Shabbat Shalom and welcome to Judeo Talk. Today I want to examine a special topic, one that concerns all people regardless of faith or culture. People of all backgrounds deal with the loss of loved ones, but every culture approaches the experience of bereavement differently. Today, I will explain the basics of the Judaic customs surrounding death and mourning.
First and foremost, it must be understood that Judaism is a religion primarily concerned with life and those who live it. While death is an inevitable part of life, the Jewish faith does not preoccupy itself with any aspect of death. Most importantly, traditional Judaic texts have very little to say on the subject of an afterlife. While there is a Hebrew word, shamayim, roughly translated as "Heaven", there is no mention in the Tanakh of an afterlife and the old sages did not spend much time discussing the particulars of any proposed metaphysical model for life after death. As far as Judaism is concerned, life as we live it is the first and often only true concern.
All of the above considered, the Jewish approach to death and mourning centers more around the bereaved than on the departed. There are rules and rituals surrounding how the remains of a person are to be handled, but beyond such necessary concerns there is no ritual surrounding the fate of the individual who has passed. The law states that, unless there are unique circumstances, the body of the deceased must be buried within one day of the time of death. Cremation is traditionally forbidden and the body must be interred in as whole a state as is possible. This includes any separated appendages, removed organs and in some cases the blood itself. Open wounds are to be closed and the body is to be cleaned. A Jewish person is not supposed to be buried in jewelry or other finery.
Aside from the funeral itself, which is usually brief, the central ritual of Jewish bereavement is the act of sitting Shivah. Shivah comes from the Hebrew number Shevah, seven. This is a week-long period of ritual mourning for immediate family. In antiquity it was the tradition for the bereaved to literally tear their clothes during this period, but the modern practice favors attaching a piece of fabric to one's clothes as a symbolic tear. Shivah includes the recitation of special daily prayers and (though it is less frequently observed today) a refrain from bathing until the seven days have passed. The sabbath does not count as one of the seven days and no mourning rituals are to occur on shabbat.
Additionally, the immediate family of the deceased observe the yartzeit, a Yiddish term meaning "time of the year" that marks the date in the Jewish calendar when the loved one died. Every year, the individual observing the yartzeit lights a special candle and says a prayer for their loved one in memorial.
What is important to remember about Jewish mourning is that it is a ritualized recognition of the sadness inherent to loss. Mourners are told to accept their pain rather than attempt to banish it by some means. Boiled down to its simplest form, the Jewish approach to the experiences of life is to feel what is natural for a given situation. Celebrate in happy times, accept sadness in times of pain and loss. To live is to feel all of these things and it would be pointless to ignore what are obviously natural reactions. Death is a very difficult thing to handle, so the Jewish rituals exist to give the bereaved a path to acceptance through honest confrontation.