Hi all!
I feel better today. I went to my grocer friend's home (in the community of Givat Ze'ev, just north of Jerusalem) this morning to pay a
shiva call (see
http://www.jewfaq.org/death.htm#Mourning). His widow, brothers & sisters and children (the first-degree relatives who are obligated to mourn) were all there, sitting on cushions on the floor, as per custom. I knew only Yehuda (my deceased friend) & his brother Shimon because it was their grocery. Shimon introduced me around & said that I was from an office near the grocery & was a regular customer. I cited our Sages' dictum that every Jew has one precept (
mitzva) that is specially "theirs" & that he/she fulfills in a unique way. Our great 1st century [acronym="Before Common Era (BC)"]BCE[/acronym] sage Shammai (
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=549&letter=S&search=Shammai) bids us, "receive all men with a cheerful countenance." This was Yehuda (
http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0of10). In the 10.5 years that I have been buying stuff at the grocery, I never saw him without a smile on his face & a kind word for whoever was in the grocery at the moment. Before I left, I greeted everyone with the traditional phrase: "May God comfort/console you among those who mourn for Zion and Jerusalem." The Hebrew is:
HaMakom yenakhem etkhem tokh sha'ar avlei tzion v'yerushalayim. I told them something I heard from Rabbi Shlomo Riskin here in Israel. He said that one of his rabbis pointed out that the word for "God" in the greeting is
HaMakom, literally "The Place." This is considered a name/euphemism for God because God is, of course, in every place. But Rabbi Riskin said that his rabbi put a different spin on it. This rabbi (who was himself in mourning at the time; Rabbi Riskin was paying a
shiva call when he first heard this) motioned around him and told Rabbi Riskin that it is the place, the Land of Israel, it was seeing the Jewish People flourishing again in our country, in the being-rebuilt-before-our-eyes Land of Israel, that was comforting/consoling him. In Amos 9:14-15, we read:
And I will return the captivity of My people Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be plucked up out of their land which I have given them, says the Lord your God.
Yehuda's parents & some of his older siblings came from Iran &
lived the above verses from Amos. Shouldn't those who mourn for him be comforted thereby?
Be well!
ssv
I bet your dog really enjoys getting all that attention, right?
