from
Rites of Mourning
in
Entering Jewish Prayer: A Guide to Personal
Devotion
and the Worship Service
by Reuven Hammer
Schocken Books
Milton Steinberg, a brilliant rabbi who died at the age of forty-six,
wrote of the way in which belief in the existence of God can enable one
who is to die to take comfort:
Given God, everything becomes more precious, more to be loved and clung
to, more embraceable; and yet at the same time easier to give up. For
these belong to the universe and the God who stands behind it, I let go
of them the more easily because I know that as parts of the divine economy
they will not be lost. When they slip from my hands they will pass to
hands better, stronger, and wiser than mine. For only when He is given,
can we hold life at once infinitely precious and yet as a thing lightly
to be surrendered.
This same belief can invest the recitation of the mourning blessing with
the power to help us bear our grief.
The words recited at the burial are an elaboration on the same theme.
Known as tziduk ha-din (the Justification of Judgment), they represent
the willingness of the mourner to accept what has happened and not to challenge
God,s justice. The roots of this ceremony are to be found in the stories
of Jewish martyrs who, at the hour of death, would recite verses indicating
their belief in God despite what was happening to them.
The Rock!"His deeds are perfect, yea, all His ways are just (Deut.
32:4). When they apprehended Rabbi Hanina ben Teradion, he was condemned
to be burned, together with his Torah scroll. When he was old of this,
he recited this verse: The Rock!"His deeds are perfect.
This same verse is also interpreted to mean that Moses told Israel, "I
do not tell you merely that He does not justify the guilty or punish the
innocent, but that He does not even exchange one for the other. i.e., merit
and guilt are not exchanged, but each deed is rewarded or punished appropriately.
God,s judgments are perfect. In view of these interpretations, it is no
wonder that this same verse is the first to be recited in the burial service,
which consists entirely of similar verses and verse fragments, together
with explanations and poetic expansions, written in rhyming stanzas.
The Rock!"His deeds are perfect,
Yeah, all His ways are just;
A faithful God, never false,
True and upright is He (Deut. 32:4).
The Rock!" Perfect in all His deeds.
Who can say to Him, "What are You doing?
He rules what is below and what is above.
The Lord deals death and gives life,
Casts down into Sheol and raises up (1 Sam. 2:6).
The Rock! Perfect in all actions,
Who can say to Him, "What are You doing? (Eccles. 8:4).
He decrees and acts, freely acting faithfully toward us.
Because of the merit of him who was bound as a lamb,
listen and act! (Dan. 9:19).
Righteous in all His ways (Ps. 145:17).
The Rock! Perfect, long suffering, filled with mercy.
Have pity and mercy upon fathers and sons,
For forgiveness and mercy belong to You, O Master.
The piyyut continues in this vein, repeating the key words "righteous,
"judge, and "true, and then concludes with two well-known verses.
The Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away;
Blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21)
But He, being merciful, forgave iniquity
and would not destroy;
He restrained His wrath time and again
and did not give full vent to His fury (Ps. 78:38)
The sum total of this burial prayer is an affirmation of God,s quality
of mercy. Even though we have experienced His quality of justice, or harshness,
we accept this and reaffirm our belief in His essential love. The reality
of death is not to be allowed to annul our ability to believe in goodness
as a divine quality.
The piyyut is not couched in the form of a blessing. It never
uses the terminology "Blessed are You, O Lord. It was composed at a
time when the basic blessing had already come into being and nothing of
that sort was being added to the liturgy. Strangely enough, there is such
a thing as a "Blessing of the Mourners, which is mentioned often in
the Mishna and the Talmud but which
eventually ceased to be used. This was a series of blessings that was recited
first in the synagogue or in the town square and then in the house of the
mourners. It was recited not by the mourners themselves but by others in
the mourners, presence. Its main purpose was to strengthen and comfort the
mourners. This was not done prior to the burial, when it was considered
improper to try to comfort a person, the grief being still too intense.
Rather, it was recited after the burial had taken place. These blessings
are unusual in that they do not address God but speak directly to the mourners
and then to those who comfort them.
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