On the Sheloshim of Reb Sholom Herman a"h

These were my remarks at the siyum mishnayos for the conclusion of the sheloshim of my wife's grandfather, Reb Sholom ben Yitzchak Zev Herman ע"ה:

When Avraham learned of Sarah’s passing away, the Torah tells us that Avraham came to eulogize Sarah and to cry over her – lispod le-Sarah ve-livkosah. The commentators ask why the order is seemingly reversed. You would expect him to immediately cry over her and only afterwards to say a eulogy for her. I think an answer can be found in Parashas Mishpatim.

The Torah has a special prohibition against causing pain to a widow or orphans. The Torah then says that if you do mistreat them, when they cry out to Hashem He will hear their cry. Why does the Torah need to add this last part about their crying out to Hashem?

Click here to read moreThe Torah has a special prohibition against causing pain to a widow or orphans. The Torah then says that if you do mistreat them, when they cry out to Hashem He will hear their cry. Why does the Torah need to add this last part about their crying out to Hashem? Everyone cries out to Hashem. Rav Itzelleh Volozhiner explains that the way things normally happen is that when someone does something wrong to you, you go to someone to stand up for you and find a solution. This person is usually your father or your husband. But what happens when you no longer have a father or a husband? There is a hole in your life. The person to whom you used to go is not there and you are missing that special someone who will take that role of your defender. This is the case of the widow and the orphans. They don’t have the person to whom they used to turn, they are missing that part of their lives, and so instead they turn directly to Hashem. When you have that emptiness, a piece of your life that used to be there but is now gone, you turn directly to Hashem and He will be there for you.

I think that is why Avraham first eulogized Sarah and only then cried. Of course he cried immediately, like anyone does when they lose a loved one. But those tears are out of shock. They come from a sense of confusion and disorientation. It is later, after you think about things and how your life is changing, after the eulogy and after the shivah is over and you try to return to life, that you fully realize how you have a hole in that life. There is a piece of your day that is not longer there. That is when the pain of realizing the loss sets in, and a different kind of tears come.

A month ago, we lost someone special. At first we were imagining how our lives would change and that was painful. But as the weeks past, as Shabbos came and went and Zeidy was missing, we began to see our loss. As Purim comes and we have to celebrate it without Zeidy, and then Pesach comes and we have to have a seder without him, and so on throughout the year, we will be feeling our pain once again.

There was something remarkable about the shivah that I think is worth mentioning. The Mishnah that my son Shmuly learned was Sukkah and I helped him finish it off. The last Mishnah tells the story of one of the 24 families of priests. Each family had their own cabinet in the Temple where they would keep their utensils when they weren’t using them. They also had their own ring that they used to keep animals steady while slaughtering them. One family, the family of Bilgah, had their cabinet sealed up and their ring made unusable so they had to use a different family’s cabinet and ring. Why? The Gemara tells the story. The daughter of the head of the family went very far off the religious path and married a Greek man. When in the times of the Hasmoneans the Greeks came into the Temple, this woman went up to the altar and cursed Hashem. As a punishment for that, the cabinet and the ring of that family were made unusable. Asks the Gemara, why should her father be punished for what she said? Is it his fault? The Gemara answers that what a child says is based on what she heard from her parents. At some point, they must have made disparaging remarks and she learned from them and took it further. Children see how their parents act and what they say, and they end up taking those same attitudes, even if in different directions.

The shivah house was a very tearful one. At any time, someone was either crying or had just cried or was about to cry. There was always a tear in someone’s eye, whether my mother-in-law’s or her sister’s or Bobby’s. But somehow, despite that, it was a very warm and welcoming place. I don’t know how they were able to do it, but they made people feel welcome and part of a warm atmosphere even though there was constant pain and sadness. This warmth, this welcoming attitude, is what they learned from Zeidy. It’s what made Zeidy so special and so popular. It’s why why people remember him for years after meeting him and why so many people came to the funeral and to pay shivah calls. It’s his legacy and I hope that it is carried on for future generations.