Yesterday's funeral

As usual, lots going on here in Israel, but, as usual, I have no profound comments that have not been stated by others regarding those events.  My family's personal events have been, well, uneventful.  We live normal and relatively unremarkable personal lives -- for Israel, that is.

I went to a funeral yesterday.  The decedent, who was born in Manchester, England, had been living in Israel for almost 40 years.  Her death was somewhat of a surprise, inasmuch as she seemed to be in good health when I saw her for the last time about a month ago at a gathering of Anglos in our community here.  She had been complaining Wednesday night of pains.  Her son-in-law, who is an emergency room physician at the hospital where my wife works, did not like what he saw and got her admitted to the hospital.  She died at about 9 AM yesterday morning, and was buried at 2:30 in the afternoon.

Here in Israel, everyone has a right to be buried in the local town cemetery in whatever burial plot happens to be next on the list.  Premium arrangements (e.g., saving a gravesite next to that of one's spouse or other family member) can be made by those willing and able to foot the bill for the same.  No such arrangements were made for our friend in this case; her late husband, who has been gone about 12 years, is buried in another grave in a different section of the same town cemetery.

Unlike the practices in America and elsewhere, there was no casket.  Her body was borne on a litter, covered in a tallit, and placed into the grave.  A board was placed over the body, and the grave was refilled by the funeral attendees.

Following the burial, the family received visitors (my wife and I included) in the departed's old apartment and will continue with sitting shiva there.

In Jewish tradition and culture, death is accepted as G-d's will, and we come to terms with it accordingly.  The body is given a ritual washing, and buried as soon as practicable thereafter.  One of the greatest acts of kindness is to participate in bringing the deceased to his or her burial; any other act of kindness that is done cannot help but have at least some motive for repayment, but the decedent you escort to burial will never, and can never, repay you for your kindness to him or her.  It is a big deal!

Back on Long Island, our Rabbi had a few occasions to round up people for funerals that otherwise would have been sparsely attended (i.e., less than the minyan of ten men), including some where the decedent had little or no connection with the congregation or community.  Fortunately, such was not necessary for yesterday's funeral; the deceased had plenty of local and not-so-local friends and family.

In other cultures, death is denied and/or defied.  Fixing up the deceased's body for a viewing is a form of denial; it is, at best, a highly reluctant form of acknowledgment that our relationship with the departed will henceforth be different than it had been in the past.  The so-called "Viking funerals" where the body is placed in a boat and set afire are a form of derision where death is mocked.

One funeral practice that combines the best aspects of both denial and defiance is the Jazzman's funeral, where the deceased jazz musician is escorted to his or her burial by a band of jazz musicians.  Though typically associated with New Orleans, they have been known to occur in England for British jazz musicians, and elsewhere.  I had occasions, many years ago, to observe them as a fortuitous passer-by in Harrisburg and in Baltimore.  The practice has a certain degree of class and quaintness to it, but it is not in keeping with Jewish funeral and mourning practice and custom.

I hope to receive a proper Jewish burial.

Another Ironic Twist in the Mandela-mania

Thamsanqa Jantjie, the fake sign-language interpreter at the Nelson Mandela memorial service, turns out to be an admitted violent murderer.  Specifically, Jantjie participated in a "necklacing" incident, whereby a gasoline-soaked tire was placed upon the neck of the victim and set afire.

Necklacing has been a widespread problem in South Africa.  Never mind that it was almost always done in the context of black-on-black violence; the practice was endorsed by Nelson Mandela for use by his African National Congress against its rivals.  When Winnie was married to him, she, too, endorsed necklacing.

On several occasions, Mandela was called upon to denounce the practice, and had he done so, the necklacing incidents would have significantly abated.

Between Mandela, Jantjie, and Obama, it was difficult to tell who was the wise guy, who was the foil, and who was the straight man in the comedy act that was the memorial service for Nelson Mandela.  But there is no question as to who was the fool -- it was the Secret Service for allowing a criminally violent sociopath to come within arm's length of the President.

An Important Person

I was in Pennsylvania yesterday and this morning. Returning home was a challenge, what with all of the flooding, but I am now safe and sound back home.

Yesterday, en route from my morning appointment, the car in which I was sitting was approaching an intersection, and the driver, an old friend of mine, noticed a funeral procession approaching from the left, the cars bearing a suction-cupped purple "Funeral" flag. He said, "I wonder who they're burying now?"

I, of course, had no idea, but counted 7 cars after the hearse, and speculated, correctly, that they were headed to the well-known cemetery about 2 miles down the road which was at the next intersection.

The car in front of us turned on his lights and flashers and latched on to the procession. My friend wondered aloud whether he should do likewise, and thus be given pass to go through the numerous stop signs along the road to the cemetery.

I told him to go for it, which he did. We probably could have made slightly better time via an alternate route, what with the slow speed of the funeral cortege (but we got to go through the stop signs). But I think that we did the right thing.

First of all, at Jewish funerals (which this was definitely not), those who attend the services at the funeral home but who, for whatever reason, do not go to the cemetery afterward, often follow the hearse for three steps in order to participate, at least symbolically, in escorting the deceased to the final resting place.

Secondly, along similar logic, we and the car in front of us raised the number of cars following the hearse from 7 to 9, an increase of not quite 29 percent. Note that the more cars a bystander sees following the hearse, the more important they will believe the decedent was in life. Anyone who sees a hearse followed by a long string of cars in the funeral procession invariably thinks, "hey, I don't know who they are burying, but it must really be someone important!"

So our car and the other tag-along increased the decedent's importance rating by 29 percent.

May the decedent, whomever he or she was, rest in peace!

Bubby

Though this posting is not primarily intended as a nostalgic memorial tribute to my two grandmothers, neither can it be entirely devoid of such sentiments. I was fortunate to have known all four of my grandparents. This was all the more fortunate because my mother, in attending to the medical issues which afflicted her at the time, frequently needed help in providing child care to me and my siblings. Much of that need was fulfilled by my grandmothers.

Later on, I was able, nay, privileged, to assist each of my grandmothers in their waning years. For quite a while, I was the one who took Bubby shopping every week or two. And while my other grandmother's living situation provided for those needs, I did attend to drafting and overseeing the execution of certain legal documents for her, which greatly simplified matters for her (and later, for her estate) in ways which were unexpected at the time such arrangements were made.

At the time of the first-mentioned Bubby's demise, I was employed at a situs closer to her apartment than to my home (I was still living with my parents at the time), so the usual routine would be that after I finished working at about 10 or 11 PM, I would drive directly to her apartment, sleep on her couch, and take her shopping the next morning (which was my day off).

One evening, when I arrived at her apartment, my parents, aunt, uncle and cousin were there. I instinctively knew that Bubby had passed on, and so, instead of taking her shopping, I followed Jewish law and tradition by taking my turn watching over her body until the undertaker's men arrived to remove her. I knew that my supervisor was still in, so I called him to inform him that I would not be coming to work for the next 3 or 4 days. My supervisor was certainly empathetic, and told me to take as much time off as I needed. But understand that I was paid on commission, and accordingly, did feel the financial pinch from my absence from work.

Approximately 20 years later, my other Bubby, who had survived well into her 90's, died. By then, I was married, had a child, and had moved away from the area. It was in the middle of the winter, and a storm was approaching. But my wife and I and our son traveled to the funeral, which was a quick and simple graveside affair. My wife and son promptly returned home, arriving just ahead of the worst of the snow. I stayed with my parents for a few days, and then returned on my own, using the services of various cabs and trains, in a 6+ hour trek.

My mother and her siblings all decided to go forward with the burial, even though her brother from California would not be able to arrive for another 36 - 48 hours. But he did arrive, and joined everyone else in sitting shiva at my parents' home.

The unexpected travel certainly caused some glitches in my law practice. My wife had to burn annual leave for the excursion. It was very inconvenient. But now, more than a decade later, nobody regrets how they handled the situation. My son was fortunate enough to know his great-grandmother, and to have had a relationship with her, and all the hassle of pulling him from school to attend the burial for the few minutes he was there was certainly worthwhile.

I cannot help but contrast and compare my family experiences regarding my respective grandmothers' funerals to the way Barack Hussein Obama is attending (or rather, not attending) to his own grandmother's funeral. It seems that Madelyn Payne ("Toot") Dunham's funeral is not planned until sometime in December, more than a full month after her demise.

The funeral arrangements for each of my grandmothers cost me money. Each disrupted my routine and plans, particularly the one after I had moved away from my hometown. As for my uncle, while he was not present at the actual burial, he did arrive as soon as he practically could, and there is no doubt that his plans were also disrupted considerably.

I can understand (and perhaps approve of) Obama's "The-Show-Must-Go-On" attitude when his grandmother died a little more than a day before the election. It strikes me, however, that once the election was over, a man of Barack Hussein Obama's wealth and power should certainly be able to find a way to get himself and his children to Hawaii to pay their respects to the woman who provided even more care to him than my grandmothers provided for me.

I stated it in my posting of 10 November 2008, and I shall now quote Justice Musmanno again:

"Those who have no respect for the dead can have but little appreciation of the dignity of man, either living or dead." -- Kotal v. Goldberg, 375 Pa. 397, 405, 100 A.2d 630, 634 (1953) (Musmanno, J.).


To which I shall add: "Or woman!"