{"id":59,"date":"2012-09-02T23:09:42","date_gmt":"2012-09-02T23:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tattooedjew\/?p=59"},"modified":"2012-09-02T23:50:23","modified_gmt":"2012-09-02T23:50:23","slug":"on-truth-mourning-and-moving-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tattooedjew\/2012\/09\/02\/on-truth-mourning-and-moving-on\/","title":{"rendered":"On truth, mourning, and moving on…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I read today that Egypt has closed the last remaining working synagogue in the country — Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue in Alexandria (you can check out the article for yourself here<\/a>). I can\u2019t find anything about it on the major news sources (NY Times, Huffington Post, etc.) so I\u2019m holding out judgment on whether it\u2019s true or not. That said, I\u2019m not sure that the truth or lack thereof matters, in some fairly significant ways.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t remember the last time a news story made me cry. There are news stories that break my heart. There are news stories that make me sick to my stomach. But this is the first time in a long time that a story has actually made tears come to my eyes.<\/p>\n

I am trying to imagine an entire country in which there is no working synagogue. I\u2019m trying to imaging an entire country in which no synagogue gathers to blow the shofar for Rosh Hashanah, in which no congregations gather to atone on Yom Kippur. I\u2019m imagining no little boys running through the synagogue halls, and no little girls trying on their parent\u2019s kippot.<\/p>\n

Just the imagining breaks my heart.<\/p>\n

It feels like a death to me, and my instinct is to turn to the Kaddish.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s what we do when someone we love dies. We rend our garments. We sit shiva \u2013 the mourners receiving visitors in order to make up the minyan needed to pray the Mourner\u2019s Kaddish. We pray. And pray. And pray. For seven days. For seven days we sit shiva.<\/p>\n

This is what I want to do \u2013 I want to sit shiva for a synagogue that may or may not have closed, because the reality is that synagogues are closed. Mosques are destroyed. Churches are burned down. Politics and fear, hatred and confusion, fundamentalism and rigidity so often rule the day. Faiths fight against each other. Faiths fight within each other. Houses of G\u2026d die every day. So what I want is to sit shiva and pray the Kaddish.<\/p>\n

Because the Kaddish tells us something so important.<\/p>\n

Read it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Kaddish doesn\u2019t talk about death. It doesn\u2019t talk about mourning. It doesn\u2019t talk about sorrow or pain. It talks about the glory of G\u2026d. It talks about peace from Heaven and life upon the people.<\/p>\n

It is good and right and just to talk about these things. People mourn. People feel sorrow. I feel sorrow even at the thought of this synagogue closing. But the Kaddish reminds us that there is more. We sit shiva for seven days because then we must stop. We must get up and live our lives. We must remember that the world continues. We pray the Kaddish to remind us of the glory of G\u2026d, even in the midst of our grief.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t mean this to brush away the (questionable) closing of Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue. Truth or not it is painful. Truth or not, the story represents some very real fears about the nature of separatism, religion, politics, and fundamentalism.<\/p>\n

But the period of shiva ends. We will mourn and we will move on. The shofar will blow. Children will run. Little girls will try on their parents\u2019 kippot. In Egypt, the prayers for Yom Kippur will be prayed. Faith endures. In small places. In small ways. In new synagogues. In new families.<\/p>\n

Faith endures past the mourning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read today that Egypt has closed the last remaining working synagogue in the country — Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue in Alexandria (you can check out the article for yourself here). I can\u2019t find anything about it on the major news sources (NY Times, Huffington Post, etc.) so I\u2019m holding out judgment on whether it\u2019s true…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":436,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[19,21,22,20],"class_list":["post-59","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-egypt","tag-kaddish","tag-mourning","tag-synagogue"],"yoast_head":"\nOn truth, mourning, and moving on... - Tattooed Jew<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tattooedjew\/2012\/09\/02\/on-truth-mourning-and-moving-on\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On truth, mourning, and moving on... - Tattooed Jew\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I read today that Egypt has closed the last remaining working synagogue in the country — Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue in Alexandria (you can check out the article for yourself here). 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