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thoughts on pastoral care
I consider the first two to be tractable -- not easy, of course, but I understand how to get there given suitable time and effort -- but I sometimes think I just don't grok the third. Sure, sometimes, but the path for turning "sometimes" into "most of the time" isn't clear, and I don't know what concrete endeavors lead to improvement here. People are hard.
This shabbat I found myself in two very different situations in this space, and in both cases I felt confident and didn't worry about being out of my league. That was a bit surprising.
The first one was the easier one (and if this were the only one I probably wouldn't be writing this post). Someone who's been thinking about converting to Judaism for at least a year, but has still felt some ties to Christianity, told me he's decided that Judaism is right but he's extremely hesitant to tell his parents and he wanted my advice. While the explicit question was about dealing with his family, I sensed an implicit question of "how do I know this is really the right choice?". I talked with him about family stuff and how my own family had surprised me with how accepting they were, and we talked about some logistics. But as I talked about my own family I wove in a few bits of how I had come to realize that this was the right path for me. I never said "you'll know because of X", because how can I know what will work for someone else?, but I gave him things to think about.
The second is one of the regular attendees and participants in our synagogue. She told me that a dear friend, a gentile, had died and she had gone to the funeral. She said she didn't participate in the liturgy, it not being hers, and that at one point during it she had said the mourner's kaddish quietly to herself. She wanted to know if this was ok.
"Ok" is such a loaded concept. Was she asking me for a halachic opinion? It seemed unlikely that she wanted me to talk to her about the preconditions for saying kaddish, and similarly, it seemed unlikely that she was asking whether one can say kaddish for a friend (rather than just specified relatives). And anyway, she was asking after the fact (b'diaved). Was she asking whether this was offensive to Christians? That seems unlikely, especially as she did it non-invasively. So I opted for the path of comfort and said something to the effect that it's traditional that we say kaddish among Jews, but mourning is primarily about bringing comfort to the mourner and this obviously brought her comfort. I then told her that when my grandfather died (while I was going through conversion), I attended the high-church Greek-Orthodox funeral and then we proceeded to the graveyard for the burial. I found a time where I wouldn't bother anyone else, stepped a few paces away from the service in progress, and said kaddish for him, reading from a copy I'd tucked into a pocket just in case it became relevant.
I don't know if I handled either of those the "right" way or the way my rabbi would have, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had apparently-useful instincts and enough perceptive ability to see and think about the underlying questions. And both people seemed to be glad that we'd talked, which is a good sign.
But people are still hard. :-)
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I probably don't know enough about paganism to be credible here, but my instinct would be "amen". Partly because that word is nearly universal; it doesn't actually convey a specific religious affiliation. Partly because if I say words from another tradition I add ambiguity when I don't want to convey (in this case) that I'm a pagan. So I would respond from within my tradition, not the other person's, where feasible.
Part of "where feasible" is "doesn't give offense". I wouldn't say to the pagan "may God will it" or the like, because the pagan might believe in many gods or none at all. But I don't see this problem with "amen", which has the semantic content "may it be so" or, sometimes, "I agree with you". (That said, if you bow your head and cross yourself, that may add semantic content that would be better left out. But I don't think you'd do something like that.)
By the way, not being from that community... "so mote it be"? I understand it literally, but what's the origin and what makes this specifically pagan?
I've wanted to say Kaddish at times, quietly, respectfully, as comfort for myself.
Kaddish is interesting. As you probably know, it's not about death. It's an affirmation of God's greatness, period. Mourners say it as a sign that even in their despair they recognize God's sovereignty over everything. (The kaddish is also used at other times, and there are several variations of the text for different purposes.) I think privately, people should find comfort in whatever words do it for them, and there are only issues at all if you're doing something public (that is, in front of other people who might care).
Those underlying questions you talk about, the current behind the question, those are for me the hardest things to read. But it sounds like you do it naturally and well.
I think I am getting better at it (my rabbi remarked on it last summer after the Sh'liach K'hilah program), but I don't know why or how.
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