Yahrzeit - A Year's Time

The Jewish community embraces ancient, profoundly healthy, traditions and sacred obligations surrounding the death of a family member and the ones grieving the death. Concentric protections shield the bereaved from the intense storms of a death, through the funeral, and gradually back into life. The layers of support not only honor the one who died, but also honor and support life.

The most intense time of the storm, from the moment of death until the funeral, are the hollow days, or aninut. In Jewish tradition, this is as short as possible, often only a day. Those who weather this dark, cold state are called oneim. Their only responsibility during this time is kevod ha-met, showing honor for the dead. Jewish tradition constructs an especially strong fence around the oneim, protecting them from all regular activity. They attend no social gatherings and are expected only to dive into grief and let its tears wash through their soul, carving whatever path they take toward healing. The Talmud even advises against visitation and premature attempts at condolence: “Do not try to comfort your friend while the body of his deceased lies before him.” Aninut is a moat of tears protecting mourners from external pressures while encouraging internal expressions of grief facing the reality of what has just happened.

Quickly moving from the protections of aninut the focus shifts from kevod ha-met, honoring the dead, to nichum avelim, comforting the bereaved. This is shiva, based on the Hebrew word for seven, and is a protected period of mourning for seven days following the funeral. During this time, the mourner is exempted from all responsibilities of daily life while the community takes care of washing dishes, preparing meals, cleaning house, taking care of the kids. The front door is often left unlocked while friends, neighbors and extended family members bring continual support at a time when even the effort of getting up to answer the door and greet loved ones can feel overwhelming. This is not a time to host or even answer the phone. This is seven days of withdrawing from the world to sit with grief and all its emptiness, depression, anger, denial, shame, relief, remorse and acceptance. This is a time for you to “sit shiva”, take care of yourself while your community takes care of everything else.

Remembrance is one of the primary activities of the week. At first those memories will naturally center around the death and later wander through reminiscence of life. Friends and neighbors come and go, bringing stories and providing mourners with opportunities to share their own, or even compare notes. This tradition honors the dead by providing a time to write of their life, listen to their music, go for a walk, look through photos or videos, listen to stories, meditate and rest. In that same way, it honors the living.

Shiva usually ends without ritual on the morning of the seventh day. One simple custom is for the mourners to walk outside together signifying their return into the world. Another is simply to resume some activity that was avoided during shiva (shaving, cooking, watching TV, playing a game) to clearly delineate the time spent in shiva with the rest of life and its obligations.

The first year of grief is a time of enduring a heartbreaking series of “firsts”. You pick up the phone on Monday night at 7 PM (because you have called your dad at that time every week for years) only to realize, for the first time, that there is no longer anyone there to answer it. You catch sight of a robin remembering your wife's yearly excited proclamation of this being a sure sign to the end of winter and, for the first time, you miss not hearing her voice. You see a woman with a cute scarf covering her lack of hair remembering, for the first time, the times you shared sitting with your sister as she went through chemo. The work of grief over the first year is about relearning how to live without what you lost. And it is hard.

Jewish law obligates those who “sat shiva” to continue some of those activities into the next protective month-long period, shloshim, meaning thirty. During this time the mourners live within a fence that permits grieving to continue. Traditionally, distractions and everyday pleasures are limited. They do not attend sporting events, watch TV, or attend social gatherings, while not depriving themselves of simple pleasures like playing with children, exercising, reading, or having coffee with a friend. In a culture that all-too-often expects us to “get on with it”, this tradition discourages mourners from rushing or being rushed through grief. Shloshim encourages us to be patient with grief and to remind us that it cannot and should not be hurried. Life resumes its precedence over death while shielding mourners from the full-throttle frenetic pace of life.

One custom I find especially helpful is to wear a torn ribbon, a k'riah, during this time. The ribbon, symbolizing the Biblical rending of garments in response to grief, is a silent announcement of the mourner's emotional state signaling to all who know the tradition that its wearer is fragile, tender and exposed. It can be a soft point of entry, a gentle invitation, into dialogue. Simply pointing to the ribbon with a caring expression can evoke a response, a brief story, a short revealing of the heart without having to worry about saying the wrong thing, or about not knowing what to say.

The end of shloshim can be an occasion for a charitable contribution in memory of the one who died. Giving to charity is one way of keeping the memory and even the life work of a loved one alive. Tzedakah, or righteous giving, connects the living and the dead in the work of repairing the world. By giving, we become that person's feet on earth. And whether we donate money or donate time to a worthy cause, we honor that person the most when we are attracted to give out of love, not out of obligation or penance.

Jews call the anniversary of a death yahrzeit, Yiddish for “a year's time”. The best-known yahrzeit is lighting a twenty-four-hour memorial candle. The small, flickering light—a universal symbol of the soul—is both melancholy and consoling. It gives form to memory: visible, warm, incandescent.

It is now sundown on March 6th. I begin my yahrzeit and will continue through tomorrow, the year after my father's passing. I am lighting a candle, surrounding it with his ski boots, goggles, glasses, a ski pass, his old slide rule, and a landscape he assembled from pieces of wood. I am posting a story inspired by the way he died. And all day tomorrow I will fast. And I will be wearing his flannel shirt, like a warm, soft hug against bare, father-to-son skin.

And if you happen to see me wearing a torn, black ribbon on my wrist, you will know that I am quietly announcing my emotional state: fragile, tender, and exposed.