Chullin 36

Hook

In the quiet rooms of memory, we often find ourselves wrestling with the "in-between." There is a specific, ache-filled space that exists between what we know to be true and what remains stubbornly uncertain. When we lose someone, or when a season of our life reaches a sudden, jarring halt, we look for clarity. We want to know what is "pure" and what is "tainted," what we can carry forward and what must be left behind. Yet, grief rarely offers the comfort of a clean divide.

The rabbis of the Talmud, in their pursuit of law and sanctity, often occupied this very space. In Chullin 36, they debate the status of blood spilled during slaughter: does it render food impure, or does it leave it untouched? They wrestle with the "abeyance"—the state of taliyah, where we are told we can neither eat of the fruit nor burn it. This ancient legal dilemma mirrors our own emotional landscape. Sometimes, our grief is not a simple path of "letting go" or "holding on." It is a state of suspension, where we stand in the doorway, honoring the memory of what was, without yet knowing how to sanctify the future. This ritual is for those moments of ambiguity—for when you are not ready to let go, but you cannot remain where you are.

Text Snapshot

"Rabbi Ḥiyya says: If the gourd came into contact with a source of impurity, one places the matter in abeyance... one may neither eat the gourd, as perhaps it is impure, nor may one burn it, as perhaps it is pure." Chullin 36a

"And this is what Rabbi Ḥiyya is saying: In a case such as this, one places the matter in abeyance; one may neither eat the gourd nor burn it." Chullin 36a

Kavvanah

To hold a Kavvanah (intention) during a time of grief is to acknowledge that we do not need to resolve our hearts immediately. We are conditioned by a culture that demands "closure," as if love were a ledger that could be balanced and closed out. But the wisdom of the Sages teaches us that there is a sacredness in the taliyah—the holding in place.

When you feel the friction of your grief—the feeling that you are stuck in a liminal space where you cannot move forward into the lightness of joy, but you cannot simply cast away the weight of your sorrow—breathe into that uncertainty. You do not have to "solve" your grief today. You do not have to decide if your memories are "too heavy" to carry or "too precious" to release.

Allow yourself to exist in the abeyance. This intention is not a mark of failure; it is a mark of profound respect for the complexity of the life that has been lived. Just as the Rabbis argued over the status of the gourd, knowing that rushing to a conclusion might lead to error, you are invited to pause. Hold your memories in the abeyance of your heart. Let them be neither consumed by the rush of daily life nor discarded in the fire of forgetting. By holding them in this suspended state, you are effectively saying: "I am not ready to change the status of this relationship yet." And that is a holy, valid, and necessary stance to take. You are the steward of this uncertainty. In this space, you are not lost; you are simply waiting for the truth of the situation to reveal its own timing.

Practice

The practice of taliyah (abeyance) is a physical act of containment. Because grief often feels like it is spilling over—like the blood on the gourd in our text—we need a way to gather it without feeling the pressure to "clean it up" or "move on."

The Vessel of Abeyance

Find a small, physical object that represents a piece of your grief—a stone, a dried leaf, a ribbon, or a photograph. Do not choose something that represents the entirety of your loss, but rather one specific, stinging, or tender aspect of it.

1. Create the Space: Place this object on a small plate or in a shallow bowl. This vessel represents the "gourd" from our text—the place where the experience has touched down.
2. The Act of Holding: For five minutes, sit with this vessel. You are not meant to "fix" the object or "release" it. Your only task is to witness it. If you feel the urge to judge your grief—to say, "I should be over this by now," or "I should be feeling something else"—gently label that thought as "rushing" and return your attention to the object.
3. The Non-Resolution: At the end of the five minutes, do not throw the object away, and do not try to make it "useful" or "happy" again. Place the vessel on a shelf or in a drawer that you can see but don't need to interact with. This is your "abeyance."
4. The Reminder: You are allowed to leave it there. You are allowed to let it sit in the uncertainty of its own existence. Whenever you walk past this vessel, acknowledge: "This is currently in abeyance. It is neither ready to be consumed nor ready to be destroyed. It is simply mine to hold."

By physically setting aside this piece of your memory, you give your nervous system permission to stop trying to force a resolution. You are acknowledging the complexity of your loss by giving it a permanent, if temporary, home.

Community

Grief can make us feel like we are the only ones holding an "impure" or "uncertain" object, while everyone else seems to have moved on to clean, resolved lives. The beauty of the Talmudic tradition is that these debates were never held in solitude; they were held in the Beit Midrash, the house of study, where the point was not to "win," but to voice the tension.

Sharing the Uncertainty

Reach out to one person—a trusted friend, a sibling, or a fellow mourner—and share this specific sentence: "I am currently in a space of abeyance regarding [the memory/the person/the loss], and I am choosing not to resolve it right now."

You are not asking for advice. You are not asking them to help you "burn" the grief away or "eat" it by moving past it. You are asking them to witness your taliyah. By speaking this aloud, you release the burden of holding the uncertainty in total isolation. You invite another person to witness the fact that you are navigating a complex, unresolved, and entirely sacred space. You might find that by stating your need for abeyance, you give your friend permission to do the same with their own hidden struggles. We carry each other by witnessing the parts of our lives that are currently "waiting."

Takeaway

The Talmudic struggle in Chullin 36 reminds us that holiness is often found in the suspension of judgment. We are so quick to label our experiences as either "useful" or "broken," "pure" or "impure." But your grief is a living thing. It does not need to follow the laws of utility. It is allowed to sit in the space between, held in a state of grace, waiting for the time when you are ready to decide what becomes of it. Trust the abeyance. It is a shelter, not a prison.