Pick and choose religions

[monkey68]

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, since my sister's FIL passed away recently. We're all Jewish, and in the Jewish religion, you have a burial of the body, however, his family decided to cremate him. I have no problems with people that want to do cremation. Personally I wouldn't want that, but that could also be because my religion doesn't allow it and that's what I've been raised with. Now, my BIL's family are not at all religious, more like "traditional" Jews, I guess you would call them. They never go to synagogue, very happily munch on shrimp and pork ribs, etc. But they do have family gatherings on the holidays and a somewhat abbreviated Passover sedar.

Well, since the passing, it's like they've totally disregarded one major part of the funeral and mourning process (doing the cremation) and yet, are going completely all out in other parts. My BIL is not shaving for 30 days, he won't celebrate anything for 1 year. My cousin is getting married in Israel in February, and he was going to go. Now, he says he will still go to Israel so as not to lose the plane ticket, but won't go to the wedding because you're supposed to mourn for 1 year for the death of a parent. They're all sitting shiva on these cardboard boxes that the funeral home gave them, even though everyone is telling them you don't need to sit on cardboard boxes. My BIL won't listen to music or watch TV for 30 days. If my sister is listening to music while she's doing her work, he tells her to turn it off or put on headphones.

I understand that people respond to grief in different ways, and I could even understand if he said if he wouldn't know if he would go to the wedding because he might still be too upset, but I am having a hard time understanding how a person could pick and choose what areas they want to be religious in. If you're religious, then fine, be religious. If you're middle of the road, then fine. If you're not at all, fine. But to go and eat pork BBQ ribs and cremate your father, and then go and say you're not going to celebrate anything for 1 year because that's what the religion says seems a bit strange to me.

I'm sorry if I offended anyone, it wasn't my intention. I'm just having a really hard time understanding it. My family is not religious, and when my grandfather passed away, we had the funeral a couple days later (we waited for my aunt and uncle to fly in from Israel), sat shiva for the week, but then went on with life. My uncle still came for my sister's wedding a few months later even though my grandfather is my uncle's father. But we're not very religious Jews, so it is what it is. Maybe I'm still having a hard time accepting that they did a cremation. Every funeral I've gone to has been for a Jewish person, and there is never a cremation, until this one, and maybe that's what bothering me, coupled with this new religiousness my BIL's family seemed to find. And it's effecting my sister too, since my BIL lost his job a few months ago. He plans on going on job interviews with a beard growing in who know how, and then telling the interviewer he will need an hour a day to go to the synagogue to recite the Kaddish. Really, if you were hiring somebody, would you really take someone like that? So my sister is feeling the stress of it too, because they're living on my sister's paycheck only, and she's working 2 jobs to make ends meet.

Sorry for the length, I am just feel very confused and bothered by everything right now. The death wasn't even anything shocking, he was not a healthy person and had been sick for a while, we all knew it was coming. But everything that's happened afterwards is just kind of getting to me, I guess.

 

[bicker]

Death has a substantial emotional impact on people close to the deceased. Regardless of religious beliefs -- regardless of piety -- people who are close to someone who passes away have the same needs with regard to mourning their loss.

Ritual is often useful in channeling the frustration of powerlessness that we feel when we lose someone close to us.

I made that bold, and made it into its own paragraph, because it is an essential aspect of understanding what your BIL is going through. You may choose to believe that the ritual you go through, as part of your religion, actually means something, or does something, supernatural... as I said before everyone deserves equal dignity and respect with regard to their religious beliefs. However, you cannot deny the truth of what I've written in bold above, i.e., that in addition (perhaps) to whatever you think the ritual means or does, supernaturally, the practice of rituals provides a psychological benefit to those who practice them.

I understand your frustration regarding the seemingly haphazard manner in which you see your BIL's family responding to this loss. However, even if someone decides to follow a specific religion's rituals to the letter, that is still that person's personal decision, and therefore does not differ in context to your BIL's family's decision to practice certain rituals and not others.

I do think that some of the confusion/conflict stems from societal pressures to be religious, especially at times like this. In our society, respect for the practice of ritual associated with grieving a loss tends to be directly proportional to the extent such practice can be labeled "religious". That may prompt some people to practice what you would consider a haphazard form of religious observance. In reality, they're practicing their religious beliefs "religiously", by definition, and as such, such practice deserves all the respect and affording of dignity that any practice of religion warrants.

You yourself indicated that you also practiced an inconsistent practice, by sitting shiva for a week but doing little else. Because that was "less than" the typical invasiveness of religious practice, it probably went unnoticed, but religious practice (or lack thereof) being unnoticed doesn't warrant any more (or less) respect than more typical practice, or more invasive practice.

I find myself in your BIL's situation, to some extent. I was born Jewish, and my mother recently passed away, a practicing (albeit Conservative) Jew. I wore the black ribbon, torn with my own hands. I said the Mourner's Kaddish at her gravesite. However, I'm no longer Jewish. The Jewish rituals I chose to practice I practiced as tribute to her, because she would have wanted me to, not to fulfill the primary operational purpose of such rituals, i.e., lessening the grief I feel. Whereas your BIL's practice may have been more invasive than you'd have expected, I suspect my own practice may have been less invasive than those around me might have expected. That is not to my benefit, and very likely is to my detriment.

I find myself at a disadvantage, really, in how non-invasive my religious practice in recognition of my grief has been. I was not an active member of my religious community before my mother's death (actually as a reflection of my respect for her; I didn't feel comfortable being a practicing, active UU Pantheist while my mother was alive), so I have not shared my grief, in the manner such grief is normally shared within UU fellowships. Each week we UUs share our joys and sorrows at worship, but I have not felt that I've earned the right to share my sorrows yet, with this community I have just started contributing to. I do so in my heart (which is also an option within UU practice), but as I've mentioned several times in this message, there is a reason for the ritutals that develop, and my inadequate participation is, as I've said, to my own detriment. Hopefully, at some point, I'll feel enabled to draw upon the great support that my UU community offers freely. Regardless, I would never begrudge anyone going through what I'm going through whatever they feel they need to redress their grief.

At some point, we'll erect a marker at my mother's grave. And again I'll stand with other Bar Mitzvot and recite prayers that had great meaning for my mother, again, in tribute to her, in recognition of my love and respect for her, in recognition of my love and respect for the man who made her happy for the last ten years, and in recognition of my love and respect for the brothers who will be my second and third greatest supports throughout the rest of my life. Then, later, perhaps at the Autumnal Equinox, I'll come back, and I'll crumble a fallen leaf onto her grave, plant a kernal of corn, and light a stick of incense -- symbolic of the passage of life to nourish new life. You could call my practice haphazard. I hope, though, you'll be able to see it differently.

 

[piglet too]

Is it possible that your BIL did not want his father cremated? That would explain the part of all of this that seems to bother you the most.

As for the other practices, eating pork and shrimp, I know of a lot of Jewish persons who do so. One in particular is pretty devout in everything else, but chooses to be less so on the foods his family eats.

 

[SundancePass]

Bicker, I am sorry for your loss. There is anguish in your post.

 

[bicker]

No so much anguish as deep sadness.

Thank you for your kind words.

 

[Pigeon]

I'm sorry for your loss. I would try to let it go. Everyone deals with loss differently, and if what they are doing helps them out, that's what's really important.

All religions are "pick and choose" to one extent or another. Even the most devout or most observant of any particular denomination may follow the teachings of the denomination to the letter, but the founders or power brokers of the denomination did the picking and choosing as to what the teachings of the denomination would be. You can find others who use the same texts as a basis for their religion who would pick and choose quite differently to define beliefs and practices. Each religion comes up with its own justifications as to why their picking and choosing comes up with the theologically correct interpretation.

 

[challer]

Obviously a sensitive subject. Two things I notice about this situation.

Some people tend to have their religious experiences come out in times of pure joy or sorrow, such as weddings, birth of children, and death. It happens. May not be a pick'n'choose, but rather the emotion comes out as religious frevor, while the daily grind may not inspire.

The Jewish laws of death, burial and mourning are unique, but if you know the tradition, the laws of death & mourning related to the loss of a parent are quite different. The reason for this is that this is the last chance the fulfill the commandment of "Honor thy father & thy mother." (The mourning period lasts 12 months, as opposed to 30 days, etc.) I don't find it too "out there" to feel the need to do this one last thing for a parent even though Jewish practice hasn't spread to the rest of his life.

Obviously, now is not the time to challenge him on this.

 

[bumbershoot]

I would imagine that the choice of cremation was your BIL's father's, not necessarily BIL's. At least I hope so.

And maybe having to go along with his father's wishes on that were so stressful that it's caused him to be stronger in his actions than perhaps he would have been.

"And it's effecting my sister too, since my BIL lost his job a few months ago."

Or it's being without a job for a few months. That can change people, and especially men IMO, drastically. The feelings of not bringing in money when you're used to it can be awful. This isn't job-related, but just last night hubby and I were talking about feelings and gifts, and I found myself being disappointed gift-giving-occasion after gift-giving-occasion (hubby has the best of intentions but NEVER follows through, and I don't get anything that I don't know about already, or he tries to buy the most ridiculous, waste-of-money things that he KNOWS I don't want and I have to stop him, and it's been happening for 8 years and we've talked about it for 8 years, but yesterday was Yule and it happened yet again and he doesn't remember the 8 years of talking about it...again), and I just want to cancel the gift giving occasions so I don't get disappointed. This has to do with your BIL because perhaps he's so frustrated with not getting jobs that he's going to do something that probably will *keep him* from getting jobs, and then it can be blamed, in reality or his head, on the company's discrimination, etc etc.




But ultimately, in terms of picking and choosing, things might seem strange to you, but ya know why, religion of any kind seems strange to some people, and some people see every religious person picking and choosing. My stepdad (and mom when she was alive) sees tattooes as being terrible b/c they were discussed negatively in the Old Testament. But he's Christian and doesn't keep Kosher, even though those foods are discussed just as negatively as tats. He's picking and choosing. A person choosing to be a moderate Jew instead of joining an Orthodox group is picking and choosing, just as much as a casual, bacon-eating person who then mourns for a year is picking and choosing.

I once knew a woman who was planning her wedding. She was having a HUGE wedding, $5000 gown, and her fiance is Jewish. She went through the conversion process, which took much study and time, and she was VERY proud of herself, and he was proud of her and they were VERY much in love and happy to be Jewish. But when I met her in person, she and her fiance sat at the table and ate prosciutto. While talking about the conversion process! Mind-boggling to us, but OK for them in some way.


I certainly hope your BIL finds a job soon, and I hope this year helps his heart heal after losing his father. Parent loss is so sad; inevitable but horribly sad, no matter how much it's expected. to your whole family.