![]() On what basis is mourning seven days? For it is written, “I shall turn your holidays into mourning” (Amos 8:10 the ability to replace holidays with mourning, described in this verse, suggests a similarity in their overall structure). Why specifically seven? The Talmud (Moed Katan 20a) provides a fascinating answer: In fact, the very concept of shiva – mourning for seven days – hinges on this connection. The right “holiday” mitzvot at the right “holiday” time. In shiva, daily labor is forbidden, replaced by a series of seasonally appropriate mitzvot that, if performed any other week, would be as bizarre and untimely as shaking lulav in the spring. But it is a “holiday” in the sense of structured time, marked by clear start and end dates, which create a break from regular, workaday life. But in aveilut, calendar is core.Īveilut is certainly not a “holiday” in the sense of joy and celebration. One can observe the mitzvot of tefillin or kashrut without consulting a calendar. Death and burial set off a precise timeline: a week of shiva mourning, a month of shloshim mourning, a year of grieving for a parent. The basic structure of aveilut reflects it. ![]() īefore opening up the sources, let’s open ourselves to the idea of Jewish mourning as fundamentally a calendar phenomenon – akin to Pesach, Purim, or Tisha be-Av. If you want Hazal’s most sustained discourse on mourning, you must make the somewhat counterintuitive journey to Moed Katan 3:5–9 or, in the Talmud, Moed Katan 19a–29a. They wrote aveilut as part of Seder Moed, within the tractate Moed Katan (“minor holiday”) that is otherwise devoted to the laws of Hol Ha-Moed. Their decision when codifying the Mishnah was no accident or unsatisfying last resort, but a natural choice, reflective of Hazal’s unique approach to aveilut itself. While both contemporary students and medieval writers have struggled with where to place aveilut, Hazal felt no such qualms. (This itself suggests how modern it is to conceive of mitzvot as a set of life cycle rituals. Imagining such a volume is possible, yet studying one is not, as no classic project to organize Halakhah around lifecycle lines has yet to succeed. Imagine a sefer that begins with birth, milah, and customs around baby-naming that proceeds to childhood education in mitzvot and halakhot relevant to marking bnei mitzvah continues with a full treatment of courtship, weddings, and marital life discusses illness and visiting the sick and concludes with aveilut. Today, students of aveilut often think of it as a lifecycle topic. ![]() Tur (followed by Shulhan Arukh) composed his section on aveilut within Yoreh De’ah, best known for its intricate presentation of kashrut and niddah. Rambam infamously placed his laws of aveilut in, of all places, his Book of Judges, a volume that sets out the political bodies of Jewish self-government. It’s a shame that “none of the above” is not the Mishnah’s seventh order.Įnsuing authors of comprehensive halakhic works faced the same awkward challenge. The options are Kodshim (Temple rites), Zeraim (agricultural law), Nezikin (torts and civil code), Nashim (nuptials and divorce), Taharot (ritual purity and impurity), and Moed (holidays). Consider, for example, the Mishnah’s six topical orders, and contemplate if any serve as an obvious host for a discussion of mourning. Īveilut (the laws of grief and mourning) has no obvious home in the body of Halakhah. ![]() note: this essay won Hadar’s annual Ateret Zvi Prize in Hiddushei Torah.
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