The Many Ways Jews Say Goodbye

Posted on 01/20/2015 by Rivkah Lambert Adler in Beliefs and Practices

The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected.
― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

As happens in traditional Jewish households, when they were living at home, my husband and I gave our children a bracha, a blessing, every Friday night between making Kiddush [the prayer over the wine] and making the motzi [the prayer over the challah]. In some families, only the father gives the blessings, but there is no reason that the mother cannot also bless her children.

Last night, we dropped off our youngest child at the airport. She lives very far away and we don’t get to see her nearly enough. We always give her a bracha as she departs.

My adult daughter stands facing me. She lowers her head to receive my blessing. I put my hands on her head and, using the traditional Hebrew words of the Priestly Blessing that come from the Book of Numbers, I recite the Jewish blessing that allows me to express what parents most want for their children.

May God make you like [the Jewish matriarchs] Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah.
May God bless you and watch over you.
May God shine His face toward you and be gracious to you.
May God lift His face to you and grant you peace.

While my hands remain on her head, I whisper a brief personal prayer on behalf of my child, hug her and tell her I love her. It is always an emotional parting.

It made me think about all of the ways Jews say goodbye.

Jewish ritual acknowledges that the moment of parting can be painful. Ritual allows for us, as Jews, to acknowledge that something is about to change. It gives us a way to begin to transition into a new reality. So we bless our children at the airport before they depart.

And, as we finish reciting the Shemonei Esrei prayer, we take three steps back, as a signal that we are transitioning from the intense concentration and communion with God in the Silent Amidah to whatever comes next.

As Shabbat departs each week, we make Havdalah, the ceremony that separates from between Shabbat and the beginning of the new week.

At the end of Yom Kippur, we have the Neilah service that marks the final hour of the entire Rosh Hashana/Yom Kippur season.

After Sukkot, we say a formal goodbye to the sukkah.

At the end of Sukkot, we have the holiday of Shemini Atzeret, which is, itself, a transition holiday. We are taught that Sukkot is a holiday for all people. But after Sukkot is over, God spends just one more day alone with the Jewish people.

In fact, the day after any of the three Jewish pilgrimage festivals (Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot) are referred to as Isru Chag, extending the parting from the holiness of the holiday just a little longer. It’s something like the Hebrew expression l'hitraot which is a way of saying goodbye that also implies that you'll see the person again soon.

Of course, the final departure is death. And here Jewish ritual offers us the comfort of the viduy, the final confession, in which we ask God to ease our transition into the next world.

Goodbyes are painful. It's comforting to see the many ways that Jewish ritual acknowledges that.