Sitting Shiva for Del. Different Traditions of Grieving.
After my friend, Del, died on Tuesday his family has been sitting shiva. Shiva is a Jewish tradition of mourning the loss of a loved one. Del wasn't Jewish, but his husband and husband's family are. Shiva is part of their grieving process. Hawk and I joined them on Tuesday afternoon/evening and again this evening.
It's interesting to me, as a person raised in the Catholic faith, to learn about the traditions of other faiths. One thing interesting and different to me is that the Jewish practice is very prescriptive. In Catholic tradition, there's a funeral service and then there's a wake- though the wake is secular, not religious. Before and after that there's... nothing in the proverbial script.
With shiva there's seven days of mourning. Shiva literally means "seven" in Hebrew. The family gathers in a house during this time, and the house is considered a house of morning. Depending on how devoted the family are to traditions, pictures of the departed are turned face-down, mirrors are covered, and people may even not shower or wear cosmetics. The motive of these traditions is that you're not supposed to do things that are pleasurable, and caring about your appearance is considered pleasure... traditionally.
Every day during shiva there's a recitation of the Mourners' Kaddish, a prayer of remembrance for the dead. Along with the prayers there's an "open floor" for anyone present to share a fond memory of the deceased. It's welcome but not required. Tuesday night I think everyone was still surprised; Del had passed just 12 hours earlier, and nobody was really ready to share. Tonight everyone present, eight of us, shared a memory.
Compared to Catholic traditions, having these regular prayers for 7 days is intense. But it strikes me as helping people get out all their feelings. We get together, we get our feelings out, and we're better prepared after 7 days to move on. ...Not that everyone will move on after 7 days, or even that tradition demands it. Beyond shiva there's shloshim: a period of 30 days (un-coincidentally shloshim means "thirty") from the loss during which mourners resume their regular activities like going to work but are prohibited from pleasurable activities like going to parties or watching movies.
One thing that is very similar between Jewish and Catholic traditions is food. Everyone brings food to the house of mourning. With shiva this is part of the script. And it's done for all seven days. In Catholic tradition it's... just something that people do because it's practical. It's helpful to bring food to the bereaved so they don't have to worry about shopping and cooking in the depths of their grief. As well, extra food in the house feeds well-wishers who stop by. When my father died years ago, my sister's friends brought what seemed like a dozen Costco roast chickens and Sam's Club pizzas to the house. Only empty containers landed in the trash.
Coming back around to things that are different, one thing I like about the way Del's husband and inlaws are practicing shiva is that shiva is not just about him, it's also about the people grieving. That's different from Catholic faith where the only things that are part of the religious script are about the deceased. Here people are sitting shiva for Del, and he wasn't even Jewish. He was Buddhist. But that's okay because shiva isn't his process, it's the survivors' process. I like that because it always struck me as stultifying that funerals and Catholic traditions of grieving were solely focused on the departed and ignored the grief of the bereaved. I decided years ago that funerals should be about remembering fondly the dead and then caring for the living.
It's interesting to me, as a person raised in the Catholic faith, to learn about the traditions of other faiths. One thing interesting and different to me is that the Jewish practice is very prescriptive. In Catholic tradition, there's a funeral service and then there's a wake- though the wake is secular, not religious. Before and after that there's... nothing in the proverbial script.
With shiva there's seven days of mourning. Shiva literally means "seven" in Hebrew. The family gathers in a house during this time, and the house is considered a house of morning. Depending on how devoted the family are to traditions, pictures of the departed are turned face-down, mirrors are covered, and people may even not shower or wear cosmetics. The motive of these traditions is that you're not supposed to do things that are pleasurable, and caring about your appearance is considered pleasure... traditionally.
Every day during shiva there's a recitation of the Mourners' Kaddish, a prayer of remembrance for the dead. Along with the prayers there's an "open floor" for anyone present to share a fond memory of the deceased. It's welcome but not required. Tuesday night I think everyone was still surprised; Del had passed just 12 hours earlier, and nobody was really ready to share. Tonight everyone present, eight of us, shared a memory.
Compared to Catholic traditions, having these regular prayers for 7 days is intense. But it strikes me as helping people get out all their feelings. We get together, we get our feelings out, and we're better prepared after 7 days to move on. ...Not that everyone will move on after 7 days, or even that tradition demands it. Beyond shiva there's shloshim: a period of 30 days (un-coincidentally shloshim means "thirty") from the loss during which mourners resume their regular activities like going to work but are prohibited from pleasurable activities like going to parties or watching movies.
One thing that is very similar between Jewish and Catholic traditions is food. Everyone brings food to the house of mourning. With shiva this is part of the script. And it's done for all seven days. In Catholic tradition it's... just something that people do because it's practical. It's helpful to bring food to the bereaved so they don't have to worry about shopping and cooking in the depths of their grief. As well, extra food in the house feeds well-wishers who stop by. When my father died years ago, my sister's friends brought what seemed like a dozen Costco roast chickens and Sam's Club pizzas to the house. Only empty containers landed in the trash.
Coming back around to things that are different, one thing I like about the way Del's husband and inlaws are practicing shiva is that shiva is not just about him, it's also about the people grieving. That's different from Catholic faith where the only things that are part of the religious script are about the deceased. Here people are sitting shiva for Del, and he wasn't even Jewish. He was Buddhist. But that's okay because shiva isn't his process, it's the survivors' process. I like that because it always struck me as stultifying that funerals and Catholic traditions of grieving were solely focused on the departed and ignored the grief of the bereaved. I decided years ago that funerals should be about remembering fondly the dead and then caring for the living.