Life Cycle: Ongoing Mourning

Shivah

Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weingberg

In seven days heaven and earth and all they contain were created. In the seven days of shiva, we acknowledge that creation is still present, still possible, despite the loss that we have experienced.

Rabbis Arthur Waskow and Phyllis Berman

Rabbi Isaak Klein

The Shiv'ah period begins immediately after the burial and lasts seven days... The seventh day of the Shiv'ah period does not have to be a complete day; a small part of the final day is enough. Therefore, the mourners sit but a short while after Shaharit on the seventh day and then rise, while the people present offer them the traditional condolence: Hamakom yenachem...

It is customary to cover the mirrors in a house where Shiv'ah is being observed. Many reasons have been offered for this practice. The one most cogent today is that a mirror, as a symbol of human vanity, is out of place in a house of mourning.

While observing Shiv'ah, the mourners should sit on low stools as a sign of mourning.

Mourners should not attend to business or go to work during the Shiv'ah period. If a mourner is of modest means, however, and must work in order to sustain himself, he is permitted to return to work on the third day of Shiv'ah. This means that three days is the minimum mourning period, but as with the seventh day, part of the day (even one hour) counts as a whole day. If abstention from work would result in severe financial loss, the mourner is permitted to work but it is preferable that the work be done by others.

Participation in festivities, attendance at weddings, and listening to music are prohibited. Since leather shoes were considered a luxury, they are forbidden during the Shiv'ah period except when walking outside. Indoors a mourner should wear either socks or cloth slippers; this does not apply to a sick person, or to anyone else who might sustain injury if he does not wear shoes. Bathing and anointing oneself are permitted only for hygienic reasons but not for pleasure. Mourners should not cut their hair or shave ... Conjugal relations are forbidden during the Shiv'ah period

Simcha Paull Raphael

The act of sitting shiva is designed to help the bereaved accept the reality of death. During the first days of shiva, particularly when there is a sudden tragic death, mourners are still in a state of shock. Even though death and burial have taken place, the full emotional impact has not yet set in. However, when visitors come day in and day out to honor a person who has died, and when mourners’ prayers are recited in a shiva home, the irrevocable nature of death begins to dawn. Slowly but surely, mourners begin to sense that they are no longer going to see their loved one again in physical form.

To help mourners move towards a fuller acceptance of death, it is important to be aware of language used in conversations with the bereaved during shiva. Our culture as a whole tends to use polite euphemisms that soften death. People don't die. They expire, depart, pass away, pass on; one loses someone. Visitors in a shiva house may respond to their own discomfort by steering the conversation toward mundane topics and away from death, yet a gentle but realistic, questioning approach can help the bereaved talk openly about the impact of death. It is helpful and healing to say: "Tell me about your mother." "Was this death a surprise to you?" "What was it like as your mother spent her last days fighting cancer?" Doing so will communicate an openness toward death and a willingness to listen to what mourners have to say. Listen! Mourners do have a great deal to say.

Shiva is also a time when ideas about the afterlife can help mourners in the grief journey, using moments of silence, framed as an opportunity for mourners to commune in their heart and mind with the deceased person. The aim is to communicate the concepts that human consciousness survives bodily death and that communion between the world of the living and the world of the dead is possible. Allowing for silence and for connection with the soul of the deceased helps mourners accept the reality of death and move on with their grief journey.

Sheloshim

Rabbi Isaak Klein

The mourning period is arranged to help the bereaved person recover from the state of shock caused by the death of one dear to him. The most intense mourning takes place during the first three days of Shiv'ah; the mourning is only slightly less intense during the remaining days of Shiv'ah. When Shiv'ah concludes, the mourner returns to work, but he continues to observe certain restrictions during the Sheloshim, the period of thirty days following the burial. Among these, he may not attend weddings, dances, and parties or participate in any other form of merriment ...

In former times, all mourners were enjoined not to shave or cut their hair until the conclusion of the Sheloshim, and those who were mourning the death of a parent were urged to go without shaving or cutting their hair until rebuked by friends and acquaintances for untidiness Many authorities have commented that it is not necessary to adhere to this rule in places where being unshaven is considered untidy Nowadays, the prevailing custom is to resume shaving after the conclusion of the Shiv'ah period.

A mourner may not get married during the Sheloshim. An exception is made in the case of a bride or groom whose wedding preparations had already been made before the death occurred. If at all possible, however, the wedding should be postponed at least until after the Shiv'ah.If a man is in mourning for his wife, he must wait until the three Pilgrimage Festivals have passed before remarrying , unless there are small children who need care.

Simchah Paull Raphael

In the weeks after shiva, the support that the bereaved receive from friends and family begins to dissipate, and after the intensity of shiva, there is a slow return to the ongoing demands of life. Children go back to school, neighbors and friends become absorbed in their own lives, and the bereaved begin to feel increasingly alone, and often bewildered, not sure what steps are needed to cope with this loss. The painful truth that must be faced during this time is that one’s love will not return. Life has been forever transformed.

In Jewish tradition, the thirty-day period, sheloshim, is a time of gradual readjustment. It is helpful to recognize sheloshim as a time of transition marking the shift from “initial shock and denial” (Phase One) to “facing the painful truth” (Phase Two).

As the first month passes, shock dissipates, and the emotional intensity of grief is heightened. Frequently, mourners have a much more difficult time emotionally during the six to eight weeks after a death than during the first week or two immediately after shiva... To be helpful, continue to be present for mourners after shiva and sheloshim. Do not say, “Call me if you need me!” because people usually will not respond to such an offer. This phase of the grief journey is at times so painful and overwhelming that people do not have the energy or selfesteem to reach out for help. Mourners need a caregiver who cares enough to reach out to them, who can stay with them in their pain and grief without trying to make the pain go away. They need gentle acceptance, a compassionate heart, and a good listening ear.

The First Year

Rabbi Isaak Klein

All the preceding restrictions are extended to twelve months (even in a leap year) for those who are mourning the death of a parent. In addition, they recite the mourner's Qaddish at every service for eleven months.

Originally Qaddish was recited for twelve months, since it was maintained that the memory of the dead remains fresh for twelve months (B. Ber. 58b). However, since twelve months was also regarded as the maximum period of punishment for the wicked in the heavenly courts, a mourner's saying of Qaddish for twelve months might be interpreted as implying that he felt his parent deserved the maximum penalty. As a result, the period was reduced to eleven months, even in a leap year (Y.D. 376:4 in Rama).

Simcha Paull Raphael

Traditionally, within the rabbinic worldview, Gehenna is an abode of punishment for those who have not lived in accordance with the ways of God and Torah. Although many horrific torments await the wicked in Gehenna, rabbinic literature teaches that it is a realm of purification, in most cases lasting a maximum of twelve months. According to the kabbalists, Gehenna is understood not only in moral and ethical terms, but also in more of a psychological and psychospiritual sense. Gehenna is regarded as a process in which any incomplete or unresolved emotional dimensions of life experience are cleansed and transformed. Like the Rabbis, the kabbalists affirmed that punishment in Gehenna was to be endured for a maximum of twelve months, which, interestingly, corresponds with the time of saying Kaddish. Traditionally, Judaism has taught that the act of saying Kaddish enables the soul of the deceased to be redeemed from the purgations of Gehenna.

There continues to be a spiritual connection between the mourner and the soul of the person who has died, between the living and the dead. During the often gut-wrenching process of grief, the mourner and the soul of a beloved parent, sibling, spouse, or friend are in an interactive relationship working to transform unresolved feelings of anger, rage, resentment, guilt, sadness, and longing into a deeper sense of love, peace, and forgiveness.

The act of saying Kaddish can be a powerful way of deepening one’s internal conversation with the soul of a deceased loved one. On a psychological level, saying Kaddish is a way to remember the deceased with respect and reverence, and it facilitates a gradual acceptance of death and loss. On a spiritual level, saying Kaddish mediates the ongoing relationship between the bereaved and the soul of the person who has died. It is a way of continuing the healing and “finishing old business”25 between the living and the dead.

Yahrtzeit

Rabbi Isaak Klein

Jewish tradition added a further ritual to help meet the crisis of bereavement—the recurrent commemoration of the anniversary of a death. Each year, on the anniversary of death, we keep the Yahrzeit, a solemn day of remembrance in prayer and meditation. The chief expression of the Yahrzeit is the recitation of the Qaddish

Simchah Paull Raphael

If mourners have completed the previous tasks of mourning, as the bereavement process comes to completion they move from mourning to memorialization, from grieving a loss to honoring the memory and the legacy of the one who has died. As throughout the process of bereavement, Jewish death rituals at this stage—yahrzeit and yizkor, in particular—help mourners make the transition though the next stages of grief. In a psychological sense, the yahrzeit, the commemoration of the anniversary of a death, has a simple but important function: it provides mourners with the opportunity to remember the dead person and the legacy that she or he has left behind. Observing the yahrzeit allows mourners to remain in touch with the memory of the deceased one as the cycle of life moves on.

From a spiritual point of view, there is yet another way to consider yahrzeit and yizkor. There is a mystical belief that reciting the Kaddish at the time of a yahrzeit “elevates the soul every year to a higher sphere in [Gan Eden].” Like the funeral, yahrzeit can be seen as a “soul-guiding” ritual, a process that acknowledges that the living and the dead are in an ongoing process of interconnection. Observing the anniversary of a death with ritual intentionality, with kavannah of heart and mind, strengthens the spiritual bond between the world of the living and the soul of the departed. This spiritual bond allows the living to live fully in the present, connected through mystical kinship to those ancestors whom they have known and loved.

Ellen Frankel

So in the Mourner's Kaddish, we press our grief into blessing, forcing praise from our mouths at the very moment when we may feel most like cursing God. It's a discipline, like all prayer. The words are not our own, the sentiments do not arise spontaneously from our hearts, the timing is artificial. We may derive no solace whatsoever from the rote recitation of this ancient Aramaic formula, which we do not understand and which, in any event, is so completely divorced from any references to death or loss. Worst of all, perhaps, nowhere does this prayer acknowledge the loneiness of the solitary mourner, who cannot even recite the words without an audience of nine others.

And so the community gathers to embrace the orphan, the widow, the one estranged by death. They force her to choose life, to bless God's will (chirutei) and to imagine whoelness (shlama) in place of the brokenness she now feels

Rabbi Elliot Dorff

The text says nothing explicit about death or mourning; it simply affirms faith in God. It thus reminds mourners that life continues despite death, that God still rules over us, and that God deserves praise for our own lives and for the deceased whom we once knew. Especially after a tragic death this affirmation may be the last thing that we emotionally want to say, but that is precisely its point: saying it reaffirms the value of life even in the face of death. It also helps us emote about the person we lost. It brings us out of our sadness and anger by having us utter appreciation and praise just when we are tempted to deny the importance of both. In praising God we link ourselves and the one we have lost to eternity.

Siddur Lev Shalem

The Kaddish is not a private prayer; rather, it is recited in community with a minyan present. In that context, the mourner affirms that tragedy has not separated him or her from God or the Jewish people, and, in turn, the communal response then constitutes an acknowledgment of the mourner.

Nessa Rapoport

Loss steals language; you have nothing to say. A loving community buttresses you, feeding you, telling you when to stand and sit, thrusting into your slack hand the prayer book containing the chanted words that, until now, only other people knew by heart.

Chaim Stern

It is hard to sing of oneness when the world is not complete,
when those who once brought wholeness to our life have gone,
and naught but memory can fill the emptiness
their passing leaves behind.
But memory can tell us only what we were,
in company with those we loved;
it cannot help us find what each of us, alone, must now become.
Yet no one is really alone:
those who live no more, echo still within our thoughts and words,
and what they did is part of what we have become.
We do best homage to our dead when we live our lives more fully,
even in the shadow of our loss.
For each of our lives is worth the life of the whole world;
in each one is the breath of the Ultimate One.
In affirming the One, we affirm the worth of each one
whose life, now ended, brought us closer to the Source of life,
in whose unity no one is alone and every life finds purpose.