To really help a mourner, don't distract him from his pain
Many years ago, my friend’s wife passed away, leaving him with five young children to raise. When I went to the shivah, I found him surrounded by friends and family, and I felt a bit superfluous. But when I spoke with him, he told me he was very happy I’d come. Because, he elaborated, everyone else had tried to explain to him that his wife’s passing was really a good thing; I was the first to acknowledge that something terrible had happened.
We all understand my friend’s visitors. They tried to assuage his grief by reminding him of one of the pillars of our emunah: Everything Hashem does is for the good, and even the greatest tragedy is really part of His benevolent plan.
Everything they said was true. But they didn’t succeed in comforting him. Where did they go wrong?
Life is like a voyage across the sea. Most of the time, the sailing is smooth. Sometimes there’s a stretch of choppy water. But once in a while, there’s a storm. At some point, most people experience a major crisis when it seems impossible to go on. Those storms of life threaten to pull us out of our world into the narrow cell of our own emotions. Our ship is in danger of being swept away. We need an anchor to hold it in place.
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