[Avodah] loss of infants

[Daniel M. Israel]

On Jun 17, 2012, at 11:29 PM, Eli Turkel wrote:
> I just saw a halachic discussion of this on a recent daf yomi (Nidah 23) from Rav Stav of Har Etzion. He brings a contradiction between two gemarot about whether parents have pain (tzaar) on the death of a "nefel" (under 30 days). He gives two answers which might be relevant to the discussion
> 1) there is pain at the time of burial but it subsides over time in contrast to the loss of an older son/daughter whose pain never diminishes.
> 
> 2) there is a difference between a father who is pained less by the loss of a "nefel" and the pain of the mother who is more effected

I can attest to both of these.  When we lost our second daughter after three days two years ago, a number of list chaveirim e-mailed condolences including statements to the effect, "I know what you are going through, I lost a child at such-and-such an age."  I absolutely appreciated the sentiment, but in each case I did have an immediate response of, "actually it is I who can't imagine what you went through."  As terrible as it was, I can't imagine how much harder it would have been with a child who had grown to the point that I had a real relationship with her.  Also, I definitely saw that it was much harder on my wife then on me, even though I probably spent more time with our daughter, since my wife was recovering from an emergency C-section.  I think the experience of feeling the child develop inside for all those months creates a bond even before the child is born that a father can't really appreciate.

--
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1 at cornell.edu