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Jews > Earning
a Living > Decentralization of
Jewish New York > Bris Milah
> Shiva - Mourning in the Jewish Tradition
Preparation of the Body:
The Tahara:
The taharah is the ritual cleansing of the body. Same sex members
of the deceased's burial society, the Chevra kaddisha, perform it.
The body is cleansed with warm water, vinegar and sometimes spices,
such as coriander, parsley or henbane. The vinegar is used like
smelling salts to make sure the person is actually dead. The deceased
is typically dressed in a white shroud. No knots or bows are allowed
on the deceased's garments, as they are believed to impede the egress
of the soul to eternity. The deceased are wrapped in a talis prayer
shawl with the corner fringe mutilated or cut to symbolize the freedom
of the dead from earthly practices. The talis will serve in the
afterlife as a "robe of honor." Those who are murdered
wear the clothing they were murdered in. This assures vengeance
from God on behalf of the victim.
Abraham Rogarshevsky's
Undertaker - A. Gutterman
Abraham's undertaker was listed as "A. Gutterman." In
the late 19th and early 20th centuries, one hired an undertaker
as one would hire a cab today. Many funeral parlor proprietors began
their careers as cartmen with horse-drawn carriages. Abraham Gutterman
started his business in 1892. At first, he rented horses to Italian
undertakers but he soon entered the business himself. One did not
need a license to be an undertaker so anyone could take up the profession.
Gutterman Undertaker's address was 49 Orchard Street, where the
funeral parlor was located, and the stable entrance was on Allen
Street. The stables were multi-level and ramps led to the stables
on each floor.
Abraham Gutterman emigrated from Russia in 1893 at the age of 31.
(Note that the business was founded the year before). Two years
later his wife, Rachel, and his four children emigrated. They lived
at 142 Norfolk Street.
In 1924, Benjamin Gutterman went to work for his father. The business
name changed to A Gutterman & Son Undertakers and moved to 294
Grand Street. In 1935, the business moved to 153 East Broadway and
changed its name to A Gutterman and Sons. Irving Gutterman, the
new addition, became the vice-president, Benjamin, the secretary,
and Abraham, the treasurer. The family moved from the Lower East
Side to Brooklyn.
The job of the undertaker or funeral director was an American development
made necessary by the complexities of the modern city. In European
shtetls, the cemetery was near the village. In New York, transportation
became a much more complicated matter. Corpses had to be transported
to the cemeteries far from the centers of population. It became
necessary to call upon deliverymen to hire coaches for the mourners
and a conveyance for the body, some of them coming to specialize
in this kind of trade and soliciting the various societies and congregations
for business. Apparently, landleit connections were important. A
number of long established funeral homes, including Gutterman Funeral
Directors, entered the business this way.
As early as 1910, a number of factors, including municipal regulations
and the need for factory-made coffins, led to the increasing professionalization
of death. The duties once taken care of by the chevra kaddisha,
are now the functions of the funeral director.
The Burial
The simplicity of burial is paramount in traditional Jewish law.
It is necessary to both avoid a status display within the community
and to avoid straining the mourning families' resources. Unless
death took place on the night of the Sabbath, the burial should
occur within 24 hours of the death and it must include any bloody
clothes or pieces of the body. It must take place in a wooden coffin,
usually pine, with wooden nails. No metal is allowed nor any substance
which would delay the decomposition of the body. Holes are bored
in the bottom of the coffin, again to aid its decomposition. The
return of the body to the earth is important to Jewish beliefs.
The inclusion of soil from Israel wrapped in cloth, or landsleit,
as a replacement for actually being buried in the Holy Land is also
required for proper burial. (Where would the soil come from?) Sephardic
Jews assign the procurement and distribution of the landsleit to
the "guardian of the soil" an officer in the chevra kaddisha.
A circuitous route is used in the funeral procession. Passersby
are expected to join the procession symbolically by walking a few
steps (typically a city block) in the direction of the route taken
by the funeral party. The party may make several stops on the way
to the cemetery. This tradition taken from the Talmud (Jewish Law
Book) which requires pauses be made for reflection on the death.
Michael Gold described a trip to the cemetery in this excerpt from
Jews without Money, published in 1930:
I liked to go to funerals with the Jewish
coach drivers. What glorious summer fun! Nathan was a tall Jewish
ox, with a red, hard face like a chuck of rusty iron. His blustering
manner had earned him many a black eye and bloody face. It was
a warm bright morning. Three coaches rolled down the ramp of the
livery stable on their way to a funeral. Then out bounced Nathan,
cursing his horses. I begged him to go along. He was grouchy,
but slowed down. I scrambled up beside him on the tall seat.
Three coaches and a hearse: a poor man's funeral. We rolled through
the hurly burly East Side. The sporty young drivers joked from
coach to coach. The horses jerked and skipped. Nathan cursed them.
We came to the tenement of the corpse. Many pushcarts had to be
cursed out of the way. We lined the curb. There was a crowd gathered.
Weddings, sewer repairs, accidents, fires, and murders, all are
food for the crowd. Even funerals.
The coffin was brought down by four pale men with black beards.
Then came the wife and the children in black meekly weeping. The
family was so poor that they had not the courage to weep flamboyantly.
But some of the neighbors did. It was their pleasure. They made
an awful hullabulla. It pierced one's marrow. The East Side women
have a strange, keening wail, almost Gaelic. They chant the virtues
of the sweatshop slave, and the sorrow of his family. They fling
themselves about in an orgy of grief. It unpacks their hearts,
but is hell on the bystanders. These mourners egg on the widow;
they don't want her to hide her grief; she must break down and
scream and faint or the funeral is not perfect. I sat on the high
driver's seat and watched; I felt official and somehow important.
Then came the rise across the Brooklyn Bridge, with the incredible
sweep of New York below us.
Most likely, the hearse that carried Abraham Rogarshevsky went
over the Williamsburg Bridge, which had been constructed in 1903.
The burial took place in Mount Zion Cemetery, in Maspeth, Queens.
In 1927, the Sons of Telsh purchased additional burial plots in
Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, Long Island.
As the body is interned the rabbi recites the Tzidduk Ha'din.
This prayer emphasizes at the moment of interment the importance
of death in the cycle of life and the loss of the loved one. The
mourners give Yeshiva or prayers for forgiveness from the deceased.
Psalm 23 is often used at burial. Sometimes each mourner shovels
a bit of earth on the coffin as a reinforcement of the "ashes
to ashes" theme. This shovel is never passed from hand to
hand but laid upon the ground and picked up again. Flowers at
the burial are not encouraged, they are replaced by the giving
of Tsedakah, charitable contributions in the name of the deceased.
After the grave has been covered with earth, the nearest male
relative says Kaddish, or the prayer for the dead. The mourners
then form two parallel lines through which the family passes.
This procession redirects the focus of the party onto the mourners
instead of the deceased. On the way back an alternate route is
used and the traditional seven stops are made in order to confuse
any lingering souls and give more time for reflection. Traditional
Jewish law prohibits cremation, embalming, mausoleum interment,
and disinterment.
When the family returns from the cemetery, water is provided
for them to wash their hands before coming into the building.
"Sitting" Shiva
Shiva derives from the word "shevah" meaning seven in
Hebrew and is a mourning practice which takes place in the deceased's
home for a total of seven days. Many families today, however,
reduce the seven days to three in order to return to work. During
the shiva no work is allowed and no lamps may burn. The family
sits on low stools or chairs that are not higher than 14 inches,
most likely provided by neighbors. During the seven days of shiva,
the mourners do not bathe or shave. The eldest unmarried daughter,
however, is permitted to wear make-up. The mourners can wash their
hands and faces only.
Only immediate family--parents, spouse, and children-may sit shiva.
Boys under 13 and girls under 12 may not participate. Abraham's
son, Philip would not have sat shiva since he was only eleven
years old.
The mourning family cannot prepare their own food. The seudat
havra-ah is the traditional mourning meal. It consists of round
objects such as lentils, beans, and hard boiled eggs, which are
representative of the circulatory nature of life and death. Mourners
do not feed themselves. Non-mourners, such as in-laws, feed the
mourners like children. This practice emphasizes the importance
of showing connection to the deceased.
It is considered a mitsvah, or obligatory act to make a shiva
call and visit the mourners. Visitors are permitted to speak only
after the mourners speak to them first. The visitors proceed through
the apartment. They talk only about the person who died. The memories
of the loved one are the mourners' consolation. The visitors must
not speak to each other, and they must always use the plural,
even if only one person is sitting shiva, because the departed
soul is mourning with living mourner.
The family uses the apartment as a synagogue. Members of the family's
synagogue set up a space for prayer services. They bring prayer
books and a torah from the synagogue. The torah is wrapped in
a talis or placed in a box, such as an ark. The ark would be placed
on a table with two candles to light when services took place.
A matchbox would be placed nearby. The members of the synagogue
would place a prayer shawl on the lectern. Abraham's eldest son
Sam, or Morris if he mourned at his mother's home, would lead
the daily service and say kaddish. Tefillin (usually translated
as phylacteries) is a leather pouch that contains scrolls of torah
passages and is bound to the arm and forehead during weekday morning
services. The bags are the same today as in 1918.
Visitors often repeat the words "May the Eternal comfort
you among the other mourners for Zion and Jerusalem." These
words of comfort remind the mourners that they are not alone in
their grief. The visitors also leave money in charity boxes, known
as pushkas, or a saucer. The pushka would have the name of charity
written on it in Yiddish. The Rogarshevskys probably supported
the Telsh Yeshiva, a well-known Jewish school in Lithuania. The
family cannot study the Torah as this would instigate joy. They
can only read Job, Lamentations, or Ecclesialstes. During the
first to third days greetings are neither given nor received by
the mourners. On the third to seventh days greetings can not be
given, but they can be received.
As a physical gesture of grief, the mourners have torn their garments
at the breast. This tearing is known as keriah. The mourners sometimes
hang up their clothes while they sit shiva. During the week of
mourning, the men put on their jackets for prayer services. Traditionally,
the rending took place when the mourner learned of the death,
and sometimes at the funeral. The practice comes from the story
of Purim about Queen Esther and Mordecai. The garment is cut with
a knife at the chest and then torn toward the heart approximately
four inches. The length of the tear is known as tefach. Children
of the deceased tear their garments on the left, everyone else
on the right. (Today, many mourning families wear long black ribbons
pinned to the clothing instead of renting their garments.)
The renting of garments (worn throughout the shiva) gives mourners
an opportunity to physically express their grief and is a sign
to others that they are in mourning. The original tradition required
that the family member rip the clothes upon hearing of the death.
Now they usually rip their clothes at the chapel or cemetery.
As the 20th century progressed, within the Jewish community, notions
of customary shiva practices varied widely. Within Reform circles
as well as secular ones it was routine to observe only three days
rather than the entire week and to dispense with such customs
tearing ones garment, wearing slippers instead of leather shoes,
covering the mirrors, sitting on or close to the ground; such
practices were seen as outmoded.
In the early 20th century, the traditional American Jewish funeral
was known for its unassuming modesty, especially when compared
with those of other ethnic groups. The Metropolitan Life Insurance
Company in 1928 conducted a survey of funeral costs and found
that American Jews "were unusually economical in funeral
expenditures while the Irish and Italians were inclined to be
more extravagant." It attributed this show of fiscal restraint
to a "religious tradition of simplicity in burial customs."
With the exception of Orthodox funerals, which by and large, remained
scrupulous in their fidelity to tradition, the American Jewish
funeral gradually lost much of its distinctiveness.
Sheloshim
The sheloshim is a 30 day period of mourning which follows shiva.
During this time neither haircuts nor new clothes are indulged
in. No public celebration, gathering, or entertainment is allowed.
In the case of a deceased parent this period is extended to one
year and the deceased's sons recite the kaddish.
A strikingly high proportion of otherwise ritually inattentive
men recited the kaddish. Isolating this particular ritual from
hundreds of others, they seemed to believe that reciting the ancient
Aramaic prayer "constitutes the chief duty that the Jew owes
to his religion." Whatever their motivation - family loyalty,
superstition, the bonds of memory, or a composite of all three
- men took time out from their worldly affairs and raced to the
synagogue. Their apparent preference for reciting the kaddish
reflected, at bottom, a basic misunderstanding about its purpose.
Many Jews, ignorant of its history and meaning, equated kaddish
with a mass for the dead. The kaddish is not designed to safeguard
the souls of the dead. Rather, the prayer is an acknowledgment
of divine presence.
Yahrzeit
This is a family reunion each year on the anniversary of the death.
A light burns in remembrance of the dead each year on this anniversary.
After the Yahrzeit, the yizkor ( which means "May God Remember"),
a memorial service for the dead takes place several times a year,
at Yom Kippur, Shemin, Atzeret, Pesach, and Shavuot. Crowds of
male and female worshippers gather in the synagogue to recall
the lives of loved ones.
Beginning in the early 20th century, many funeral homes published
practical guides, or "yahrzeit memoranda," to assist
Jewish families in "solemnizing" the occasion. The Directors
of the Riverside Memorial page wrote that "If you give
us the name and date of the death of your departed, we will be
glad to prepare and mail, without charge, a table showing the
Hebrew date of the Yahrzeit for the next five years and a candle."
According to Jenna Joselit, much like yizkor and kaddish, the
marking of a yahrzeit loomed large in American Jewry's collective
ritual imagination. Through a small number of manageable and highly
sentamentalized ritual activites, American Jews could experience,
if only for a moment, the rhythms of sacred time. More to the
point, yahrzeit ritualized a sense of family.
The typical way of commemorating yahrzeit by the mid-20th century
by those able to successfully ascertain the appropriate Hebrew
date of death was to first congegate at the synagogue to say kaddish,
then return home and light a memorial candle, or yahrzeit licht,
a "time-honored" Jewish tradtion.
Themes/Ideas about Death from the
Jewish Perspective
Many themes are threaded though each stage of Jewish mourning.
The inevitability of death and the deathlessness of the spirit
are expressed through the circular aspects of the funerary route
and the contents of the Seudat havra-ah. The circular nature of
life and death is reinforced through the repetition of the "ashes
to ashes, dust to dust" theme found in the rites of burial.
The words "ashes to ashes" represent the decomposition
of the body and is seen as a natural return of the flesh to the
Earth. The flesh is not important as it is the immortal soul which
awaits the Messianic Age. These ideas should ease a mourner's
grief. The Jewish perspective on death and mourning acknowledges
the pain that accompanies losing a loved one. It is meant to give
respect to a loved one's memory and to satisfy the mourner's need
to grieve; all the while reminding them that the spirit of their
loved one is eternal.
Special Circumstances
Minors under the age of 13 are not considered onen and not allowed
to participate in the grieving process. It is thought that children
do not understand death. In the deaths of children under 30 days
and miscarriages the Tzidduk Ha'din is not recited. A bride and
groom cannot observe shiva for the first seven days of marriage.
Suicides are generally not mourned, unless a rabbi gives allowance
because of uncontrollable depression. If a husband is missing,
a wife may not demonstrate mourning, as that would be symbolic
of her ability to remarry.
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