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,

halakhad generally translates this into behavioral terms, assuming in the

language of the Sefe-Hachinuch that Aharae hapulot nimshahua-la-vav-vot the heart follows the deed.

I felt an existential black hole, an emptiness at the core of being. It deadened my sensations, leaving me unable to sleep or focus, as if life was happening

at a great distance, as if I were a spectator watching a film out of focus with the sound

turned off. The mood eventually passed, but while it lasted, I made some of the worst mistakes of my life.

I mention these things because they are the connecting thread of Parshad Khukat.

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