The warmth of community and the sanctity of the words that had comforted so many others before us generated solace, if not meaning. During the next few days till the burial, our services were filled to overflowing, and our students took turns reciting psalms around the clock, as if guarding the bodies of their deceased friends, which they actually did when the bodies arrived from Israel. Matt and Sara were interred in Hartford, because the study of Torah is a source of joy incongruous with mourning. On fast days, Jews refrain from Torah study. We rented four buses to take students to the funeral, where they served as pall bearers and filled the graves with dirt.
Jewish ritual gives a semblance of structure to chaos and a vehicle for expressing anguish.
We affirm our age-old faith, because to live without it is worse. Matt and Sara embodied the noblest ideals of Conservative Judaism. Torah, the service of God, deeds of love. When he finished, there was not a dry eye in the synagogue. One telling example.