THE CURRENT → THE BEAT Issue 947 · February 1, 2023

How Jews Mourn

We don’t commemorate tragedy with flowers; instead, we say Kaddish, acknowledging the Divine inner core of events, however harsh they seem

How Jews Mourn

No longer a resident of the city, I first heard of the Neve Yaakov massacre on Motzaei Shabbos. But having seen the aftermath of too many attacks over the years, the news brought to mind the traumatic combination of sound and light that follows these attacks.

As I walked over the ground where these kedoshim had fallen shortly before, in preparation for the report that appears later in this magazine, I was struck by two recurring thoughts.

One is the chilling sense of how transient our horror is. Surely, at a scene of such slaughter, there should be something dramatic to mark the spot — a pillar of fire, a thundercloud, a pool of seething blood to commemorate the evil that has taken place?

Instead, there is nothing. People have died, lives have been taken in a horrific spectacle of violence, and the earth, as it were, covers their blood.

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