Readings

Mourners partake of a special meal, visitors bring a steady stream of food, and some have the custom not to remove food from the shivah home.

Some things are obvious: Don't stride in and announce to all present the latest mazal tov in your family. Don't sit on the side, ignoring the mourner while chatting and giggling with a friend.

For a week after a funeral, the close relatives of the deceased sit and mourn the loss of their relative. “Shiva” is Hebrew for “seven,” since this stage of mourning lasts for seven days.

Koby died on Tuesday, and was buried on Wednesday night. There were two days of mourning before Shabbat

"Remembrance" provides context to deal with the most painful of losses

King Solomon was baffled; Moses turned pale. Indeed, only the most incomprehensible of Divine decrees—the law of the red heifer—can act as an antidote for the most incomprehensible of human experiences—the phenomenon of death.

How is comparing the loss of a loved one to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans two thousand years ago supposed to make me feel any better?

The visitor comes to the house of mourning, silently, to join the bereaved in his loneliness, sorrowfully to sit alongside him, to think his thoughts and to linger on his loss...

For a clearer and deeper understanding of the dynamics of grief, the visitor should be familiar with the results of a psychological study of bereavement...

When my sister died, my inspiration did, too. I wondered: Would I ever laugh again? Why did my life go on when hers had been cut short?

What should I say to someone who lost a loved one? When is the right time? How does one behave?

I don't have patience for the rivers of apple juice flowing across the dining room table, and when the lock on the front door finally breaks, locking me out of my apartment at dinnertime with three starving children, I feel like sitting down on the floor and crying with them. I don't, of course, because I'm the mom...

I wouldn't go. I didn't want to. I felt no connection with a wooden box being put into a hole in the ground. That was not my daddy, it couldn't be. I was not going to have that as my last memory of my daddy.

When we visit someone who has lost a loved one, we want them to know that we are there for them—to comfort them and to give them strength. The best way we can express that is by being silent in order to be guided by their needs...

She asked me what happened. Why did we lose track of each other? I said in those days, with no email, she moved to Israel and I stayed behind. It was harder to work at staying in touch and just easier to let things drop and occasionally hear about her from mutual friends. Life moves on, the everyday routines take over, and slowly the relationship faded away...

I am in the seven-day mourning period for my sister. I am curious about some of the mourning customs.

My neighbor’s father just passed away and Purim will fall within the shiva, seven day mourning period.