The disruptions to normal life during the mourning period for the Queen were not an annoying by-product of mourning but the point of it, as is the case during the High Holy Days
September 29, 2022 10:32
The football stopped, the Met Office announced it was restricting its services, Domino’s Pizza announced how sorry they were. There were moments in the days after the death of Her Majesty the Queen when people questioned whether we were all going a bit over the top. When the local swimming baths announced they were closing for a week out of respect, we asked whimsically whether that was what she would have wanted.
Well, I’ve no idea whether it is what she would have wanted, but it is what I wanted. I did not think it was over the top. I thought it was entirely appropriate.
It is always possible, after any national commemoration, to question whether the fuss and the expenditure was really necessary. After all, the world would still turn if you didn’t do it. People would still earn, they would still learn, they would still eat.
When we spent all that money on the Olympics, for instance, what on Earth was the point? We could have built hospitals and funded new agencies and helped some poor people. Instead, we spent it building a stadium to see who could do the longest jump into a sandpit. And celebrated when it turned out that person was British.
Yet I don’t have any trouble answering that question.
What’s the point? The point is that one of the things that gives our lives meaning and zest and form is our relationship with other people. Enjoying things together, mourning together, pausing together, sharing moments of thoughtfulness and respect and stillness together.
It is true that after the Queen’s death, there was the occasional irritation of discovering that some useful service was unavailable for a day or two for what appeared spurious reasons.
Yet on this I make two observations.
In a year’s time, probably even in a week’s time, the inconvenience will have faded while the memory of the sombre but beautiful commemoration of the passing of the monarch will remain.
How long will we all remember the pall bearers as they made their way round the coffin, marching in step, their movements so intricate it was hard to believe?
How long will we remember the silence as, heads bowed, the crowd watched our late monarch on her last journey to Windsor Castle?
How long will we remember the calls of “God save the King”, as the new monarch emerged to greet the crowds and acknowledge the vigil?
I believe even those without a particular interest in the British monarchy will remember it all their days.
And this brings me to the second point.
This memory was not fashioned despite all the disruption that was caused to daily life. It was, at least partly, because of the disruption. The disruption is what made it special, what made it different, what marked it out.
It is because of what it cost us that we value the benefits so much.
Perhaps my point here is obvious during this High Holy Day period. The rituals — some sombre, some joyous, all beautiful — of this time of year are what we remember. Rosh Hashanah lunch at my sister’s is a highlight of the year.
But what makes Jewish festivals special is the disruption.
The fact that Rosh Hashanah falls on the day of an important work meeting, or that work lunchtime is a nuisance during Passover, or that Yom Kippur keeps the children out of school just as their year of study is getting going; this is what makes the festivals memorable.
I always puzzle friends by saying that one of the times I feel my Judaism most keenly, and hug it tightest to me, is on Christmas Day, when everyone else is celebrating a festival that leaves me out. It is what I am — for want of a better word — sacrificing that helps make what we have feel so special.
The death of the Queen showed on a national scale what we Jews appreciate all the time. The majesty of ritual, its mystery and its worth. Its unspoken power to transport us, to speak to us, to unite us.
And that it isn’t just that taking trouble is worth what we get back from it.
It is that taking trouble is a large part of what makes it worthwhile at all.
Daniel Finkelstein is associate editor of The Times
