its face known, even though I don't know what that face looks like? I think, though, that I am terribly afraid of it- after the numbness and the anger and the tears, where have I really gotten?

I remember all too vividly the things you said and the things you did before you died- the things I wished I'd seen and the things I wish I could change- but most of all- I WANT TO BRING YOU BACK- to haul you up from your grave and put you back among the living where you belong. If my heart were strong enough and big enough, I would will you back; I still want to will you back, and that's what is so painful, what cannot be faced.

Acceptance? What is that? Today I do not accept- I accept nothing. I do not accept that you are gone- will not- I cannot- I don't know why. I am alternately furious and helpless and speechless and forlorn, but nothing will bring you back. I don't even know why I want it so badly.

Perhaps because this life is your rightful place, not death. You, more than others, were life and brought life with you, and healing- everyone, except yourself. See, I still can't find the words to express what I really feel, what I really want to say.

I feel like I'm in this great, not unpleasant abyss- not unpleasant because I don't know I'm there- free falling, and yet I am close to the edge and might clamber my way out, and yet, I can't do it. I try and I try. But you are with me there, in that great black hole, and I can't drag you out of it, no matter what I do. So I stay with you- I'm crazy- better to be with you, I guess, than totally without you.

Rabbi, why did you do it? What could be so dire? Why why why? Why did you leave us all alone while you struggled to live and to die? Why did you leave us all out? See, these are not the right questions, either.

Can I tell you I loved you? Can I tell you how much you meant to me? Can I tell you what you gave me?

But then I think, what did I give you- it all seems so one-sided. If I had died, you would have gone on well without me. But I, well, it's hard, cause you were like a father to me and I can't tell you how much I bless you for that!!!!! To know true love at last, a father's love, and kindness and understanding, and to have someone there for me, someone who never let me down- who was everything I could of dream of as a father and a human being. No, you weren't perfect, but you were loving- such treasure. And I guess what I feel, most of all, is that I have lost treasure so great, so irreplaceable- I was so lucky and blessed to know you- I don't have the words.

My love screams in that abyss as well as the loss- if I could only shout you out.

Iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou...... that's all I know.

Remembering LARabbi™

A month before his yarzheit (anniversary of death).

I'm carrying this giant load- one I do not know I have- but my guts know.

I carry this around speechless, with no words to even begin to describe a kind of soundless scream that reverberates deep inside of me.

Rabbi is dead yet I remember him as if he were alive, and here, in the next room, or a phone call away- all his goodness, all his graciousness is mixed up with the horror of these Days of Awe last year. The burning fires, I remember the burning fires in the Chatsworth Hills, so close by we could see them, and I remember him standing beside me, talking about "the end of days". That will always be burned in memory, seared for as long as I live, and the fact that I can't turn back the clock and do things differently.

The Days of Awe- always the happiest, and most profound holy days for me, and deepest ordinary days- they will have the added tenor of days of, not only triumph and repentance and joy, but days of horror, the days of death that go with the Book of Life- where some are written in, and others stay outside of it.

I wish I knew what to say to you, Rabbi, but I haven't any words. I just have that silent scream inside me that seems to go on forever. I look at your photo, and the radiance and extreme goodness that shines from your smile, and I don't know where it all went wrong- except perhaps that we mistook you for an angel, when you were only blessedly human.

Well, you were an angel to me who never knew many angels in life, and never one so radiant. Who made me laugh and made Judaism fun, and bright, and shining. You were also my father, the one I never had, who cared and was solicitous and went way out of his way to look out for me; someone who also took great pleasure in my triumphs and little victories, and who could see me as people only dream to be seen.

Somewhere inside, where you can't see, my mourning wears me out, and turns me old and withered... my life seems blighted, dimmed...

I sit here, trying to find words to say what cannot be spoken- no more than Isaac could speak on the altar, no more than you could speak on the day of judgment.

I will never understand why G-d brought such an incandescent soul into the world, only to stand by and watch it burn out.

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".

My Rav Z"L*: Now Cracks a Noble Heart

Sometimes, grief stops all the music.

In fact, for many years now, I had stopped listening to Rachmaninoff's sonorous Vespers (Russian choral version), and then there is today, a good day for weeping. The music and voices, combined, are luminous and grave and transcendent and uplifting and spiritual- which just about describes my Rav. Funny, how it takes his death for me to actually say it out loud- "my Rav". And he was. I would call him my rebbe but he wasn't, because that seems to designate him my leader, as I understand the term, in current times. He was never designated anything. But my most beloved and cherished LARabbi™, it turns out, indeed, was my Rav.

In one of our last conversations, he was hanging out with me and L for a bit after kiddush, a rare occasion. Actually, he wanted to talk to me. After nailing the invitation for lunch in the sukkah (and Sukkot is my fave time of year), he then expressed his pleasure about my inclusion of him in my blog- he especially loved his title and my trademarking of it.....oh, it meant a lot to him; he was touched, and that fact was there on his face and in his body, beyond his words. He might as well have done the "Happy Dance". I was pleased as well as taken aback. Subsequently, he related his abortive attempt to scoop up LARabbi as his license plate moniker when he moved back to California, as well as LARav; I do recall that his previous plate read, NJRabbi. I guess there are a lesser number of vanity plates back in New Jersey.

I told him that his words are far reaching, that he was immortalised.

Funny, this last time around, he made an effort to remember my Hebrew name when I was honoured with aliyot at minyan and main services, as well as my trademark phrase- whenever asked if I would be attending a service or whatever, I would proclaim that I would be there with "bells and pomegranates on". He finally made a point of remembering.

My Rav, a rabbi whom I totally know G-d meant for me, who would never write G-d with a dash, who welcomed me and guided me through my conversion, was my spiritual guide and mentor, radiant soul, a wise and experienced voice and judge, brilliant, very learned, funny, warm, witty, nurturing and compassionate, passionate about Judaism, a fabulous father and son, the healer of an entire congregation, a community leader, an anchor for the times I felt lost, losing, grieving and adrift, and my ultimate fan, who seemed to have it all, that is, half of which I would kill to have- a loving family, friends, peers, and congregation, respect, and material things- died by suicide.

I've wrestled over this, whether to speak of it or not for quite some time. For me, it is not about shame but about protecting a family and a congregation traumatised by the manner of his death. It could also become a case of dirty laundry, a thin line. And yet, I keep thinking- it gets dirtier the more it is kept under wraps, and murkier**. The suicide of someone from the clergy, Jewish or otherwise, opens up a massive can of worms that most people do not want to deal with. Because, after all, if we cannot find purity and truth and consistency in our clergy at all times, where, indeed, can we find it?


* "zichrono liveracha", May his memory be for a blessing
** This is NOT about details!

Baruch Dayan Emet

I have just learned that my most cherished and beloved LA Rabbi™, whom I believe to have been a tzaddik of the first order, who was my welcomer, my sponsor, my teacher, my mentor, my spiritual model and constant religious and spiritual presence and guide, a father to me- all of this, even at a great distance- was killed earlier today in a car accident. He was only 48 years old.

Though love is stronger than death, I am devastated and completely bereft... a light has gone out of the world.