Even in times of grief, there’s a time to dance

Last week I held a pair of scissors over my son’s head. Gavriel Asher sat on my lap, curls falling around him, as family and friends sang. It was his upsherin, his first haircut, the moment a Jewish boy begins wearing a kippah and tzitzit and starts learning the aleph-bet.

Gavriel was born on October 7th, 2023.

While my wife and I were counting his first breaths, the Jewish world was counting something else. From the very first day of his life, the passing of time carried another meaning, measuring how long our brothers and sisters remained captive in Gaza. His first cry and the first reports of the massacre arrived on the same morning. I have never been able to separate the two, and I am not sure I am supposed to.

Three years later, thank G-d, every hostage has come home. Some came home to embraces, and others came home to be buried with dignity. Still, the darkness does not fully lift. These past weeks, we watched the terrifying events aboard a Flydubai flight, where catastrophe was narrowly averted through extraordinary courage. We see antisemitism rising in ways that frighten us. And yet, in the very same breath, we witness nissim v’niflaos, wonders and miracles that remind us Hashem has not abandoned His people.

Few people have lived this tension more painfully than Rabbi Doron Perez.

• • •

On October 7th, his son Daniel, an IDF tank commander, went missing during the Hamas massacre. For 163 agonizing days the family lived with uncertainty before learning that Daniel had been murdered. His brother Yonatan was shot in the leg while fighting terrorists and, thank G-d, survived.

Yonatan was scheduled to be married ten days after October 7th.

The family went ahead with the wedding. Yonatan, still recovering from his wound, stood beneath the chuppah with his kallah, Galya. He turned to his father and said he could not believe Daniel was not there. The rav spoke about Daniel’s absence, and together they said a perek of Tehillim for him. Then they wiped their tears and celebrated.

They danced.

Not because they had forgotten Daniel. Not because the pain had disappeared. But because Yonatan was alive, and a new Jewish home was being built.

Shlomo HaMelech wrote in Koheles, “Eis sefod v’eis rekod,” a time to mourn and a time to dance. We usually read this as describing different seasons of life. But what happens when the time to mourn and the time to dance arrive together? Sometimes the challenge is not knowing when to mourn and when to dance. It is learning how to do both.

Our tradition builds this idea into the happiest moment of Jewish life.

• • •

The Gemara in Berachos (31a) tells us that Mar, the son of Ravina, made a wedding for his son. When he saw the rabbis becoming carried away in their celebration, he shattered an expensive cup before them. Tosafos connects this incident to our custom of breaking a glass at a wedding, while the Rema brings this custom in the context of remembering the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash.

We do not stop the wedding. We do not cancel the dancing. But we refuse to pretend that the world is whole.

Rabbi Perez did not choose between grief and hope. He carried both down the aisle.

I think about this every time I look at Gavriel. His life began on a day of unimaginable sorrow, yet every milestone has brought our family another reason to celebrate.

Last week, as his curls fell to the floor and everyone around him sang, I was as happy as I have ever been. And still, that joy will always carry the quiet awareness of the day he was born and the lives that were taken as his was just beginning. 

I do not expect that awareness to ever fully leave. I am no longer sure I want it to.

Our enemies chose that day to bring death. Hashem chose that same day to bring my son.

We will never stop mourning. And we will never stop dancing. 

Rabbi Benny Berlin is spiritual leader of BACH in Long Beach. www.bachlongbeach.com.