The Jewish Art of Grieving - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

here we have Arya bramwitz to like kind of tell us where you're at how you're doing what's new how you feeling so Ari please Shalom everybody it is so good to see all of you and uh yes Jeremy it's good to see you too you are my neighbor but it really has been overwhelming as you know but I I also just want to thank you because the day my father passed away the gimpel family mobilized into an army uh two of the older kids were with DeVos and then with Shiloh these were cooking and just the support that we got from the gimpels and from all of our neighbors all four of them and uh just it's been overwhelming and the truth is I didn't know if I was going to come on today but it feels like it's been longer than ever since we've seen each other although I really know it hasn't been but I feel like it that it feels that way because of the journey that I've been on so I decided to come up even though I was not sure how articulate or even coherent uh my message would be but we're family and we love each other and I figured you'd prefer to hear from me even if it didn't make any articulate sense rather than uh not you know being sort of afraid to open up and to share so I'm gonna try that but because you know Jeremy reached out and asked me if I wanted to be on the fellowship he said you would all understand if I wasn't ready and um because I'm not I'm I'm not like in a place where I can reflect back on what has been happening it feels like I'm still really in the thick of it um but I did want to see all of you and connect so anyways I thought I would share a little bit about the journey that I'm on because this morning I realized that it's not a journey that I've you know like I said like I've been on in the past tense but it's a journey that I'm currently on and it's there's a journey ahead of because today was the first day since we arose from our Shiva you know what the Shiva is the Shiva you know uh it's the first seven days of the most intense mourning and so I thought that today was supposed to be the first things are supposed to go back to normal and that I would be sort of recovered and back to normal I don't know why I thought that because you know while the laws of shiver in some ways very extreme you know you sit on the floor you cover the mirrors in your home you're not supposed to really bathe even at least not long hot luxurious showers it should be like a short functional sort of tepid bathing you're you're mourning you're you're in grief you stay in the same ripped clothing I spent the entire week wearing that shirt that I was wearing when I burst into my parents house and saw my father's body lying there without his soul within it and I immediately just ripped my shirt over my heart and threw myself next to his body you know and I closed his eyes and I said shama Easter El hero Israel the Lord Our God the Lord is one and since that faithful faithful moment I've been wearing that shirt and looking back I'm realizing that I actually took Comfort every morning when I put that shirt on you know I I was sort of afraid I think of taking that shirt off because the shirt felt true you know this Terror over my heart was an accurate reflection of what had happened inside you know like my heart just ripping in two and the thought of taking the shirt off and putting another shirt on like a normal shirt was intimidating would I be able to move on normally and while I thought if I'm taking off the shirt then I must being on some level perhaps but this morning I went to lead prayers um there's a number of different places I could lead here but I'm you know either you're a prayer leader or you're not and I haven't been leading prayers for many years so I wanted to lead sort of with my brothers that I'm the feel the closest to I mean all of Israel are my brothers that I love but you know the show of Captain nephrat so I I went there to lead uh prayers that I plan on doing Hashem for the next 11 months I'll be leading prayers you know I lead the service and I say the kaddish the cottage prayer but this morning the first morning I couldn't make it through the prayers without weeping which is not easy to do when you're leading the service you know it's very vulnerable it I I was really really praying and hoping I would get through the service without breaking down crying and I really did up until the final haddish and then I just but I suppose if I had to happen anywhere at the end was better but uh but fortunately I was surrounded by these holy Jews like my brothers whose love and patience and invisible embrace you know I felt comforting me you know in some ways I actually felt like they came up to me afterwards and hugged me and I feel like they appreciated it you know sometimes it happens where you'd go to prayers or you say you're you're mantras and you sort of get into something where you're just sort of mumbling and tears are able to break through that and I feel like perhaps I I did that for them without even meaning to but looking back I think I went because I thought I'd feel normal but but I don't it still feels like it's an amputation and when I saw the words of the kaddish which we can talk about more in the future with the Cottages because interestingly enough well it's the prayer said by mourners it has nothing to do with death it's only about life but it's called the Kardashian Tome which literally means the Scottish of Orphans and uh while I know I know that I'm a 43 year old man with my own children and my mother is still alive I think the word orphan in English is lacking it shouldn't be that you're only an orphan if both of your parents are dead because if one of your parents said that you have one arm amputated and both then it's two arms I don't know if it's like a really great translation but on some level even though I'm this grown man with children and I feel like I'm on some level like I'm an orphan and I've been dreading this moment in my whole life and here it is but I still find myself really overcome overcome almost crippled with gratitude you know rarely have I felt so grateful to so many people so indebted to so many and the outpouring of Love had just been truly overwhelming but that I could talk about different parts of that gratitude another time but the specific gratitude I want to tell you about is about my gratitude to Hashem and to the the Torah and to the sages of Israel who have this Transcendent wisdom and insight into the nature of The Human Condition to so beautifully design the laws of mourning because you know morning it's a it's a journey of Discovery it's a painful Journey but it's a very real real journey what did King Solomon say you know territov I mean sorry it's better to go to a house of morning than a house of Celebration or a house what's the word from ishta Jeremy whatever like a party celebration a party yeah um and become clear why that's the case because it's so real and it causes you to really reflect and look look what within but I feel like because of the Brilliance of these laws I'm emerging through this journey not only without scars and calluses around my heart but I feel like I'm emerging already more sensitive and loving and grateful because you see when my father was getting sick I thought perhaps the time had come that I should study the laws of mourning and be prepared for what felt inevitable but I couldn't bring myself to do it you know while he's still alive it just felt wrong it felt like it would be a bad Omi you know I was afraid to do it and so um so I went into the morning period having a general idea of the laws but I wasn't fully ready and fully learned on the matter and so after the first day of mourning and my sister's house sitting on these low chairs and ripped clothing with my mother and my sisters by my side and we were telling stories we're hearing stories we were laughing and we were crying and laughing and crying at the same time and having people from throughout the country and throughout the world coming to show their love and support and yes by the way I even received some significant in person Fellowship Shiva visits which meant the world to me I mean all of you your messages I really I read them I internalized them I appreciated them I haven't been able to unders respond as you can imagine but uh your message has meant the world to me and I'm so grateful for that but you know people were bringing us all of our meals they cleaned the house we weren't even supposed to get up to put the food that they made for us on our plates they all did that it was really overwhelming but but after the first day I remember going upstairs and I was just spent and I took out my phone just for a minute or two just to zone out you know for a second I turned on YouTube to watch whatever like the last minute of an NBA game or something and right then at that moment Shayna sent me a link to review the laws of Shiva and I clicked on it and one of the first uh laws that I that I saw was that there should be no music really no media and so I turned off my phone I deleted YouTube I deleted Facebook I turned off my phone and I just laid there for a moment and then I really burst out weeping you know not like when you're around people and you stifle it and you control it but when you're alone you can just let it flow and I just and it slowed and afterwards I felt even more healed I felt like lighter and I realized oh that's what these laws are about they're brilliantly designed to allow us to actually experience the pain you know to ride that wave of grief to allow it to go through us and to change Us in the healthiest way possible not to hide from it or deny it or repress it or drown it in alcohol or whatever not no drugs none of that stuff none of these superficial runaway fleeing no to embrace it and experience it fully and I'll tell you you know I always took the Mitzvah of attending and participating in funerals which in Hebrew is the word which literally means escorting a funeral means it means a neighbor it's a levia which means escorting because we're escorting the deceased on their final Journey to the next World and I've always taken you know the laws to participate in it seriously I've always taken the Mitzvah to go to a Shiva house seriously but I didn't understand I didn't understand just how important it was until I was on the other side of things on the receiving side of things the funeral was at 11 PM Saturday night and I understand Jeremy played the uh my eulogy for my father um so a little bit of the story was there but 11 pm was the soonest opportunity and we didn't even know if we'd had 50 people there and we had a hundred hundreds and it was to me it's just a miracle of God I don't know how these people found out about it I don't know it doesn't make any sense to me but I was just my prayers I was praying and praying please let my father have a funeral that he deserves you know in my mind in my reality in my experience my father was Mal Hoots he was like Regal he was just such a great man and I wanted him to have that and then just seeing all these people flock out and everyone that I saw there I will forever be grateful to every person that came to the Shiva I will forever be grateful to it felt like the Shiva house there was like like a transference of energy that was happening it's hard to explain it's it's as if everyone that came and sat down took just a little bit of our heartbreak and our grief from us and replaced it with comfort and love from them you know the time I most uh felt this the first sort of experienced that idea was when Jeremy and I went to the Shiva house not too long ago of a friend of ours whose daughter passed away in a horrible circumstance I mean horrible and everybody sat there in the room with them in silence the parents were in Silence the visitors were in silence no one said a thing there's nothing to say but there was a transference of energy happening I could feel it I you know I left there with a little bit of their heartbreak in my heart and I pray that a piece of the love that was in my heart was left there with them you know someone came to Jeremy do I have another two minutes yeah so someone came to the ship house and they said they were just so sorry for the tragedy of uh my father's death but the truth is that my father's death was not a tragedy at all like zero zero percent tragedy you know have you ever have you ever seen a uh you know a cedure like a prayer book or a book of Psalms or a Bible that is so used and so warned that the pages are fragile they're like tattered on the edges they're like drenched in tears and you look at it then you're like what a fortunate Bible that is that that is so the Holiness you could feel the Holiness of it it was well used when I saw when I saw my father's body you know lying there on the ground and I just saw he was just worn and bruised and swollen and broken it was that like that he squeezed every bit of life out of that body that was possible and he he was supposed to die early you know like he was he got diabetes at the age of nine he was supposed to make it they say 30 years Beyond onset but we've had debates about this but he wasn't supposed to make it past 40. we all agree about that he made it to 71. he saw his children and his grandchildren living in the land of Israel loving the land of Israel following in the his ways but the ways of our fathers for Generations back to Biblical times that is not a tragedy that is a celebration tragedy is what we we spoke about last week with the DDOT as tragedy is parents bearing their children that's tragic not what happened with my father my father's life is a celebration and while I grieve and it's very sad and I will miss him every moment of every day it's not a tragedy um but it doesn't change the fact that the pain is so intense and it's so real and the truth is that while the most intense Shiva is over the sloshim you know the first 30 days of lesser but still very intense morning is happening that's what I just started today no celebrations no music so much else I'm not going to go into the laws but after the first 30 days that goes into the first 11 months and then there's the different rules that are more lacks in the in the morning but then the period of morning ends and we can hopefully proceed in a healthy way missing our loved ones but you know having them alive within us and uh you know just a few hours ago my sister that I went up to the Kevin to his where he was buried as has been accustomed for thousands of years when arising from the Shiva morning period and it was very emotional but it was beautiful and we said the Psalms beginning with the letters of his name Mordechai Herschel and we're standing over his grave blanketed in the earth of the land of Israel that he loved so much and after our parting words we recited the Psalms and then we put the Israeli flag which he was so proud of uh on the Earth above him anyways this will be the first independence day without him and that will be very difficult because this was a day that he loved so much but there will be lots of Firsts but but we move on together and I just want to thank all of you please God my father's all those uh who have left the world will their nashamat will have an alien and please God we'll have Redemption coming soon and we'll be able to experience the lights the great light that will shine into the world so love you so much thank you so much shalom shalom foreign