For the source text click/tap here: Moed Katan 27
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It is written [Yirmiyah 22:10]: Do not cry for the dead, neither shall you shake your head for him. Do not cry for the dead means that one should not cry excessively, and do not shake your head means beyond measure.
The Gemora explains how this is applied: Three days for weeping and seven for lamenting and thirty to refrain from pressing clothes and cutting hair. From that point and on, the Holy One, Blessed be He, says: You are not more compassionate towards him than I.
We explore the notion of excessive mourning and the limits of grief from an archetypal perspective.
I was 17 when I first heard Jaqueline Du Pre play the Elgar Cello Concerto (the saddest piece of music), and weeped.
She died when I was 37 and I weeped again.
As a neurologist I realized how much she suffered with MS and how it robbed her of her divine gift, slowly agonizingly…
Yet our daf admonishes us to not mourn excessively, for אִי אַתֶּם רַחְמָנִים בּוֹ יוֹתֵר מִמֶּנִּי……
I am left only with questions, is human rachmonus different to divine?