|
COPYRIGHT 2004 Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Death cannot be and is not the end of life. Man transcends death in
Many altogether naturalistic fashions. He may be immortal biologically through his children; in thought through the survival of his memory; in influence, by virtue of the continuance of his personality as a force among those who come after him{;} and ideally through his identification with the timeless things of the spirit ... {Judaism's} primary meaning {of immortality} is that man contains something independent of the flesh and surviving it, his consciousness and moral capacity, his essential personality--a soul. (1) --Milton Steinberg qtd. in Klein 270
TRADITIONAL JUDAISM IMPARTS A STRUCTURE OF MOURNING THAT assumes a certain practicality of the grieving process. Although there is no presumption in Judaism of the extent to which mourners feel grief or even express that grief, the rituals offer designated time and space for mourning so that mourners can come to grips with the losses they experience. Anne Brener, a psychotherapist who combines traditional Jewish practices with the contemporary and sometimes secular needs of her patients, writes that "{t}he process of mourning is the way in which the rupture created by the death of a person significant to {mourners} can begin to heal ..." (14-15). Judaism recognizes this sense of need for healing through mourning, and its rituals "translate concepts into actions. They connect participants to abstract belief and values that the rituals represent. They convey transcendent meaning and significance" (16). Jewish mourning rituals provide a secure structure that encourages mourners to express their grief in a protective and patient environment. Such an environment enables them to progress toward healing (14-15). This comfort zone can be referred to as a makom (plural: mekomot) nekhamah, (2) literally a "place of comfort."
In a more tangible sense rather than in the ritualistic sense, many forums can nourish a comfortable atmosphere for mourning, depending on the needs and desires of mourners: a synagogue; a mourner's home; a friend's home; a loved one's burial site; a song that reminds mourners of the loved one who died; a journal; or any other place, environment, or object that provides solace in such a grievous time. Judaism allows for this diversity of needs by removing a sense of obligation or commitment from mourners within certain parameters. These parameters are not meant to be confining or burdensome, but rather comforting and therapeutic. According to Alfred J. Kolatch, mourners should focus on mourning and not on other stressful matters (The Second Jewish Book of Why 174). For example, Jewish laws state that a funeral and burial must take place as close in time to the actual death as possible, with a stipulation that a major holiday or shabat takes precedence over the mourning process (Brener 6). However, Judaism accepts the prolongation of burial plans if extenuating logistical reasons--such as family members needing to travel, officiating rabbis being otherwise occupied, and posthumous attention, such as an autopsy, being required for loved ones who have died--deem it appropriate (Klein 286). In this example of extending the preparation time, mourners adapt Jewish traditions to meet their needs, thereby creating a sort of makom nekhamah that allows them to mourn without distractions.
By exploring the various Jewish traditions that surround the mourning process and healing from grief, they surface as a comprehensive, competent lens through which to read memoirs of Holocaust survivors, those mourners whose grief is unfathomable and means of expression are mekomot nekhamah. Of course, this body of literature is subject to multifaceted interpretations and a variety of emplotments, and the possibility exists that not all survivor memoirs could be or should be subject to this methodology of analysis. However, survivor memoirs do serve to perpetuate the memories of Holocaust victims who are unable to do so themselves. Correspondingly, kavod ha'met--respect for the dead--becomes one way to interpret survivor memoirs; the memoirs accordingly exemplify the Jewish concept of gemilut khasadim--acts of kindness--that members of a community should bestow on other people, particularly those people who cannot provide for themselves (Kolatch, The Jewish Book of Why 49; Klein 270; Brener 241). In turn, Holocaust survivor memoirs mourn Holocaust victims, perpetuate victims' memories, provide testimony of atrocities committed, and contribute to the healing process.
Elie Wiesel's Night, Anne Frank's diary, Erica Fischer's Aimee and Jaguar, and Claude Lanzmann's Shoah represent a variety of forms of Holocaust survivor memoir, from autobiographical narrative to portrait, from a child's daily log to documentary film. (3) These texts serve as the writers' mekomot nekhamah, forums through which they can comfortably express themselves. A writer such as Wiesel, an editor such as Frank's father Otto, and informants such as Lilly Wust--a.k.a. Aimee--and those featured in Lanzmann's work cope with much more than the deaths of loved ones and of other victims of the Holocaust. They must also contend with the various demons that surround the circumstances of those deaths, and the extreme situations that they themselves survived. Given these considerable complex factors of the writers' entry points into the literary world, Jewish mourning traditions relate to Holocaust survivor memoirs as a way to read the literature, process it, and understand it. In other words, Wiesel, Frank, Wust, and Lanzmann's informants write or tell of what they are ready and able to, of what they have come to terms with, of what time and distance have made possible to express.
Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub unfold the intense process of expressing one's experiences and reactions to an event as traumatic as the Holocaust. Providing testimony of Holocaust experiences can be a very difficult process for many survivors, but through Laub's work as an interviewer for the Video Archives for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University, Felman and Laub have been able to determine various components of the act of witnessing, including the need for community. Laub acknowledges that the audience of the recounting of traumatic memories participates in the creation of knowledge of the trauma. A victim may experience a trauma, but if no one ever knows about the trauma, about the experience of going through it, and about the survival of it afterward, then the victim has yet to bear witness to it:
By extension, the listener to trauma comes to be a participant and a co-owner of the traumatic event: through {the listener's} very listening, {the listener} comes to partially experience trauma in him-{or her-} self. The relation of the victim to the event of the trauma, therefore, impacts on the relation of the listener to it, and the latter comes to feel the bewilderment, injury, confusion, dread and conflicts that the trauma victim feels.... The listener, therefore, by definition partakes of the struggle of the victim with the memories and residues of {the victim's} traumatic past. The listener has to feel the...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
