Mourning
Source: Halachipedia: Mourning
Link: https://halachipedia.com/index.php?title=Mourning
Categories: Mourning
Alt Names: Aveilus, Avelut
Exported: 2025-12-30
- Tearing Keriya (Rending one's Garments in Mourning)
- Onen (First Day of Mourning)
- Hesped (Delivering a Eulogy)
- Levaya (Escorting the Deceased)
- Kevura (Burial)
- Seudat Havrah (First Meal of a Mourner)
- Shiva (First Week of Mourning)
- Shloshim (First Month of Mourning)
- Twelve Months (Extended Mourning For a Parent)
- Yahrzeit (Yearly Commemoration For a Parent)
- Nichum Aveilim (Comforting the Mourners)
- Practices in the Mourner's House
- Yom Tov Canceling Aveilut
- Aveilut on Yom Tov
- Aveilut on Shabbat
- A Delayed Hearing of a Relative's Passing
- Mourning and Fasting on Chanukah and Purim
- Visiting a Cemetery
The Mitzvah to Mourn
- There is a major dispute if aveilut is deoritta or derabbanan. The consensus is that it is derabbanan.¹
- An important aspect of mourning is doing teshuva. Anyone who doesn't mourner like chazal instructed is considered cruel.²
- It is improper to mourn a deceased one more than chazal instructed. However, for a talmid chacham it is permitted but still it is only permitted to cry over the death until 30 days and give eulogies until 12 months.³
Beginning of Aveilut
- A person would have to mourn based on a source from one witness, even if it is secondhand, or even a non-Jew if he is speaking casually.⁴
References
¹: The geonim hold that the first day is deoritta, while the Tosfot hold that aveilut is completely derabbanan. Shulchan Aruch 398:1 holds that it is deoritta but the minhag cited in Shulchan Aruch 399:13 holds that it is derabbanan. Shach 398:2 writes that we hold it is derabbanan.
²: Rambam (Avel 13:12), Shulchan Aruch 394:6. See Birkei Yosef 395 who writes that it is inappropriate if a person doesn't cry even one tear during the first three days after the death of a relative unless he is holding back from crying because of marit ayin.
³: Shulchan Aruch 394:1-2
⁴: Shulchan Aruch YD 397:1