Midwest Memo
Unspoken
by Alan Shultz

If there could be a perfect day for a funeral,Monday was - the sky so very blue, the gust in the air engaging and with a crispness and the promise of possibilities.

I parked the car some distance from the funeral home. My intuition told me there would be a crowd of mourners. And there were literally hundreds, more folks than I had ever seen at a funeral. The crowd came as no surprise, Adam was a people person.

His death had been the subject of front page headlines and the evening news for two days. Twelve-foot waves and an unyielding lake had turned into disaster for the last sail of the season for four crew comrades. When one man went overboard, the other three attempted a rescue. The crew's destination was the shipyards and they were so very close. But the wind and the waves were unstoppable as the sailboatwas pounded against the rugged wall of the breakwater.

Only one man survived.

I've only been to one other Jewish funeral. That was years ago.

No visitation the night before. No music.

Very few flowers.

At the funeral service onMonday there was clear focus and an unmistakable clarity of purpose.

The family stood in the front of the enormous room - Adam's parents, hiswife and her parents, her brother.

We mourners filed a single line that snaked around the room. The family received each person. Condolenceswere given, exchanged.

On this particular morning Adam's death brought together a wide variety of humanity. Christian and Jew, light skin and dark, the gathering could just as well have been aUnitedNations conference. What a tribute to one individual's life to have known so many different people.

RabbiVictorWeissberg spoke so all could hear. There were no disruptions, no distractions. No babies cried, no cell phones rang.

Adam was young. He was in his early thirties and the sting of losing someone so young was present in the air, an unspoken complaint.

The Rabbi spoke to this unspoken complaint by relating a story. He said the story would notmake sense of the death, that it would not remove that sting. He said it would merely offer some insight. I share the story with you here.

The owner of a fig orchard invited a scholar to teach the scholar's pupils in an inviting meeting areawithin that orchard.

The owner took pleasure in sharing his land in this way.

The students and the scholar enjoyed the setting.

It was the owner's custom to pick the figs at the beginning of the day. Somehow the scholar and the students came

to think that the owner was

picking the fruit in the early morning fearing that the students would steal the fruit from the owner.

The scholar and the students moved their daily meeting to the adjoining open field.

The landowner grieved over this change.

The owner asked the scholar and the students to return to the orchard. He refrained from picking the figs in the morning so that the students would not feel offended.

The students observed that at the end of the day the figs were withered and not the beautiful fruit that the orchard owner had been in the habit of picking.

The Rabbi then observed that some things that are lovely must be taken early.

Little consolation, the Rabbi said, but something to consider.

As I made my way out of the funeral home Monday I was moved by the combination of grieving and hope that intersected at the service for Adam. You are allowed to have both, grief and hope.

Something to consider, as the Rabbi said.