Dutiful

[liv]

I didn't get much job hunting done this week, but never mind.

A friend of my mother's lost her father earlier this week. For various reasons the funeral ended up being on Wednesday, and in Brighton. My parents couldn't go, because they had unmissable commitments here. My siblings (who actually live in Brighton) couldn't go, because P'tite Soeur was working and Screwy was in Germany. So that meant it was my job. I am glad I went, it was the right thing to do, but it involved nearly 8 hours' travelling between inefficient trains and getting caught in a traffic jam when someone gave me a lift back to Cambridge. Also, I had to wear evil shoes all day, which never helps.

Anyway, having spent the whole summer getting my head round the Orthodox way of looking at things, my new-found tolerance was almost spoiled by attending an Orthodox funeral. The idea of separating sexes during a funeral seems really barbaric to me. Really, if a husband and wife, or brother and sister dealing with the very recent loss of a parent want to give eachother a reassuring squeeze, you'd have to be absolutely perverse to see that as inappropriately sexual. And when it comes to denying women the right to participate in mourning rituals, I really can't accept that. Even the most sexist person ever would acknowledge that women are just as grieved by losing a parent (let alone a child or spouse) as men.

In this particular case, it was the daughter and granddaughter who were the most religious of the family, and the ones who most needed to be reciting the mourners' prayer and symbolically burying the body. The sons and sons-in-law are not regular shul-goers and found the whole thing embarrassing rather than comforting. To make it worse, the rabbi got impatient with them when they stumbled over the difficult and unfamiliar Aramaic prayer, but that's not an Orthodox thing, that's a lack of compassion thing.

Also, the Orthodox liturgy is kind of awful. It's full of "don't you dare question God" and even includes that line from Job, The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Well, if it weren't for the weird segregation thing I'd be fine with that, different people find different aspects of theology comforting.

Then I spent pretty much all of yesterday and today proof-reading an ex-colleague's PhD thesis. That's a time-consuming job, but I know it will make a big difference to her to get some help with the language.

On the positive side, I had a lovely time with pseudomonas on Tuesday, using the University Library for actual research (it's not as glamorous as the Bodleian, but still pretty nice!). We dropped into the little Darwin exhibition while we were there, and then had (indifferent) cream tea in Tatties, and then joined jack for supper at the Waterman, which has some of the best pub food I've eaten outside the Pembury recently. Ended up at games evening again, where I played Blokus and Articulate and met even more lovely people I hadn't spoken to the previous week.

Comments

[kass]

I have used that line from Job in Reform funerals, though I think much depends on how the verse is couched. For me it's one expression of human response to loss and to grief; I don't regard it as some kind of statement from on high about how we should respond to the loss of a loved one. But I can see where that could be problematic. More than that, though, I'm here to say: wow, I hadn't actually considered the implications of gender segregation on mourners. That is really tough.

[liv]

I definitely see a valid theological and psychological point to the faithful acceptance response to bereavement. It's the quote from Job, which is either bitterly ironic or absolutely awful if taken straight, which seemed the wrong way to express that kind of faith. I mean, trust in God and believe that Divine consequences are always completely just, and... God might whimsically make a bet with the devil and destroy everything and everyone you care about for no reason. Um, yay?

I agree that it doesn't have to be a command from on high, but in the context of the rest of the Orthodox liturgy, it really comes across that way. And if you take the Job story at face value, you're setting the mourners an unreasonably high standard of how they should respond to bereavement.

I think the segregation thing is really to do with the fact that if one is used to segregated services all the rest of the time, it would be really distracting to suddenly have mixed prayers when it came to a funeral. The problem here is that the deceased was nominally Orthodox but actually hadn't set foot in a shul in 70 years, whereas his relatives were actively Reform (if they were religious at all). So the Orthodox nusach came as a distracting shock to them (and me as a supportive outsider). But it was pitiable to see the family members trying to meet eachothers' eyes across the divide (they didn't have an actual mechitza, but still). What really offends me is not letting women say Kaddish, even if they have to be in a separate place from the men when they do so. On an intellectual level I know where that prohibition comes from, emotionally I just find it incredibly insulting and painful.

[hatam_soferet]

::agrees::

moar hugs

Women reciting kaddish

[lethargic_man]

I've seen women recite kaddish in Orthodox shuls before; even occasionally in Orthodox shuls where women don't normally recite kaddish. (I'm thinking in particular here Ros Landy in Edinburgh, where her parents are buried.)

I'm not an expert on the halacha, and I suspect you'll have different poskim giving strict and lenient interpretations, but the impression I get is that women may recite kaddish if they do so along with a man; and that the reason they don't in most shuls is that (a) they don't know that, (b) it would be changing a well-established custom, and (c) on account of (b) it wouldn't feel right.

Which, *sigh*, is Anglo-Orthodoxy in a nutshell...

Segregation at the funeral

[lethargic_man]

As for the segregation, I would remind you that it's only for the service itself; not for the actual burial. (I suppose theoretically people could desegregate for the funeral oration, but it would be logistically messy.)

Though I have observed it, I hadn't thought about the lack of mechitza before, and it makes me wonder whether the segregation is necessary according to Orthodox halacha, or not. And if not, whether anything could be done about it.

[shreena]

For what it's worth, most Hindu prayers/other "services" (not quite the right word but hey) are gender segregated but funerals are not. I think, basically, because of what you say - that it would be considered cruel to separate spouses, opposite gender siblings, etc, for such an occasion.