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.

 

My Shabbat Online

My Shabbat morning was strangely schizophrenic today.

I spent the first part logged on to my home synagogue's brand new streaming feature so that I might partake of our weekly Torah study and to watch the Bar Mitzvah of an extremely involved and capable young man. I haven't yet found a synagogue down here in the Southern Home in which I feel entirely comfortable, so the connection via the interwebs is much like wrapping myself in a warm blanket sent from home, especially on Shabbat.

Following services, I switched on the TV and found myself watching the funeral mass for Justice Antonin Scalia. It isn't as though I am enamoured with funerals, nor do I consider myself ghoulish, but I have been struck this week by the tremendous polarization of the Justice and his opinions, and by the outpouring of both tributes and enmity at his passing. I was curious to see how the Washington elites on both sides of the political aisle might come together to honour a man who was nothing if not extremely controversial throughout his career.

Having little to no previous insight into Justice Scalia's personal life, (such is my lot as a passive Canadian observer) I was surprised to discover that one of his sons is a priest and that he was the celebrant at the mass. I was struck by Fr. Scalia's grace and composure as he honoured his father. As someone who has officiated at many funerals, I was rather surprised at his ability to set aside his own grief for the sake of his faith, and the public ease with which he was able to carry out his religious duties. And so...I tweeted the following:

As a Jew who has officiated at many funerals I am in awe of Fr. Paul #Scalia for his grace & composure for his father. #ScaliaFuneral

— Dawn Bernstein (@guitardawn) February 20, 2016

Within seconds, I was inundated with likes, retweets, and discussions. I have been using Twitter for many years now, and I have never before (even in the Rob Ford heyday) had so many people interact with me. Even more stunning, was the fact that most of them were extremely conservative Christians and right-wing Republicans with whom I have very little in common, at least on the surface. (As I write this, the Twitter interactions are still pouring in.)

But I suppose that just by noting something with decency and with a modicum of courtesy, my tweet struck a nerve with others who were watching. It is easy to heckle and criticize, or to praise and dogmatize Justice Scalia for his opinions and his polarizing views, but today he was being remembered as a father and a devoutly religious man by the people who loved and knew him best...his family.

One woman who engaged me in a very respectful conversation wondered whether or not I felt it "emotionally healthy" that the son was presiding over his father's funeral. And while I am not in any way, shape, or form a therapist, I responded that while I had always abdicated the bimah when my family was involved, I had learned over many years that there is no right or wrong way to deal with grief and death. Perhaps the good Father required this ritual as a tangible method of managing his own sorrow? Perhaps his faith was that which enabled him to get through a very rough personal time, and more importantly, who are we to judge? The woman who asked me the initial question, an atheist by description, quietly and humbly acquiesced.

My interaction today with the Twittersphere was enlightening. We all know of the filth and excrement that can and does burrow deep within, but today showed me that while left and right can fundamentally disagree on politics and religion, there are many out there, on both sides, made up of lovely, decent, and caring people. Believe me when I say that I wouldn't want to see an entire court made up of like-minded justices, but today Antonin Scalia was just a man being mourned in a most profound way by his son and the rest of his family. And in one little corner of Twitter, civility reigned for just a brief moment in time.

Not a bad way to observe Shabbat if I do say.

Making Plans

There is an old Yiddish proverb that goes something like this:

.דער מענטש טראַכט און גאָט לאַכט

Der mentsh trakht un Got lakht.

In short, it roughly translates to "Man plans and God laughs". 

I have always loathed this bit of witticism. The idea that God would have a hand in the day to day actions of individuals is anathema to me, and even worse, that a caring and compassionate God would purposefully play Russian roulette with people's lives by bringing pain and suffering on a whim, runs counter to my entire belief system. Instead, I choose to believe that God exists in the spaces; a divine presence that remains close by in order to provide support and strength during those times when life turns sour. God is found in the comforting touches and glances of The Husband or in my children's voices. God is in my friends' phone calls and emails. The notion of a vindictive God with a personal agenda is unfathomable. The very idea that we shouldn't have longterm goals or intentions because of what the Divine Spirit might do is extraordinarily defeatist. We may as well just curl up into a ball right now and call it a day.

And yet...I have to admit it...I have been stuck for these past five months. My grief has turned into trepidation and it has caused me to spin my wheels on more than one occasion. I haven't been able to plan for anything further out on the calendar than a medical appointment. There have been more than a few Saturday evenings recently where The Husband and I have looked pitifully at one another and wondered aloud why we didn't think to organize an outing or a dinner with friends. It isn't that I don't want to plan, rather it is born out of a fear of what might happen if I ponder the future with too much gusto.

It was my mother who shook me out of my funk. My mother who has suffered a loss so wounding and visceral that even those closest to her can't completely comprehend it, was the one who categorically stated to me that she was looking at some new travel opportunities. To anybody who knows my mom well knows that this is a sign. She was signalling to me and to the outside world that  she needs to get on with her life, even if that idea is wrapped up in a minuscule gesture like looking on the interweb for globetrotting options.

"Life is about the touchstones and the memories we make", she said.

"We have to get on with the business of living."

(And people wonder why I worship and unabashedly adore this woman.)

So, I am back to planning. There will be trips and new experiences; New York this weekend and Newfoundland at the beginning of the summer. There will be simchas and wonderful times ahead this summer and fall celebrating with family and friends. (The marriage of one's child is an amazingly self-reflective event.) There will be new challenges for me to conquer as I embark on the next phase of personal growth and leave my old career behind, and undoubtedly much of all of that will be shared in this space.

And guess what?

I don't hear God laughing at all.