 | The day of the wedding arrived. Hundreds of beggars took their places around tables laden with the best food money could buy. But then tragedy struck . . .
I understand what the second group are saying, but why waste good food when people are starving. That would be a greater sin. Just like at a shiva, let both groups eat in a quiet and dignified manner in memory of the deceased.
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This parable, dear Rabbi, brings to focus for me the whole purpose of my painful life. I was blessed with many intellectual gifts, but eary, realized that I could not partake of the life that was there for me. I worked all of my life with the poor and sick.
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This is a beautiful parable, Rabbi. Thank you for sharing with us.
My daughter will be wed May 1st, this coming year. Yet yesterday, with the completion of the Parsha, both of us were talking about how we were left with a feeling of grief, instead of joy. She mourned the loss of the Patriarchs, their wives and the 'friends' she had met once again as she read the book of Genesis.
Her mourning was not only for this loss, but the knowledge of the losses of the future nation of Israel, based upon their straying from Ha'shem and his law. She began to cry to me, as only a 20-year old girl can do, about the loss of the Temple, and the loss she would perhaps experience someday if something happened to her future husband, even if it was in 50 years from now. "How can I live through such a loss, Mama? How can I love so much and let myself open to such potential for grief?"
I will send her a link to your article now, as I sent her one from Sara Esther Crispe's own wedding, yesterday to try and calm her. She is a young woman who feels deeply and will understand the meaning of what you have shared with us.
She, like her mother, is of the group that would mourn with the father, even if she had never met him before.
Thank you so much.
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why i think that the second group is right how could you eat even if you are terribly hungry if someone died.
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I needed a basis for a lesson, this is great
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Arriving to New York for the first time my brother felt totally lost. Wandering around the city he met a Russian Jew experiencing the same feelings of isolation they walked together. Both hungry and without money they came across a wedding and proceeded to join the festivities. While eating they were approached and asked who invited them. My brother replied all of you and continued eating. Point being once their hunger was announced they were encouraged to stay and eat.
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It seems in life there is loss and there is something that comes out of that loss, what we call the phoenix rising from the ashes.
To come to a wedding feast and have the bride die, is a terrible event, a cause of deep mourning for all.
There is the table and this spread. What of the beggars, should they, eat, or not?
It is surely a personal ethical decision, and could go, in my mind, both ways. Most ethical decisions require the angst of making that decision on either side of uncertain. It's a kind of weighting of decision making. There is no absolute clarity as to how to proceed in so many decisions of ethics.
So I can see here, both sides. And I think there is no one answer but that inner struggle that decides, and one could make an argument both ways, to eat or refrain.
The refrain here in ethical decisions is a constant one, a kind of music that seems ubiquitous in the course of such deciding.
The beggars could eat in a solemn and respectful manner given the grave upset.
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i think this parable is about the concept of hunger: spiritual versus bodily hunger. just eat enough to be satiated. anymore isn't really respectful of the one who is dealing with death/passing/grief, having to watch those partake of cooked meat, especially.
Some people are better at impromptu fasting than others; some always stick to plan; a 'belly jew' is not the same as a creative person who sees the notion of sustenance as being far more than the sum of a meal.
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