Many Jewish parents whose kids are around Sweetness’ age (12) worry about two things-how are they going to pay for the bar or bat mitzvah and are the kids going to continue living a Jewish life once the bar or bat mitzvah party is over. And although the research repeatedly indicates that if you want Jewish kids, you have to put them in Jewish activities, I have long ago sensed there was something else to it. I was reminded of this gut feeling recently.
Sweetness had an elderly aunt who she adored die this winter. For us grown ups, it was a sad but expected event. Auntie Lee was 99 years old after all and had been complaining of a deep sense of loneliness during the last 4 years or so of her life (everyone she knew was dead or dying) and was slowly loosing her treasured independence due to the usual ailments which accompany time. This is to say nothing about the care she required that led my ex-husband to basically take on a second job, not only physically but financially. Yet, this is not what Sweetness saw or felt.
Children have a different sense of time than adults do. And for her, 99 was just a large number-just as large as my 43. Sweetness anticipated that she would do her bat mitzvah for her Auntie Lee. And once it was clear to her that this death was not a “quick trip to heaven, just to check in with G-d”, I saw a hurt look in her eyes that I never had seen before. She realized that it was over and absorbed the finality of what that meant for her. She was crushed and could have easily fallen into the very narcissistic stance of “why did G-d do this to me?”
For various reasons, we could not go to the funeral and I am not sure going would have helped. What did help was going to synagogue that next Friday night. At the end of a Jewish service is what is called the reciting of the Kaddish, it’s the time when we reflect on those who have departed. In our temple, Rabbi reads the names of folks given to him prior to services and then turns to each seating section in the congregation, allowing anyone to announce the name of anyone who was not listed. When he turned to our seating area, Sweetness asked me to say “Lee Cohn” and once I did, she cried quietly and she did each week we came that month and spoke Auntie Lee’s name. This also allowed a wonderful opportunity to talk about death in a richer and more adult format that the questioning of a four year old looking at the dead gold fish named Molly allowed. Instead of disappointment, Sweetness had something tangible to help her manage the pain surrounding the loss. She didn’t so much “forget about it”, as she seem to do regarding Molly, as she incorporated it. She said to me the other day, “Auntie Lee isn’t going to be here for my (June, 2008) bat mitzvah, but my love for her will be.”
Part of the success of this “intervention” was timing but the larger chunk is due to tying faith with something meaningful in the here and now within the child’s life. If we want our kids to be tied to this community, we have to not only give them the rope (Jewish day schools/Hebrew school/JCC participation, etc.) but we have to show them how the rope is tied to them. In our constant ritual repeats, we forget the religion is more than ritual but a faith and inspiration which provide direction often where no direction exists. Sweetness learned that her faith and her faith community could be a source of comfort in a time of need. She also learned that there is even a convenient structure within that faith to help organize and manage the feelings that naturally arise when something bad happens.
But many adult Jews are uncomfortable with seemingly wimpy terms like, inspiration~fearing that such moments allow for too much loss of self-control or that they will look silly. That’s sad. We Jews are probably the only group that is a people, a faith, and a community. And just like an Oreo cookie, that sugary center filling is the best part.
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