PITTSBURGH ON MY MIND
By: Suri Davis
Eleven people were shot to death on Shabbos in a shul in Pittsburgh while they were davening. Others were injured.
I am an estate attorney. I plan for death. I probate wills after death. Dealing with death is a part of my daily practice. I truly understand the wisdom of the rabbis when going to a shiva house. It’s not about you and your loss, it’s a bout the mourners and their loss. It’s about how they are dealing with their loss, not about how you think they should deal with their loss. Those who pay a shiva call sit and wait silently for their cue. Will the mourner find comfort from your presence, will he give you a hint, an opening as to what is on his mind, so you can hear what he has to say and comfort him on his terms.
There are two paradigms for loss that come to mind. There is the story of Beruriah, the wife of Rabbi Meir, who lost her two children on one Shabbos day and waited until the end of Shabbos to tell Rabbi Meir of their loss. He was distraught, she merely said that G-d gave her two souls on loan, and it was time to return the souls back to G-d when he was ready for them. G-d giveth, G-d taketh away, may the name of G-d be blessed for ever and ever.
Then there is the paradigm that we see in the Book of Ruth, where Naomi lost her two sons. She told those who knew her to call her not Naomi, but Mara/Bitterness for G-d had embittered her life with these losses.
Two valid paradigms to fit so many different ways people can deal with loss.
I marvel at friends who have lost children and from which we have now in our community The Ohel Sara Amen Group, The Levi Yitzchak Library and the weekly Behar Women’s Shabbos Shiur. Women who took their grief and it turned it into a way to enhance the souls of their children and the community through continued mitzvoth.
I have clients who survived the Holocaust who are not now religious and cannot imagine even thinking that there is a G-d who could have permitted the Holocaust to happen, and those who have survived who saw G-d’s miracles daily, and are religious.
I am still processing the tragedy of Pittsburgh. As I process it, or after I process it, I am sure I will somehow incorporate it into my worldview Weltanshauung and divrei torah. We are a product of all we learn, hear, see, experience. There isn’t something I can say, a word I can find, that wouldn’t seem trite. But I believe what happens to us, and those around us affects each of us in our own way. We absorb it and learn from it in a way that is unique to each of us. As Beruriah saw her loss as a latent act of faith, and Naomi as a patent act of faith only when Ruth gave birth to a child, did Naomi understand G-d’s hand in all. What we learn from Pittsburgh, how we use it inside ourselves to improve ourselves and the world around us, is something we each have to sit with and contemplate.
I cant share how I feel with you about Pittsburgh now. I am numb. I am the sandglass on the computer which lets you know, give me a second or two, I need to process and catch up with you.
Stay tuned. I have Pittsburgh on my mind.
-Suri