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Honorable Mensch-ion

Mourning and Joy: At Once


There are passages of the Talmud that you learn in the sacred books and are purely theoretical, and there are pieces of Torah that become your reality in the blink of an eye. The famous teaching from Maseceht Ketubot is, “If a funeral procession and a wedding procession meet at an intersection, the wedding procession goes first.”

On Wednesday, this was not a piece of advice, but the reality I lived. My beloved aunt, Rachel Durlacher, z’l, passed away in Israel. At 16, she made Aliyah from Philadelphia, met her husband on Kibbutza Sde Eliyahu, had ten children, and thirty-seven grandchildren. She truly loved the land and the Jewish people. If you have ever traveled to Israel with me, personally or professionally, there was a 100 percent chance you met Aunt Rachel. Rachel never left home without her chalil, a simple wooden flute, where she would serenade God’s world with her voice, with her songs, with her heart, and with her soul. And she never left home without something to give to someone in need; a shekel, a gift, a snack, a piece of Torah.

With the miracle of Zoom, our family gathered from the four corners of the earth, at 4:30 a.m. in Los Angeles and 1:30 p.m. in Israel, to remember her sacred life. And just hours later, we were scheduled, also with the miracle of technology, to celebrate my sister’s wedding. And we did. For life must continue, and joy must be recognized and not delayed. Seven different family members around the world recited sheva brachot, toasts and speeches through a screen. At the end of the evening, a bride and groom rejoiced uvchutzot yerushalayim in the streets of Jerusalem.

As I laid my head to sleep, I could not help but marvel at the wisdom of our tradition. Every morning, we recite this Psalm, hafachta mispdi lmachol li, pitachta saki vatazreni simcha; God, You turn my mourning into dancing, You change my sackloths into robes of joy.

12 hours: a funeral and a wedding; Sheva brachot and shiva; tears of mourning, tears of joy; a soul remembered and two souls together as one.

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