In the Midst of Life We Are in Death . . . And Vice Versa

So already, last Saturday, May 27, was the second day of Shavuot, the Jewish holiday celebrating "the great revelation of the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, more than 3,300 years ago."* The second day of Shavuot is also one of several days during the Jewish calendar year that Jews recite Yizkor, the memorial prayer for deceased loved ones. In my early years, I understood that the prayer was said only for parents, siblings, children, and spouses; today, I understand that it can be recited for any dead loved one, and even for anonymous individuals and groups. 

 

I said it while sitting at the edge of the field at our cabin in Berlin--definitely deviating from various Jewish norms and rules, I'm sure--for my father and my friend Donald, who became family long ago. I also said it this time for two old friends who died in the past month: Jonathan, who succumbed to sudden altitude-related illness on Mt. Everest on May 1, and Delia, who died of unexpected cancer-related complications on May 22. Two Mondays, three weeks apart. 

 

Some time ago, I lost direct touch with Jonathan, my fellow Needham High School graduate who was such a great big brother to me during my freshman year at college, but I still kept tabs on his life through the reports of mutual friends. 

 

Most of the Roommates

In contrast, I was in good touch with Delia, a former college roommate. I always felt a special connection to Delia because she and my dad shared not only the same birthday, but the same habit of naturally and unceremoniously doing what they could when others needed a helping hand.

If it's one thing I've learned sitting at the edge of the field at the cabin, it's that life and death are always happening at the same time. A favorite old apple tree at the bottom of the field, as seen from our chairs on the field's stream side, is now distinguished by one huge dying branch bending toward the ground beneath: no doubt some combination of winter ice and wind forced that brittle bough toward the ground into its current bowed position. The cracking sound it made when it broke from the main trunk must have been loud.

Some season soon, that damaged branch will lie horizontally on the ground. But for now, it suggests to me that death happens gradually, whether or not that 's true. I keep thinking that Delia and Jonathan are still getting used to it, perhaps because I'm still trying to get used to the fact of their deaths.

 

Meanwhile, I'm relieved that it's just that branch, as opposed to the whole tree, that's dying: the tree's elbow-shaped bend that Scott loves to paint and draw and that I love to photograph is intact. And even the broken branch that's in the process of separating from the rest of tree is sprouting leaves in a few places.

It's hard not to think of trees of life (1) when trees all around are burgeoning with new life even as some parts of them, through all kinds of natural processes, are returning to the earth--and (2) when the holiday is Shavuot: the the Torah is often described as a "a tree of life to those who hold fast to it."

 

It's also hard not to think of trees of life when the family tree grows a new branch: the day before Delia died, my nephew and niece-by-marriage became the parents of their first son and my second grand-nephew. So as I greeted the terrible news about Delia, this new little boy in our family was happily much on my mind. "In the midst of life we are in death," and in the midst of death we are in life, I thought to myself, having sung "The Service for the Burial of the Dead" by Thomas Morley so many times during college.

 

Such a beautiful baby boy whose name would not be revealed until the B'rit Milah, the ritual circumcision that would take place eight days after his birth.

 

In the Jewish tradition, babies are named only for people who are no longer living.** So my first question was whether my new nephew would be named Benjamin David, for my father who died in December 2020. My second jumping-the-gun question was whether the baby, if he were named Benjamin, would be called Ben or Benjie. 

I was hopeful: Delia had had her last pre-surgery chemo treatment on her and my dad's birthday. She was being cared for at the home of her older brother Benjie (I don't know he spells it) and his wife. After she died, I was communicating with her nephew Ben, sending photos of her, letting him know whom I'd notified of her passing. The name Benjamin was everywhere in the air, consoling me and giving me hope.

The Yizkor service also comforted me, giving me something to do that I didn't have to invent. The Lev Ha Shalem prayer book is always a great source of inspirational and provocative poems and readings in addition to the traditional prayers and translations. Because my husband Scott's art often, in my opinion, suggests a fluidity between life and death, I shared with him the poem "In Everything" by Lea Goldberg that was featured alongside one page of the service:

In everything there is at least an eighth part

that is death. Its weight is not great.

With that secret and carefree grace

we carry it everywhere we go.

On lovely awakenings, on journeys,

in lovers' words, in our distraction

forgotten at the edges of our affairs

it is always with us. Weighing

hardly anything at all.

(translated by Rachel Tvia Back)***

Scott asked me about the "eighth part"--why not a different fraction, he wanted to know. I said that eight is often an important number in Judaism: eight days of Passover, eight days of Hanukkah, eight days between a birth and a b'rit. But I didn't have a real answer, since other numbers are significant, too.

 

I wish I were naturally and completely easy with the perpetual overlapping of life and death. My impulse is always to try to keep life "safe" from death. So I'm appreciative of this poem in which the reality of the fraction of death in life does not taint life, does not weigh it down, does not make it less alive, less valuable, less wonderful. The idea that we carry death with "secret and carefree grace" reassures me. I'm certain that that grace is coming through me, not from me, and I'm grateful for it.

 

In this month of so much sad news--but with so many happy memories associated with that sad news--along comes a beautiful new baby and eight days later, the revelation of his name--Benjamin David, my sister told me in a text on Sunday morning. My father's memory--and the memories of Delia, Jonathan, and Donald--are indeed for blessings. All four of them shared a love of life.

* Chabad.org. (*2023, May). Hear the Ten Commandments on Shavuot. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2157/jewish/Hear-the-Ten-Commandments-on-Shavuot.htm (art also accompanying this post by Sefira Lightstone: https://www.sefiracreative.com/)

** Photo accompanying article: Klein, M. (N.D.). A historical view of choosing a Jewish name. My Jewish Learning. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/a-historical-view-of-choosing-a-name/

*** See page 337 of the following Lev Ha Shalem Yizkor pdf file: https://images.shulcloud.com/1039/uploads/passover-pages/YizkorforPesahandShavuotSIDDURLEVSHALEM.pdf