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MOST OF LIFE is a balancing act. There are many different obligations
and interests competing for our attention, and we try to balance all of
them. We do our best, planning, prioritizing and managing our time.
Sometimes, we realize what our true priorities are when our plans fall
apart.
When we lived in New York, Lisa and I were members of a Chevra Kadisha
(Jewish burial society). Members of a Chevra Kaddisha perform the
tahara, a ritual cleaning of the deceased prior to burial. Four years
ago, on Super Bowl Sunday, I was planning to spend the evening relaxing
and watching the game. It had been a difficult week, and I needed a
break.
After the tahara, as I was walking home, I thought about how odd it was
to go from the Super Bowl to a tahara, and how different these two
events are. The Super Bowl is a celebration of human power and might.
Winning is everything. The members of the winning team, after endless
training in the weight room and on the practice field, are now declared
champions. The losers are forgotten. As Oakland Raiders coach John
Madden once said: "The only yardstick for success our society has is
being a champion. No one remembers anything else."
The Super Bowl and a tahara offer two very different views of power. At
the Super Bowl greatness is only for the powerful and the strong; the
losers are relegated to the dustbin of history. At a tahara, there are
no losers. All human beings, even the weak and unknown, are treated with
great respect because they are in G-d's image.
As I got home that night, I sat down to watch the end of the Super Bowl.
My plans for the day had changed, but so had my priorities. I can't
remember anything about that Super Bowl, but I will always remember that
Jewish World Review Jan. 29, 1999 / 12 Shevat, 5759
A Tahara on
Super Bowl Sunday
By Chaim Steinmetz
But that afternoon, Nina, a Chevra Kaddisha member whose job it was
to organize taharas called. She needed a volunteer for a tahara, and she
wasn't taking no for an answer. Well, there are only so many times I
could give excuses before finally saying yes. I reluctantly agreed,
realizing I would have to miss a full hour of the Super Bowl. I joined
the other volunteers in a side room at Riverside Memorial Chapel,
preparing a fellow Jew for his final journey.
The perspective of a tahara is very different. Rabbi Moshe Sofer
(Teshuvot 2:328) explains that the main purpose of the tahara is to
preserve the dignity of the deceased, because each person is made in the
image of G-d. During a tahara, the dead body is cleaned, with great care
taken not to move the body in a demeaning manner. Afterwards it is
placed in a mikva (ritual bath) in order to achieve a spiritual purity,
and dressed in modest white shrouds. The tahara is a final act of
respect given by the community to a fellow Jew, because even the
lifeless body of a dead person deserves our respect.
JWR contributor Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz is spiritual leader of
Tifereth Beth David Jerusalem in Quebec.
