A Shortened Shiva: Shortchanging Jewish Law?

Religion is full of “shoulds” and “musts.” But feelings follow laws of their own, exacting their own in-house penalties when they are broken. Judaism has many laws for grievers, including the length of the formal mourning period known as shiva. The usual proscribed length is seven days. For someone adhering to Jewish law, the only way to shorten this period of sitting at home, praying there with a minyan (quorum for public prayer), receiving visitors and so on is if a Jewish holiday occurs during that week. In that case, the remaining days of the shiva are cancelled, whether the mourners wish for that or not.

But what if the mourner, rather than the Jewish calendar, wishes to shorten shiva? Let’s have a look at the following situation (a true story): the person in this scenario who died had dementia. Her son said to the Jewish chaplain, “My mother did not die today; she died when she forgot who I was.” The literal death took place sometime afterwards, from perhaps several months to over a year since she had stopped recognizing her son. He then expressed his wish to the chaplain to have a shortened shiva. The chaplain objected, saying, “We have the shiva for a very good reason. It helps us take the time we need to mourn.”

On one level she is right. If anything, in this death-denying society, we tend to be grief-denying as well. Judaism wisely errs on the side of mandating permission to grieve publicly. Not only are there the seven days of shiva, but as many of you know, Judaism acknowledges the grieving process with longer time periods (such as the thirty-day period after the death called shloshim with far less restrictions than shiva). On the emotional level, however, she was, um, “dead” wrong. Look again at what the son was telling her. He started grieving the loss of his mother once he became unknown to her, not once the shovels of dirt thudded onto the casket. Emotionally speaking, shiva had commenced for him way before the physical death. The fancy-shmancy way to describe what he had experienced is anticipatory grief. That is, this gentleman had done a sizeable share of his grief work in advance. Been there, done that.

Let us suppose that in deference to Jewish law and despite his feelings he had sat shiva for the full seven days after all. No, it would not have killed him, but he would have had to feign an intense grief he did not feel. He would have had to listen to innumerable people console him for this fresh loss that did not feel fresh. Instead of the shiva aiding him in expressing his grief, it would have forced him to put on a show, thus adding to, not lessening, his distress. By not violating Jewish law, he would have violated his feelings. One of our most pressing needs as humans and as mourners in particular, is for people to acknowledge our true feelings.  In sum, shiva is very helpful for the initial stages but not the later stages of grieving.

I think what drives Jewish laws about mourning is compassion. The laws try to capture a middle ground that will serve most mourners. The exceptions are those who have done their grieving “in advance,” and those who are experiencing some sharp pangs of grief after one year has passed, even after a few years have passed. These exceptions are furthermore becoming more and more common, given how dementia subverts grief along with just about everything else, and given violent deaths. Grieving is hard enough as it is, and so I think it is in keeping with the overall intent of the Sages who created these laws (based on the Torah and so on) for today’s Jewish chaplains and rabbis to allow for exemptions or extensions to the laws of mourning when it is a matter of enabling persons to be authentic with themselves and with others.

Rabbi and board certified Chaplain Karen B. Kaplan is author of “>publisher’s page or to by email or via her blog,