healing the trauma of loss. It took me two years to recover from the death of my father of

blessed memory. To this day almost 20 years later I'm not sure why. He didn't die suddenly or

young. He was well into his 80s. In his last years he had to undergo five operations, each of which sapped his strength a little more.

Besides which I as a rabbi had to officiate at funerals and comfort the bereaved.

I knew what grief looked like.

The rabbis were critical of one who mourns too much too long.

They said that God himself says of such a person, are you more compassionate than I am?

Maimonides' rules.

A person shouldn't become excessively broken-hearted because of his person's death, as it says,

do not weep for the dead nor bemoan him.

This means don't weep excessively, for death is the way of the world, and one who grieves

excessively at the way of the world is a fool.

With rare exceptions, the outer limit of grief in Jewish law is a year, not more.

Yet knowing all these things didn't help. We're not always masters of our

emotions, nor does comforting others prepare you for your own experience of loss. Jewish law

regulates outward conduct, not inward feeling, and when it speaks of feelings, like the commands

to love and not to hate, halakhah generally translates this

into behavioral terms,

assuming in the language of the Sefe of Hinoch

that Aharae,

hapulot, nimshahulhahvavut,

the heart follows the deed.

...