Grief is one of the places where masculinity most often betrays men.

Not because men do not feel deeply. They do. But many men are trained to metabolize loss through motion rather than mourning. Keep working. Keep producing. Keep carrying. Keep the face composed and the calendar full. Do not linger. Do not unravel. Do not make everyone else uncomfortable with the size of your sorrow. A great many men are not taught how to grieve; they are taught how to outpace grief. And then they wonder why it keeps finding them anyway.

The first great loss I was old enough to feel in full was the death of my friend Joel Shickman to cancer. I was twenty-eight—old enough to know death was real, but not yet seasoned enough to understand what grief actually asks of a person. I did not know what to do with the anger, confusion, and sadness that rose up in me. So for a long time, I did the only honest thing I knew how to do: I wept. Sometimes in public; and many times in private.

That is what makes Acharei Mot so piercing. The parsha opens, “after the death of the two sons of Aaron,” and the text moves with startling speed toward procedure. Aaron’s loss is the backdrop;........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)