The most primal ritual of grief in our tradition is the rending of garments. The word “rending” is too pretty for the violent tearing of fabric with its distinctive sound and sensation. And the timid substitution of ripping a centimeter of black ribbon is far from the original concept. If you want to know what is intended by kriah, the tearing of one’s garments, just look at Genesis 37: 29-35.
When Reuben realizes that Joseph is gone, he tears his garments and says something incoherent to his brothers, literally, “the child is not, and I, where am I going”? A few verses later it is Jacob who receives the terrible news about his beloved son and immediately tears his garments, putting on a sack, and mourning Joseph “for many days.” In truth, he will never stop.
After the calamity and their dramatic responses of tearing clothes, Reuben and Jacob are never again quite the same. Reuben has lost his leadership, and the one time he tries to advise his father (42:37), his idea is foolish and is ignored by his father. Jacob will be bitter until the end.
The tearing of garments is not only a symbol of grief. It indicates something much deeper, like a wound, a gaping hole in the soul. Indeed, when the Talmud seeks to define mental illness, using the category of shoteh, the sages offer three symptoms—a person who wanders alone at night, who sleeps in a cemetery, and who tears their garments. When a mourner tears garments in response to the death of a relative, it is as if to say, “I am crazy with grief, don’t try to talk with me, because I am not me without them.” Halakhah stipulates that a mourner must tear a least a hand-breadth of cloth in their garment—front and center, starting from the throat and down to the heart—as a way of acting out their grief. Continue reading