Sitting Shiva, Showing Home Movies and Other Tips

I'm almost finished sitting shiva for my brother. Just over two hours left. Soon I'll change out of  my shiva "outfit," the same clothes I've been wearing since leaving for his funeral. Except for Shabbat, I've been wearing the very same outer clothes, skirt and two-layer top. The outer shirt was ripped at the funeral in one of the Jewish customs.

When we sit shiva, weeklong Jewish mourning, one is supposed to ignore the usual dressing and grooming care. No hairbrushing or clean clothes. Also no bathing. Yes for sure, I'm looking forward to taking a shower, shampoo and putting on something clean!

The night before my brother's funeral I was at my New York daughter's, and she took out a set of DVDs that my brother had made from our old home movies. We watched a couple of hours worth. She gave me the package, and I took them home. Yesterday I decided to put them on to watch and turned off the sound. The sound was just some musical accompaniment the "film to DVD" place had added. In the 1950's and early sixties, home movies were silent.

So, in addition to the little album my eldest daughter had made before I left Israel for the funeral, I now had moving pictures of my brother and our family life way back when to show those who came to לנחם linachem, comfort me. These family movies were from about 1956-1960, if I'm not mistaken. There are additional DVDs that follow my parents and us well into the early 1980s when we moved to Shiloh.

Here I am riding my bicycle near our last* Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, NY apartment, 67-62 Springfield Blvd.

I moved the low chair I had been sitting in to a place I could also see the screen, and I'd talk about my brother and the world in which we grew up.

One advantage of showing the home movies over the picture album, which people continued to look at especially since it included photos from his entire life up to a few weeks before my brother died, was because pretty much everyone in the room could see it at once.

Few of those who came had any real idea of what it was like in a place like Bell Park Gardens, which was such an important formative part of our childhood. My brother was ten when we moved to Great Neck. Seeing us and it, in faded color, brought my stories to life far superior to even the most descriptive words.

And for me it was very meaningful and comforting to see my family, parents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends and the locations which loved and shaped us all.

*We lived in three different apartments in Bell Park Gardens from December 1949- August 1962.

Jewish Mourning: Got Up From Shiva Before My Father was Buried

my father and I

All in all, there's nothing more humane, suitable for us humans than the Jewish Laws of Mourning. Sometimes things may seem a bit peculiar, such as the fact that I ended up not only sitting shiva (observing the traditional week-long mourning period) before my father was actually buried, but I ended it before his actual funeral.

my mother and I

What was this based on? You may be wondering. Everything I did was as per the instructions of our local rabbi, Rabbi Elchanan Ben-Nun. What I will write here is all layman style; I do not know on which halachot and tshuvot etc. anything was based on. But I must say that none of this was actually surprising or new to me. Sitting shiva before the funeral takes place is common when family members are separated by great distances or can't travel for other reasons.

After my sister called, the Tuesday morning before Passover, 11 Nissan, that our father had passed away, immediately after notifying my husband and kids I contacted Rav Elchanan. In that very first message to him I made it clear that I would not be traveling to New York for the funeral, nor was I involved with the logistics of the funeral and transporting my father from Arizona to NY. He responded that I should be prepared to sit shiva "immediately." "Immediately" did not mean that very minute, but when he'd make it over to my house in a couple of hours. In the meantime I should arrange to have someone available to do "kri'ah," make the first cut in my ritual ripping of shirt I was wearing, and while waiting I could continue with pre-Passover cleaning etc.

By the time the Rav came over, a few friends knew including the one I had chosen for the "first cut." I had done that for her a number a years ago when her own father had died. She, too, had sat shiva at home with her children in attendance, while the funeral was abroad.

At the same time I was making preparations to sit shiva, nobody was even sure when my father's funeral would be. It was in the middle of the night Arizona time, and American funerals, even Jewish ones, are not all that soon after death. Jewish Law requires that the body should be returned to the ground and soon as possible, generally the same day. Waiting to be buried is considered as making the dead person "suffer."

In Israel our guess was that my father's funeral would be either late Thursday or on Friday. Please don't forget that Friday night began Passover, and the Pesach Seder would be then.

According to Jewish Law, the major holidays, such as Passover, stop shiva, so I knew that I'd be finished Friday early afternoon, and I also knew that even if my father was buried Friday afternoon, the shiva would be very short, possibly counted in minutes only. That is what happened when my mother's mother had died sixty-four 64 years ago.

When Rav Elchanan came over, he supervised the kri'ah and told me that the actual shiva would only begin when I got notice that my father was in the hands of the chevra kadish,  the Jewish Mortuary workers. So I asked my sister to notify me. In the meantime I could continue getting ready for Pesach, as if I could concentrate on anything. I asked about the traditional "after the funeral meal" of round food, like eggs and bagels, or pita, and the rabbi said that I did need it. I asked if I could prepare for that, and he said:

"No, that is the job of the neighbors."

So I let them know, and food arrived when needed. My children came during this crazy time and helped get the house ready for shiva. Once I got notice from my sister, the shiva began for me. And due to the difference in time between New York and Israel, I was already "up" and ready for Passover before my father's New York funeral began.

I am grateful that in this modern world with cellphones and internet I knew immediately that he had passed away, because not all that long ago communication took longer, much longer. If notice of a death is over a month after the fact, then there is only a short symbolic shiva, which happened to a friend of ours. But that's another story...

At my mother's "unveiling." They have a double stone, which has been "waiting" for my father to rejoin her.

I hope that this clarifies things for those who haven't heard how Jewish Mourning can work when not all live in the same area. Please consult with an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi when confronted with such situations.

Fasting and Sleeping, Last Year I Got Up from Shiva...

Today is the 17th of Tammuz, a fast day.

The fast actually commemorates five tragic events that occurred on this date:

1. Moses broke the tablets when he saw the Jewish people worshipping theGolden Calf.

1. During the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, the Jews were forced to cease offering the daily sacrifices due to the lack of sheep.

1. Apostomos burned the holy Torah.1

1. An idol was placed in the Holy Temple.2

1. The walls of Jerusalem were breached by the Romans, in 69 CE, after a lengthy siege. (Three weeks later, after the Jews put up a valiant struggle, the Romans destroyed the second Holy Temple on the 9th of Av.)

1. The Jerusalem Talmud maintains that this is also the date when the Babylonians breached the walls of Jerusalem on their way to destroying the first Temple. (Chabad.com)

Without the help of caffeine I find myself napping a lot on a fast day. Normally I don't nap. Caffeine can override tiredness in many people. I use coffee to perk myself up when traveling. My typing and thinking are more accurate after my morning coffee. It (plus extra water) also gets the kishkes moving preventing certain digestive disorders.

I hope that the vegetable soup simmering on the stove for breaking the fast will be satisfying but not too stimulating. I must sleep well tonight.

my mother
Shirley Spiegelman

Last year on the 17th of Tammuz I got up from shiva for my mother. Since people do come to visit on that last morning I got up and put on my "shiva outfit" with the ripped shirt. I was surprised at how many friends showed up. After we talked awhile, the time came to literally get up. The custom is for someone to walk the mourner out of the house, and so my friends and I walked out together.

Later in the day I went to a neighbor for the weekly T'hillim, Psalms. It was a suitable way for a first "social" event after sitting shiva, while still in the Shloshim thirty day mourning period.

I guess that the 17th of Tammuz will now always have a different significance for me.

Pictures from the funeral and cemetery

 

As usual, I had my trusty old camera with me at my mother's funeral.  I may have taken some of the pictures, for sure those before the actual funeral.  Then I'm pretty sure I handed it to a friend.  My mother is buried in the New Montefiore  Cemetery out on Long Island.  We got off at Exit 49 on the LIE and drove south.

My parents had bought their burial plots there in the Oakland Jewish Center section in about 1959. 

I'm pretty sure they lived next to us when we
were in the five room duplex in Bell Park Gardens.

They were founding members of the shul, Oakland Jewish Center, Bayside NY.  I was hoping to see lots of people I knew, I mean their names on tombstones.  No doubt I'll be back, and then I'll find their old friends.

My father has a lot of relatives in the Neshelsk (a city in Poland that once had a very large active Jewish community) section of a different cemetery.  A cousin was there visiting her parents and grandparents in between my mother's death and funeral.  She told them the news about my mother.

My mother's grave is near one of the outside walls.  It was pretty noisy, but that shouldn't bother her now.

Covering the grave was a group effort.  Due to a shoulder injury I was pretty useless with the shovel.  But I did drop a stone from Shiloh into the grave.  I had brought it with me to make sure my mother had something special from ארץ ישראל Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel.  Most of my mother's grandchildren and all of her great-grandchildren are in Israel.

I was surprised at how much deeper she's buried than we do here in Israel.  There are other differences, the American legally required coffin versus just the shrouds wrapped in a Tallit.  No, I didn't take up the offer to check/see the body.  My brother was pleased at how the shroud covered her.  She was in the simple coffin as all traditional Jews request.  There are many more "traditional Jews" when it comes to burials than living and breathing Jews.

In my community, Shiloh, Israel, actual "kri'ah," ripping of the clothes is the accepted standard.  My high school friend, with whom I had become religious almost fifty years ago,  did the first cut with a knife and Rabbi Dale Polakoff of the Great Neck Synagogue supervised, making sure that the rip was long enough.

Rabbi Polakoff made sure that my mother was well covered.  When the family and friends were gathering to leave, we could still he him heaving the earth onto my mother.  He was overheard telling the cemetery workers that he would take care of it himself.  I'd say that the Great Neck Synagogue is in good hands.

Baruch Dayan Ha'Emet

 

Shirley Spiegelman

שפרה בת אברהם וחיה ריזיה

Shifra bat Avraham and Chaya Raisia

 

לעילוי נשמתה

Li'ilu'i Nishmata

May her Soul be Elevated

The Blessing of a Full Shiva

"Shiva" is actually the Hebrew word for seven 7 שבע sheva.  The same linguistic root for week שבוע shavu'a and oath שְׁבוְּעָה shvu'ah. And just to make things more interesting, the letter שְׁ the "sh" sound has a little dot on the top right.  If you move it to the left, the sound is like an "s." Then the Hebrew שבע sava  means satisfied.

So since my mother died on the 7th of Tamuz, and there's no Jewish Holiday to cancel shiva I get the full seven days, including a Shabbat and time to have been at the funeral, sat with family, was comforted by friends in New York, then flew to Israel to be home in Shiloh, and I still have a full two days of shiva left.

I'm back in my "shiva uniform," ripped shirt and all.