Difficult Promises

by Michelle Friedman
Special To The Jewish Week

My father is in failing health and recently asked to speak with me, his only child, about advance directives regarding his medical care. At the end of the conversation, my dad asked me to promise that he be cremated after his death. I have become more observant over the years but I wasn’t sure if my dad knows that Jewish law forbids cremation. I told him that I couldn’t make such a promise and that he should arrange this with his lawyer. He got very upset, started coughing and said that I was making his already difficult life unhappier by not honoring this last wish. This is so upsetting: how do I deal with these contradicting commandments of honoring my parent versus upholding the ban

against cremation?
Eddie

Dear Eddie,
You describe a painful situation in which you are truly caught between conflicting values, your father’s request for cremation and the explicit prohibition of his choice by Jewish law. Your understandable effort to shift the responsibility to someone else, his lawyer, only aggravated your father. This was clearly not a desirable or satisfying result. In fact, you might have even felt that it achieved the opposite effect, shortening your dad’s life by causing him distress in his weakened condition. Given his response, I would not encourage you to discuss your religious qualms about cremation at this point. Instead, you might try a simple response that avoids an explicit promise such as, “I will try my hardest to carry out your wishes” or “I’ll do the best I can.” If your father pushes you for an oath, I think that making a promise that you know you cannot keep after his passing is the better path to take.

My sister, who was unmarried and died several years ago left a will clearly stipulating that none of her money was to be given to my brother who married a non-Jew or to their future children. While I felt bad about this exclusion, I accepted the full, if modest, inheritance. Now, a year later, my brother’s business is struggling and he has asked me for assistance. Any money that I could give him would come from our sister’s estate, directly or indirectly. Would I be violating my sister’s intention if I helped my brother out?
Ruth

Your situation is both similar and different compared to Eddie’s. You were both asked to be accessories to difficult promises. Both of you felt obliged to pay respects to family members’ requests even when you disagreed with them. Eddie, however, chose to deny his father’s wish for cremation, an act that, in addition to being against Jewish law, is clearly irrevocable. I advised him to tolerate the burden of telling a “white lie” to his father in the service of compassion. Your situation involves money, which is fungible. Your sister’s money has become yours, and it is now your decision how to spend it. If you give or lend some money to your brother, you won’t be violating the will, but you will be going against your sister’s request at this later point in time. A lot of issues are at play in your decision — your relationships with both of your siblings, your own attitudes towards intermarriage and your feelings about giving away money and how your brother intends to spend it. This is a nuanced situation in which no one answer is right, and only you can decide what compromise to make.

Dr. Michelle Friedman, a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and the director of pastoral counseling at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School, invites Jewish Week readers to send questions to advice@jewishweek.org. Issues related to psychology, psychiatry and the interface of mental health and general culture are welcome.

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