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Sometimes the dead bring the living together

This week I had two unexpectedly uplifting moments which revolved around cemeteries

December 11, 2024 08:58
cemetery1.jpg
3 min read

I bring good news – because someone has to, in a world where Jews are feeling attacked and gaslit. Strangely, both of my titbits of positivity involve graveyards, but that’s 2024 for you.

The first involves my father’s grave, the wording of which has been a subject of hot debate with my siblings. We agreed at last on the finer details of punctuation – yes to Oxford commas, yes (reluctantly) to full points after abbreviated letters (Dad’s OBE naturally), and after much discussion about meaning, approved Dad’s favourite biblical quote. All of this would have delighted Dad, who encouraged debate among his children, and was prone to making up statistics in order to stir us to find out the actual facts to win the argument.

But once the wording was agreed we hit a problem. The word God, the stonemasons insisted, had to be written G-d. I felt very strongly that this was an out-dated piece of superstitious nonsense (‘It’s a piece of stone, not a scrap of paper!’), and after all, God is an English word, not a Hebrew one. Eventually the question was referred up to an eminent Dayan. Who said, no problem, you don’t need the dash, either version is fine.

Thank you very much! Orthodoxy need not mean narrow-mindedness; compassion and common sense meant that sunshine and light ruled. It cheered me up enormously that we didn’t have to have a fight or pick another quote altogether, and I felt the Almighty – as well as my father – would have approved.