Judaism

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A FAMILY BROIGES

Dear Rabbi

My husband died three years ago and my children have been quarrelling over matters of the will ever since. I have tried to talk sense into them but the arguments are becoming more common and now they’re hardly speaking to each other. I don’t know the extent to which this goes on in other families but it is devastating me and I wonder whether you could respond with something I can have them read.

Larissa

Dear Larissa

There was a movie some years ago called Avalon, about a Jewish family in Baltimore. The family had the custom of eating Thanksgiving dinner together every year. And the uncle who is the oldest had the honour of cutting the turkey. One year the uncle comes late. The family gets restless, so one of the others cuts the turkey. When the uncle arrives and sees what they did, someone else has taken his place and cut the turkey and they didn’t wait for him, he goes ballistic. He storms out and never comes back for Thanksgiving dinner again.

And then, near the end of the picture, one of the brothers dies, and the uncle, now considerably older and walking on a cane, comes to the funeral. And when the body is lowered into the ground, he weeps inconsolably, refusing to be comforted, and says in a plaintive voice: “Who am I going to fight with now?”

I bet that if I asked how many readers are on the outs with their children, or with siblings, or parents, in-laws etc. the response would be quite overwhelming.

Sometimes the rifts in families are so bad that even a funeral does not bring them together. I got a call to officiate at a funeral. When I asked to meet with the family there was a long silence. And finally, “I’m sorry, Rabbi, but you can’t meet with them.” When I asked why, I was told, “Because the boys are on the outs with each other. They have been angry with each other for years, and they will not be in the same room with one another.”

In another instance (and this happened more than once) I got a call: “Rabbi, are you allowed to have two stone-settings?” At first, I didn’t understand the question. According to Jewish law, you don’t really have to have even one stone-setting. But I asked why they wanted two, and the woman explained, “We aren’t speaking to each other. We’re in court fighting over the inheritance. And so we don’t want to stand near each other. Could we please have two stone-settings?”

Quick as a flash I made up a brand new Jewish tradition. I said that you are not allowed to have even one stone-setting unless all the children are there together. It took time but they made their peace, and then we did the stone-setting.

Kabbala makes the following observation: What is the difference between children and adults? Children don’t harbour grudges. They may declare with all sincerity, “I hate you Mommy,” and mean it in the moment. But fifteen minutes later they’re hugging you and declaring their love once more.

An adult, on the other hand, carries resentment for years and sometimes even a lifetime without forgetting and without forgiving. When an adult says I will not talk to you again, you can be rest assured that five years later they are not on speaking terms. Why the difference? Why do immature children let go of grudges and supposedly mature adults harbour grudges? The answer is this: Children choose being happy over bring right; adults choose being right over being happy.

How utterly sad if not pathetic is it when people behave in that sort of way and their egos are more important to them than their own relationships. They’ll have all the justifications in the world and they may in fact be a hundred percent in the right, but is that really what matters at the end of the day – who was right? Regardless of what people think, you cannot live your life fully when you are estranged from people who are essentially connected to you. In G-d’s world that’s not the way it is supposed to be, not with anyone, let alone family. So tell your kids to park their egos and deal with their problems in a mature way. It’s what your husband would want, it’s what you want, it’s what G-d wants and frankly, deep down, it’s what they want as well.

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