Celebration

I skipped posting yesterday to attend to my son, family, and guests at Bill’s brit milah.

Some mothers get teary at their boys’ britot, either because of the import of the mitzvah (circumcision is a defining characteristic of a Jewish male and a mitzvah on every Jewish father to see that his son is ritually circumcised) or because of concern for the baby’s discomfort.  Either way, it seems a rather odd reason to throw a party if taken out of context.  I’m not interested in getting into the issues surrounding circumcision, or the movement by adults (primarily males) to discourage it.  What fascinates me is that Jews never miss an opportunity to celebrate.

Years ago, my father told me about a friend’s funeral he had attended.  It was a gathering of friends of the deceased, and was billed not as a funeral or a memorial service, but as a “celebration of So-and-so’s life.”  It was clearly not meant to have a feeling of mourning attached to it, and everyone was expected to show up joyous with fond memories of the loved one to share.

In Judaism, that’s not a funeral; that’s a birthday party or anniversary.  Kohelet (Ecclesiastes 3:4, King James version) says that there is “A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.”  It is important to set aside time for each of these expressions of feelings.  It seems psychologically wrong to me to try to introduce joy into the marking of someone’s death, just as no sadness should be allowed to intrude on a happy occasion (like the time when the bride at a wedding told me the news of the suicide of a child I had once worked with closely).  When Jews announce happy occasions such as births and engagements, the announcement is frequently followed by the expression, “May we know only good news.”  We separate the bitter from the sweet so we can feel each of them more deeply.

I once asked my father why he didn’t discuss his father’s parents more.  (The other side of his family had introduced plenty of colorful stories into the family’s history.)  He said it was because many of his memories of his father’s family were of funerals.  (His grandmother had the unhappy experience of surviving not only her husband, but four of her six children.)  When he said he wished more funerals were like those of his friend, which “celebrated” the person’s life, I pointed out that his grandmother—a devout woman of plumbless devotion to her family—had done just that every day of her life, and didn’t need to wait for a loved one to die to thank God for every day she had with them.  A death for her was not only the loss of a person, but also the loss of a portion of her joy in life.

My eldest daughter this year was very preoccupied with celebrating her half-birthday.  Part of the reason was that she was feeling older, and knew that more responsibility would probably fall on her once the baby was born.  But I suspect it was also that she was in the mood to celebrate something besides the monumental event looming in the form of the baby’s birth.  So the Shabbat before I gave birth to Bill, I baked a cake, frosted it, and decorated it for all three girls’ half-birthdays (which fall within a month of each other).

Bill’s birth has been accompanied by a week-long whirlwind of celebrating—announcing to family and friends, arranging a shalom zachar, planning the brit milah, and announcing the name afterward.  It’s a gigantic horse-pill of joy, sometimes a bit much to swallow in such a short time period, but far be it from me to turn down a chance to gather friends and neighbors together, gladden family members, and begin Bill’s life with a heavy dose of love.

May we know only good news.

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