It does no harm — in these pre-Tishah B’Av days — to keep both Tehillim 90 and, l’havdil, Donne’s question in the back of the mind

The public notices are ubiquitous, appearing in stark, black letters on every available wall and billboard in the city.

The notices, sadly, appear much too frequently, and inform us that someone has passed away, and after detailing the funeral and shivah information, try to describe in a few lines the life and personality of the deceased: He was a tzaddik, a lamdan, a revered teacher and talmid chacham, a generous benefactor of money and energy, a devoted father and husband (or selfless mother and wife), a courageous exemplar of Yiddishkeit, a devoted Jew, an inspiration to all who knew him or her. Occasionally, in cases of revered leaders, he was all of these, and more. Although these encomia seem boilerplate, many of them are undoubtedly true and well deserved.

Unfortunately, these ornate tributes do not last very long. Within the week, sometimes even within 48 hours, the notice and its eulogy are gone and forgotten, obliterated by a fresh funeral notice plastered on top of it. These departed are surely heading for eternal life, but their death notices have a transient shelf life.

We who stroll by pause for a moment and glance at these announcements. Hmm, anyone we know? No. Well, sorry about this. We mumble a Baruch Dayan HaEmes and continue to our various destinations.

These posters are helpful and informative, but although they convey sadness, and represent grief and tears and mourning and bereft families, and while we may sigh in sympathy, they are, at least for most onlookers, irrelevant.

As we hurry on, we try not to think of King David’s Psalm 90 about the transitory nature of life — baboker yatzitz v’chalaf, la’erev yemoleil v’yaveish — about life being like a delicate flower which blossoms in the morning but is dried up by evening. We are too busy right now to give it any thought. And we certainly don’t want to hear the echoes of, l’havdil, John Donne’s poem — one of the greatest in the English language — in which the village bell tolls whenever there is a funeral, and the poet declares, “Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”

We shake off such musings. We have things to get done; don’t distract me with poetry. But every Shabbos morning we dutifully recite Psalm 90, hoping that perhaps it does not apply to us just yet.

To paraphrase Donne, Ask not for whom the wall notice doth mourn. For the time being, no need to articulate the answer clearly. Life does go on, as do joy and laughter and spiritual growth, until 120 at least.

But it does no harm — in these pre-Tishah B’Av days — to keep both Tehillim 90 and, l’havdil, Donne’s question in the back of the mind….

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1070)