Parshat Noach: Matters of life and death
How does halakha reconcile life and joy with grieving death and destruction?
Even after the dove showed Noach and his family that the world outside was once again habitable, Noach waited to leave the ark until God commanded him: “Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives with you.“ Bereishit Rabba notes that this demonstrates Noach’s obedience – he waited until God commanded him to enter the ark and waited until God commanded him to leave it.[1]
The midrash also brings another option – that Noach was hesitant to leave the ark because he was worried that having children and resettling the earth would not be a blessing but a curse. God had to reassure him with a covenant to never bring another flood.[2]
Cessation of life
The midrash juxtaposes the command to leave the ark with that to enter, “Go into the ark, you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives.” The couples are mentioned separately when they enter the ark, but together when they exit, teaching us that God forbade procreation when they were in the ark, and both commanded and blessed them to be fruitful and multiply when they left.[3] The midrash then brings Rabbi Ayvu’s opinion that a man should separate from his wife in times of deprivation or famine. The callousness it takes to celebrate life when surrounded by death and destruction is unacceptable to any moral person.
Indeed, an aveil (mourner) may not have intimate relations with their spouse throughout the Shiva period; Rabbi Yochanan states that one who does so deserves to be put to death.[4] This separation resembles the laws of nidda (family purity) but it is not identical. During nidda a couple also limits physical contact and other affectionate gestures, but Shulchan Arukh rules that this is not the custom during mourning and most forms of affection are permitted – perhaps to allow the spouses to comfort and support each other throughout their grief, or perhaps because we’re less concerned that demonstrations of affection will lead to intercourse when a person is in mourning.[5]
Happiness and grief
The gemara in Moed Katan teaches: “A mourner does not observe mourning on a festival, as it says, “You shall rejoice in your festival.”[6] The gemara explains that the positive communal mitzvah to rejoice in the festival overrides the individual mitzvah of mourning.
Rav Soloveitchik explains that these two mitzvot can’t possibly be fulfilled at the same time. The customs of aveilut (mourning) are outward expressions of the grief we feel in our heart. On festivals we rejoice by eating meat and drinking wine, wearing nice clothes, and more; this too is but an expression of what we feel in our hearts – the joy of being in God’s presence.[7] Even though many of the associated actions can be observed simultaneously, these mitzvot can only be observed when our feelings and actions act in tandem. Therefore, they are mutually contradictory experiences that can’t be reconciled and the observance of the communal mitzvah pushes off that of the individual mitzvah.
Mourners customarily refrain from attending feasts and celebrations. For most first-degree relatives this lasts throughout the shloshim, (generally a thirty day period after the burial); someone mourning for a father or mother waits twelve months before partaking in such happy occasions.[8]
Indeed, the mourning period is so all-encompassing that Shulchan Aruch begins the halakhot that prohibit simcha (happiness, joy) during this period by stating that an aveil sitting shiva should not take a child in their lap, since it may cause them to laugh.[9] The gemara explains that this laugh may make it seem like the mourner is not a serious person or does not comprehend the gravity of the situation. Rambam points out that levity in general is inappropriate at a Shiva, we are not even allowed to inquire about a mourner’s wellbeing when visiting.[10] Shiva is a time of silence and grief. There is no space for laughter and joy.
Weddings during mourning
Yet there are rare times when individual mourning is pushed off for individual celebrations. When a parent dies right before their child is set to marry, once all the food is prepared, the gemara rules that the deceased is brought to a separate room and the bride and groom to the chuppah (marriage canopy). After the chuppah the couple consummates the marriage, the deceased is buried, and the rest of the family sits Shiva while the couple continues to celebrate with seven days of festivities as usual. The bride or groom only sit Shiva at the end of the seven days of festivities.[11]
If the wedding is not prepared or the food can be sold then the wedding is delayed – not just until after the Shiva, but until after the Shloshim, the thirty day mark.[12] Yet if a man who has not yet fulfilled his mitzvah of priya v’reviya, to be fruitful and multiply, is betrothed when his relative dies he does not need to delay his wedding until after the shloshim, he and the bride may marry after the shiva.[13]
Several halakhic authorities mention other exceptions to the no wedding rule – such as if a mourner is marrying off an orphan and the wedding will not take place if they are not in attendance, or when a mourner is marrying off their own child or grandchild.[14] The common thread between most of these situations is the fear that mourning the dead will have a lasting negative impact on the living – through unbearable financial loss, irreplaceable wasted efforts, broken engagements, and delayed attempts to have children.
Honor through joy
There are two general explanations given for the laws and customs of mourning – to give the mourner space to grieve and to honor the deceased. When one or both of these reasons are not applicable there are exceptions. For example, a mourner may attend their own child’s wedding because this is considered honoring the deceased, who would want their loved one to celebrate.
Currently, we are a nation in mourning. We are as one person with one heart grieving unspeakable evils and losses. We anxiously await the safe return of our family held captive by cruel people, the uncertainty about their welfare and their fate is a burden no person should bear, certainly not alone.[15] It feels like life should stop, like the earth should stand still beneath us to mourn the destruction and cruelty of man.
At times it feels impossible to laugh, to think about the future, let alone plan for one. We are once again living the prophecy of Yishayahu, “Every head is ill, every heart is sick. From the sole of the foot to the head there is nothing whole, just sores, bruises, and fresh wounds; that have not been pressed or bound or mollified with oil.” We are a country bleeding from open wounds and shattered hearts – a country in mourning.
One family
At the same time, we have moments of joy, we embrace our faith, and we raise morale. Families are talking about naming babies that are not yet conceived after loved ones that have been slain. We read about the lives of strangers we lost, not only to mourn them, but to learn from them and about them, and to perpetuate their memories and continue their good deeds. We collect funds for emergency supplies and gear for our soldiers, but also for the rehabilitation and rebuilding we have faith will come. We reach out to one another. We cling to normalcy, to routine, to life.
And we share stories, pictures, and videos of couple after couple who choose to get married at the army base where the bride or groom is serving – surrounded by a few family members, a whole lot of soldiers, and hearts full of love and hope. If joy and mourning are mutually exclusive, how is this possible?
Much like a person who loses a parent on their wedding day, we know that delaying celebrations and ceasing to live will cause irreparable damage. Like a man who lost a sibling, we can’t wait for our grief to abate before we resume our fulfillment of important mitzvot like building a home in Israel and starting a family.
Rambam teaches that once a soldier enters the battle he must not think of his wife and children, only of the war. He must lean on God who saves Israel from distress and remember that we fight for God’s singularity – the one God who created all humankind.[16] Rav Kook explains that when it comes time to work for the general good of our nation the love for our family is not extinguished, rather our love for God and the Jewish People shines stronger.[17]
Noach does not have any more children after leaving the ark. He plants a vineyard and drowns his trauma and loss in a drunken stupor. But as Jewish people we meet tragedy with resilience. We refuse to help those who seek to destroy us. We stand up to them and defend ourselves on the battlefield, and we stand up to them and embrace life and love on the home front.
A defensive war is considered a milkhemet mitzvah, and obligatory war. In such cases we rule that everyone leaves their homes, even the groom and bride leave the chuppah. These couples getting married surrounded by our soldiers understand that the battle we face is with those who seek to destroy life. The only way to win is to celebrate life. This is not disrespectful to our slain family and does not mean we don’t understand the situation. Jew or Gentile, Israeli or foreigner, soldier,or civilian – each life is precious, each soul a world. And we grieve every loss and pray for every hostage.
Unlike Noah, we refuse to let our grief drown us and we refuse to drown our grief. We fight for the small victories as well as the large – to keep our head above water, to form some semblance of a routine, and to find joy in any way we can. We grieve the past and we build for the future. This is the way we honor our family and strengthen our people. It’s not because we don’t care, it’s because we care deeply.
These days we are pulled between sadness and joy, between grief and celebration. May we soon merit to fill our mouths with laughter and our tongues with song.
[1] Bereishit Rabba 34:4
[2] Ibid 6
[3] Bereishit 9 verses 1 and 7
[4] Tur, Shulchan Arukh YD 383:1
[5] Ibid. Rema states that couples customarily don’t hug or kiss during shiva.
[6] TB Moed Katan 14b quoting Devarim 16:14
[7] “Catharsis” pg. 48-49
[8] TB Moed Katan 22b
[9] Yoreh De’ah 391:1
[10] Hilkhot Avel 5
[11] Based on the gemara Rambam details the limited circumstances that allow for such a wedding, generally when the food is prepared and can’t be sold to others, and when the deceased is the father of the groom or mother of the bride, because there is no one who can fill their role in the preparations if the wedding is delayed. Hilkhot Aveil 11:8.
[12] YD 392:1.
[13] Shulkhan Arukh ibid
[14] Arukh HaShulchan YD 391:5-11
[15] Our rabbis teach that Yaakov mourned Yosef for “many days,” even though parents are not meant to mourn their children for more than a month, because he did not know Yosef’s fate and was unable to find comfort.
[16] Mishneh Torah Hilkhot Melakhim u’Milkhamoteihem 7:15
[17] Ein Aya, Shabbat II. Jerusalem 5760 pg 56
