Friday 17 March
Today marks the end of the official mourning period for Shani.
It's strange that for a parent we are asked to observe mourning rituals for a full year, and yet for a child, when the thirty day sholshim period finishes you can if you wish go and cut your hair, listen to music, go to parties, and do anything else that the rest of the community does.
But of course it's not the end.
Far, far, from it.
I guess in some way it's an end, but really it's more like a beginning.
A beginning of life without.
It's a beginning of attempting to do a new kind of life without Shani being there.
Because despite the wonderful support that we've received from all of the amazing people around us, at some point, whether today or in a little while, it stops being possible to keep on providing and giving and loving so, so, so much, and it stops being healthy to keep receiving to such an extent, because we, ourselves and together as a family, need to try and find a way to cope with life without.
Shani will never go away,
she'll never vanish from our thoughts,
she'll never stop being part of our family,
her presence will never leave our home,
her gorgeous face and her teddies will always be around us.
Her voice, her laugh, her song remains in our ears,
Her joy, her dance, her smile remains in our minds,
Her strength and her love remains in our hearts.
The pain, however, remains in our tears.
But perhaps, somehow, we might hope to become accustomed to it,
learn to live with it,
to use it to drive us to make the world a brighter place,
and to make Shani's memory a blessing.
All of us.
Over the past few weeks, Shani (hebrew name Shoshana Esther) has been staring at us over and over again from within the words of the Torah.
For two consecutive weeks, her name, the word Shani, has been read out of the Torah -
Shani is turquoise and purple and scarlet,
she covers the house and the presence of God in the midst of the community of Israel in the wilderness.
Last week we read and celebrated the Purim story of Esther,
her strength in dealing with a situation that seemed to have no way out,
the radiance of her inner beauty,
the hidden face of God.
It certainly feels that God is hidden right now.
There's a scene in the superhero movie Avengers Assemble where Hulk approaches the bad guy Loki, brother of Thor, the Norse God of Thunder, and batters and pummels him until he can no longer move, howling and crying out, 'puny God!'.
It's something I wish I could do - an outlet for my anger at the Divine, at the apparent incompetence or heartlessness of the Universe.
How could He leave us with a life without.
And yet it feels like I can't just throw away all of my faith - that would be too much - despite the deep emptiness within, there has to be a way to go on - I still have faith in my community, and I still need the supporting crutch of the rituals of our faith.
At the Shiva, Rabbi Chapper mentioned that the community mourns with us. People have said that the community is trying to find a way to help us cope with the months and years ahead. Perhaps a way to answer the question of 'what can we do?' when there's no longer any need for shepherd's pie or pasta bake is to carry our faith whilst we cannot, to believe and be the community of prayer that we can draw on when we are able, to sing and pray so that there are rituals for us to lean on, to be joyous and celebrate so that we can smile with you.
For if everyone stopped believing, there would be no community.
And if everyone stopped laughing, there would be no way to live a life without.
And alongside that we will remember and cherish the lifetime of love that we were privileged to share with Shani.
As A A Milne almost said
Today marks the end of the official mourning period for Shani.
It's strange that for a parent we are asked to observe mourning rituals for a full year, and yet for a child, when the thirty day sholshim period finishes you can if you wish go and cut your hair, listen to music, go to parties, and do anything else that the rest of the community does.
But of course it's not the end.
Far, far, from it.
I guess in some way it's an end, but really it's more like a beginning.
A beginning of life without.
It's a beginning of attempting to do a new kind of life without Shani being there.
Because despite the wonderful support that we've received from all of the amazing people around us, at some point, whether today or in a little while, it stops being possible to keep on providing and giving and loving so, so, so much, and it stops being healthy to keep receiving to such an extent, because we, ourselves and together as a family, need to try and find a way to cope with life without.
Shani will never go away,
she'll never vanish from our thoughts,
she'll never stop being part of our family,
her presence will never leave our home,
her gorgeous face and her teddies will always be around us.
Her voice, her laugh, her song remains in our ears,
Her joy, her dance, her smile remains in our minds,
Her strength and her love remains in our hearts.
The pain, however, remains in our tears.
But perhaps, somehow, we might hope to become accustomed to it,
learn to live with it,
to use it to drive us to make the world a brighter place,
and to make Shani's memory a blessing.
All of us.
Over the past few weeks, Shani (hebrew name Shoshana Esther) has been staring at us over and over again from within the words of the Torah.
For two consecutive weeks, her name, the word Shani, has been read out of the Torah -
Shani is turquoise and purple and scarlet,
she covers the house and the presence of God in the midst of the community of Israel in the wilderness.
Last week we read and celebrated the Purim story of Esther,
her strength in dealing with a situation that seemed to have no way out,
the radiance of her inner beauty,
the hidden face of God.
It certainly feels that God is hidden right now.
There's a scene in the superhero movie Avengers Assemble where Hulk approaches the bad guy Loki, brother of Thor, the Norse God of Thunder, and batters and pummels him until he can no longer move, howling and crying out, 'puny God!'.
It's something I wish I could do - an outlet for my anger at the Divine, at the apparent incompetence or heartlessness of the Universe.
How could He leave us with a life without.
And yet it feels like I can't just throw away all of my faith - that would be too much - despite the deep emptiness within, there has to be a way to go on - I still have faith in my community, and I still need the supporting crutch of the rituals of our faith.
At the Shiva, Rabbi Chapper mentioned that the community mourns with us. People have said that the community is trying to find a way to help us cope with the months and years ahead. Perhaps a way to answer the question of 'what can we do?' when there's no longer any need for shepherd's pie or pasta bake is to carry our faith whilst we cannot, to believe and be the community of prayer that we can draw on when we are able, to sing and pray so that there are rituals for us to lean on, to be joyous and celebrate so that we can smile with you.
For if everyone stopped believing, there would be no community.
And if everyone stopped laughing, there would be no way to live a life without.
And alongside that we will remember and cherish the lifetime of love that we were privileged to share with Shani.
As A A Milne almost said
'So I think I'll be (nearly) six for ever and ever ...'
