psychological stability

There are reasons that psychologically the religious should be better off- they have to be.  A religious person is not allowed to be overly morose; ever.   Real belief in spirituality entails an overarching goodness to the world that applies in all situations, even the real tough ones.  But let’s be more specific because platitudes are not enough especially when we have trouble seeing that the platitude is true, namely that the world is good.

The Torah introduces this week (Deuteronomy, 14:1) that a person is not allowed to cut himself when a person he cares about dies.  Why? The verse prefaces, because we are G-d’s children.   The logical question is, so what? How does being G-d’s children alleviate the present tragedy we are in?  The answer is that a child shares characteristics with his parents.  And one of the characteristics we share with G-d is that we have an eternal aspect.  Therefore, the view of death from our perspective is very different than the reality. The person may have disappeared from the present place but he did not disappear altogether.  It is like the case of a father who sends his son to do business in a certain place. After a period of time, it is time to come home.  The place where he was temporarily may miss him but for the son himself, reunification with his father is a joyous occasion.

However, there is a problem.  If death really ain’t so bad, why mourn at all?  Like the Greek Stoics, we should remain calm and exude joy for the truth of the heavenly reunion.  That approach is not entirely true because it dismisses the fact that while we are G-d’s children and contain an aspect of the eternal, there is also an aspect within us that is finite.  That part cannot understand the tragedy from any other perspective other than the current absence of the person.  For the human side of us it is appropriate to mourn, and if we don’t we are considered cruel.  That is the balance a spiritual person strives for- a mitigated mourning that reflects both the reality of this world and the next.