Dying With A Kiss

Dear friends, 

Moses died differently. So did Miriam and Aaron, as well as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. These six all died, according to the Talmud, with a kiss from the shechinah, the gentle presence of God. Some of us are lucky enough to receive a soft departure, and some less. Dying, I learned this week can, under some circumstances, be a beautiful part of life.

Last Shabbat’s Parashah was Vayechi, “And he lived,” which describes Jacob’s death. The patriarch gathers his children. He blesses his grandchildren. He leaves instructions for his burial. He speaks to each of his sons. Then he lays down and “is gathered to his people.”

This special way of describing death implies a type of reunion with previous generations, possibly with loved ones who have passed. It suggests that dying is an experience that is decidedly not solitary. The word the Torah uses for “people” is actually plural, עמיו, “peoples,” as if to say “when you die you will not be alone.”

The Jewish prayers often associated with death imply a presence that accompanies the dead.

Psalm 121, part of the canon of Psalms in funerals and burials, puts it this way:

יְהוָ֥ה שֹׁמְרֶ֑ךָ יְהוָ֥ה צִ֝לְּךָ֗ עַל־יַ֥ד יְמִינֶֽךָ׃

YHVH is your shomer, your guardian companion, the shadow by your side.

After Jacob breathes his last, we immediately hear about a kiss:

וַיִּפֹּ֥ל יוֹסֵ֖ף עַל־פְּנֵ֣י אָבִ֑יו וַיֵּ֥בְךְּ עָלָ֖יו וַיִּשַּׁק־לֽוֹ׃

“Joseph flung himself upon his father’s face and wept over him and kissed him.”

In our tradition, that kiss is expressed in a variety of physical and spiritual ways. People sit with the body from death until burial, often reciting Psalms. The body is washed and purified, while the washers recite love poetry from the Song of Songs. Some bodies get cleansed in the Mikvah. All of this comes out of a loving concern for the soul, which is imagined to still be present in the vicinity of the body until burial.

Finally, after family and friends express their love and appreciation, the body, now dressed in soft cloth, is laid to rest, and then lovingly covered with the earth from whence it came.

The tradition is signaling to us the importance of a death of beauty. Death is not separate from life, but an integral part of it, and for some it can be a truly wonderful part, if we treat it with the right attention and care.

As I spent the last week with a dear grandparent preparing to pass, I marveled at the sweetness of a blessed departure. Family gathered around her in her final days. She blessed them all and thanked them, and they her. Once she passed, her body received the full treatment that Jews offer their dead. It was as beautiful a death as one could hope for.

This week brought into sharp relief the the brutal deaths of so many Palestinians and Israelis over the last months, many of whom did not even receive proper burial, never mind the unspeakable moment of death itself. This never-ending war in Gaza has robbed so many people of their lives. And it has robbed almost all of those who lost their lives from a loving, dignified death as well.

Let this at least remind us of the glory of a dignified passing, and help us seek the sweetness and blessings in times of transition and loss.Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha