Ancient Auto-Condolence

The Art of Delegating Emotion

When someone dies, the Jewish tradition is that their close relatives sit “Shiva”, which means “seven” – as in seven days of mourning, and also a nod at “sitting” because that’s what the mourners do. They sit for a week in a house related to the deceased, to mourn and be consoled. Friends and community come to visit. People bring food. Lots of it.

The mourning ritual has a script, though, too. Not only does tradition tell mourners what to do, it tells the visitors what to say. There’s an actual, official sentence you’re supposed to say to the mourner — and if you don’t say it, apparently your visit doesn’t count. It’s like showing up to a wedding and skipping the “mazel tov.” Technically, were you even there?

The special Hebrew sentence (translated) – is: “The Omnipresent will comfort you all amongst the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.” The phrase has the emotional sensitivity of a traffic cone and the consolation equivalent of a fortune cookie. “Sorry about whoever you’re mourning for, but hey, we’re all mourning a place whose glory has been gone since before your great-great-great-grandparents were born. So, get in line.”

Is it meant to be a subtle hint at god’s orchestrating everything? God does only good and knows best. God allowed the destruction of the Temple and the death of your loved one. Praised be the lord. “Dear brother. Your loss? Every Jew mourns the destruction of the Temple 2,000 years ago. Dude. You’re in good company! Whoever of yours died? They’re as missed as god’s temple is missed!”

Every visitor says this to every person who sits shiva anywhere. The ultimate copy-paste consolation.

“Sorry about your dad. But also, remember that building we lost when we were kings? Still hurts. Anyway, we’re all together in this loss thing. Hang in there!”

Personal grief is so not us, so non-Jewish.

“Don’t worry, Yankel. If and when the Temple comes back, so will your lost one.”

Meanwhile, Yankel is just trying to figure out if he should eat another knish or cry quietly in the corner.

The phrase probably came from way back, when the Temple’s destruction was fresh and raw for everyone, when it made sense to lump all grief – personal and collective - together. Similar perhaps to after the horrors of the holocaust, individual loss and grief were overshadowed, swallowed, blurred into the collective. So, maybe this line, in its time, was saying: You’re not suffering alone.

But I’m not sure the temple tie-in is helping Shlomo process his dad’s passing, now, in suburban New Jersey.

Maybe it’s the ritual. Forget the words. It’s a conveyance of solidarity and brotherhood. All say the same thing. The words are secondary or meaningless.

But it’s maybe also something else. Coming up with your words in the face of someone else’s grief is... terrifying. Say you’re to pay a shiva visit tonight. OK, you’ll say the ancient, one-size-fits-all, consolation phrase. Sure. But this time you’re to also add your own personal condolences to the bereaved about their personal loss. Would that give you pause? What would you say? Is it difficult to conjure something you mean from your heart and. hope the bereaved is comforted by your words?

Do we say the phrase because it’s easier to use someone else’s sentence as a placeholder traditional phrase than conjure something yourself - to avoid awkward silence or an unintentionally weird (but maybe welcome) consolation (“If you need to borrow my Netflix password, I’m here”)?

So, we stick to the phrase. It’s safe. It’s been approved by 2,000 years of usage and zero negative feedback. But, you know what I almost never hear at a religious shiva house? “My condolences. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Which is …. interesting, because… that’s why everyone is there. It’s the whole point. Yet, we skip that in favor of the ancient auto-reply. If we’re showing up, we might as well show up as ourselves, or at least also as ourselves. No? That would seem like the most comforting thing of all.

That, and maybe another bagel with cream cheese.