Mel and Carl's Chairs

I recently watched an interview with the children of the great comedy writer Carl Reiner. Carl's kids, including the accomplished actor/director Rob Reiner, were speaking publicly about a donation they made to the National Comedy Centre, which is opening a multimedia wing named for their famous father. Along with seventy-five boxes of scripts, articles, and blog posts, the family donated two chairs from Carl's family room. These were the chairs in which Carl and his lifelong best friend Mel Brooks sat. Carl and Mel first met in 1950, when the legendary Sid Caesar brought them together in the writer's room of Your Show of Shows. The two men collaborated for years on various projects before striking out on their own paths to comedy immortality. Even while pursuing solo projects, their friendship never wavered. After their respective spouses died, Mel would make the short walk to Carl's house every evening, and the two men would have dinner together. Sitting in those very chairs, the two comedy legends would eat, chat, exchange ideas, nap a lot, and critique movies and new comedy talent. They would share memories and bring each other up to date on the family. They repeated this routine every day for years until Covid kept them housebound for some time, ultimately ending with Carl's death in June 2020.

After Carl died, Mel did something that brought tears to my eyes when I heard about it during the interview. Every single day for the entire year after Carl's death, Mel continued his practice of walking over to Carl's home, sitting in those same chairs, and eating dinner. An entire year. It was Mel's way of honouring his friend.

There is no doubt in my mind that Mel, knowingly or not, was engaging in the ritual Jewish mourning practices. Jews have a very specific timeline for grieving. The first seven days of shiva are often very intense and observed by the deceased's immediate family. The family receives visitors so they may be comforted and encircled with care and love. The thirty days following the burial, known as shloshim, will see the family return to daily activities but refrain from parties or other joyous gatherings. Here's where it gets interesting. The twelve months after the death are known as avelut. It is traditional for mourners to attend synagogue daily so that they might say kaddish for their loved one. Avelut ends on the first yahrzeit, or anniversary of the death. I believe that Mel's beautiful ritual of continuing his trek to Carl's home for dinner was in the spirit of Avelut. I have no way of knowing what Mr. Brooks' involvement in or adherence to Jewish ritual is. Still, there is no doubt that he needed to find a way to not only honour his friend, whom he called his brother, but to also move through a process whereby his personal grief was recognized and validated. Dinner at Carl's was his approach to mourning.

Grief is an odd thing. No two people grieve in the same manner and there isn't a cookie-cutter process for acceptance. In all my years of synagogue work, I never saw any two situations that were identical. Judaism offers a roadmap and while it works for many, it doesn't work for all. We attempt to find ways to slog a path through grief. It can be long and arduous or it can be brief and compartmentalized. For some, it never ends.

Carl's children were so moved by Mel's gesture during his year of avelut, that they recognized the public importance of those chairs and knew that they needed to be part of their donation to the museum. When friends become family and family are friends, we needn't separate by DNA. Mel was immediate family to Carl. The rest as they say, is comedy history.