Letters to a Young Pastor: Dealing with Grief

Dear ______:

I am so very sorry to hear that your mother has died.

I once heard a very wise friend say “The world changes when a parent dies,” and surely it is true. Of course they are the direct source of our own lives, but that’s a bit theoretical. We get to know our own existence in the company of our parents. From our earliest moments their presence defines the world.

And then they are gone.

Dealing with Grief

There are no words that would lessen the loss, so I won’t try. I’ll be holding you before God in prayer, and were we in the same city I’d try to spend time keeping you company.

I wouldn’t offer any advice at all except that you asked me for some.

Here you go: Learn from the long-established practices of the Jewish community.

Our own Christian practices are so widely varied that one can say little about them. And so often they are simply improvised, drawing on little or no wisdom from larger community.

I’m not an expert on Jewish practice but I’ve learned of two things they do in a time of grief that are extremely helpful.

1. Sitting Shiva

For seven days, starting after the burial of a loved one, relatives give grief their full attention. Traditionally they stay home and others visit, so they can talk about their loss and their memories.

Think of it as a full week to honor the memory of the one who has died, and to make room for the intense feelings that loss brings. Being together provides support and encouragement.

Life will resume its normal routines after those seven days. Grief isn’t over by any means, but tending to it as fully as possible for a week may brace you for what lies ahead.

As Christians we are at a disadvantage here. Our communities don’t have this as an established practice. Sometimes we stay apart instead, not knowing what to say to someone who is grieving. We may drop by with a meal but we don’t stick around.

But you can still learn from the wisdom of Jewish practice. Take the week off. Tend to your soul. Be with friends who know you are grieving. Don’t give in to the world’s demands that make you think you must stay at work or whatever else cries out for attention.

2. Saying Kaddish

When my father died, days turned to weeks, and weeks to months, and still the low cloud of grief was there. Often enough, and at the oddest moments, low clouds turned to storms and feelings became overwhelming.

Then I remembered a novel by one of my favorite writers, Chaim Potok’s Davita’s Harp. In the book a young secular Jewish girl must deal with the death of her father. She finds her way into the praying community at a synagoge and she learns an ancient Aramaic prayer called the “Mourner’s Kaddish.”

The Kaddish is prayed after the death of a family member in the three services of Jewish daily prayer. For a parent one prays it for 11 months.

I found myself longing for something like that, something I could do daily to help me in my grief, long after the people around me were thinking about it and saying comforting things.

The thing is, though, it isn’t prayed alone. There are required responses from the congregation. For a Jew that means at least ten people.

I figured as a non-Jew my quorum would have to be my wife. So for 11 months, three times a day, I said Kaddish. If I was at work or traveling we would do it over the phone.

And it helped enormously.