The house of mourning (Bet haAbel)

1. Once the burial ceremony ends, the mourners come back to their house. Usually, the house of mourning is the house of the deceased, but this obviously varies according to the circumstances. This is the house where people will gather to pray and/or pay their respect to the mourners during the following seven days.

2. Many families in our community would opt however, to have the prayers in one of our Synagogue Minyanim because of the difficulty to gather a Minyan at their house or for other reasons. And although the ancient customs was to have the Minyanim at the house of mourning, our community is lenient in this matter, and attentive to the personal needs and preferences of each family.

3. In the ‘house of mourning’ where prayers will take place and/or visitors will come to pay their respect and condolences during the seven days, the following arrangements should be made:

a. The mourners should sit in short chairs or shallow couches or benches.

b. The mirrors of the house should be covered.

c. It is customary to leave one candle lid, during the seven days. One could use one special seven days candle or light a different candle every day. Each time, before lighting the candle it should be said:

LEILUI NISHMAT… for the elevation of the soul ( in memory ) of… and then one should mention the name of the deceased.

4. When arriving to the house of mourning, the mourners should change their leather shoes for cloth shoes (see the chapter that describes the rules of the seven days or shib’a). Some communities have the tradition to change the shoes in the cemetery, once the burial has finished.

5. When the mourners arrive at the house of mourning, they should eat a special meal called se’udat habra-a , the first meal after the burial.

This meal consists solely of bread and hard-boil eggs without salt. In some communities it is customary to eat lentils as well.

What characterizes this meal is:

a. It must be prepared by the friends, family members or neighbors of the mourners.

b. The mourners must eat this meal while seating on pillows on the floor, or short chairs or stools.

c. After saying haMotzi for the bread, the pieces of bread must be distributed by the one who recites the berakha, handing it into the hand of the mourners.

d. At the conclusion of this meal the Bircat haMazon (blessing after a meal with bread) is recited, adding one special text for this occasion Nachem. . . et Abele Zion etc…). In this text, two berakhot are recited instead of the regular ones, Bone Yerushalaim and Birkat haTob. The zimun or invitation to say Birkat haMazon, is also modify to Nebarekh Menachem Abelim, etc. This special Birkat haMazon and zimun should be recited in this manner during the seven days of mourning, and even during Shabbat if there is no one else present there, except the mourners.

6. When the prayers take place in the house of the mourners, some parts are omitted like the Tachanun, Lamnatzeach mizmor leDavid, the first part of Uba LeZion, Tefila leDavid. And other prayers are added: Lamnatseach Libne Korach Mizmor and Siduk Hadin at the end of services.

7. In some Sephardic Communities it is customary to say Bircat Cohanim when praying in the house of mourning; however, if the Abel is Cohen, he should not participate of this berakha. He should walk into another room while the Birkat Cohanim is recited (during Shabbat, in the synagogue the Cohen in mourning does the Bircat Cohanim normally).

8. During Rosh Chodesh (first day/s of the Hebrew month) the Halel (prayer of praise) is recited in the house of mourning, but the mourner himself will no say it. In some communities it is customary that on Mondays and Thursdays, after praying Shacharit in the house of mourning, those who were present there, excluding the mourners, will go to the Synagogue to read the Tora.

9. When the mourners come to the Synagogue during the seven days of mourning (shib’a) in our community we omit the recitation of the Tachanunim (prayers for repentance and forgiveness). In other communities, the mourner does not say it, but the rest of the congregation does.



Gaining the respect of those who practice a different religion

In this week’s Parasha we find Abraham, our first patriarch, in a long conversation with the Hittites, one of the peoples who lived in the land of Canaan. Abraham wants to buy a piece of  land in Qiryat Arba, ​​Hebron, to bury Sara, his wife, who recently passed away.
MONOTHEISM AND ANTISEMITISM
In the negotiations between Abraham and the Hittites, we see that the leaders of this pagan and very violent nation treated Abraham with great respect. And what is more: they call Abraham “Nasi Eloqim, “You are a representative of God among us”. This is very weird since pagans were not known for being open-minded about other “gods” .   The mythological gods competed with each other to demonstrate their supremacy.  And Abraham not only practiced a different religion: his religion was “monotheistic”, which means that excluded the ver claim that other gods exists. In other words, while other people proclaimed: “My gods are more powerful than your gods”, the religion of Abraham implied that: “Your gods, simply, do not exist”. This should have been considered by the Hittites as an offensive cult. And I assume that they knew that Abraham was a “monotheistic activist”,  an iconoclast that had destroyed the idols of his own father!   For this vert reason, monotheism, Jews were for centuries hated, persecuted and seen as closed minded and exclusivist.
Abraham was different even on the physical realm. Now he had circumcision, which made him different from others.
In those times there was no religious tolerance. We saw for example in the case of Yosef and his brothers in Egypt, that the Egyptians did not eat at the same table of Jews, because they considered their diet something abominable.
How was it then that Abraham, being so different to the Hittites, was respected by them, and surely by other peoples of the region too?
BELIEF or CHARACTER
I think that the Hittites respected Abraham because Abraham was kind, respectful and humble.
1. KINDNESS: Abraham, who was seen by pagans as the representative of God on earth, would have had every reason to act with superiority towards other peoples. Demand, for example, to receive offerings and gifts, as happened with Malqi Tsedq, a priest to whom Abraham gave his tithe. But Abraham, far from expecting others to assist him materially, dedicated himself to serving others. He sat at the entrance of his famous tent waiting to host travelers who needed shade, bread and water.
2. RESPECT: God spoke to Abraham, and promised him and his descendants the land of Canaan. But Abraham never behaved arrogantly in front of the inhabitants of Canaan. His unconditional faith in HaShem could have prompted him to say to the pagans who inhabited the land: “This land will be mine.” Abraham treated them with dignity and honor. Abraham represented the epitome of this type of noblesse oblige, “the closer you are to God, the more you need to respect and show deference to those who are less religious than you”.
3. HUMILITY: The humility of Abraham becomes much more evident when we compare Abraham, as our Sages did, with Bil’am. Bil’am was a pagan prophet. HaShem communicated with Bil’am, as he did with Abraham. But this privilege, instead of making Bil’am more humble,  made Bil’am to look down at all other people. Bil’am said to himself: If God spoke to me, who could be compared to me?  Bil’am’s arrogance made him behave with disdain toward others. He was not willing to help unless he saw some material gain for it. He was demanding and ambitious and had contempt for others. All this due to his “spiritual superiority”.
IMITATING GOD
Although Abraham had different ideas, which he knew were “superior” to the people who lived around him, Abraham was generous and he was willing to help anyone in need.  Abraham even asked God to spare the lives of people who were spiritually and morally inferior to him: the people of Sodoma and Gomorra.  Abraham treated everyone with respect and deference, regardless of the faith they professed.
This is why Abraham had no enemies and was never judged negatively for his different beliefs. On the contrary, thanks to his excellent behavior toward others, Abraham became the inspiration for other people: Abraham is really the biggest INFLUENCER ever, who taught the world to identify the true and only God.


Cohanim in the Cementery

1. The Cohanim males can enter a cemetery but cannot get close to a grave or a dead body. They must keep a distance of approximately 6 feet (4 Amot) from a lifeless body or a grave. Likewise, it is forbidden for them to be under a roof or even under a tree, which covers a lifeless body, even though the distance might be more than 6 feet.

2. In some Jewish cemeteries, there is a special area where all the Cohanim remain during the ceremony. The Cohanim stand on the sidewalk in our community cemetery during the burial ceremony. Usually, the grave site for Cohanim that passed away is close to the edge of the burial site, so they don’t have to walk through the other graves. Depending on the time of the year, in the community cemetery (New Montefiore) the tree branches cover the whole avenue of access to the grave site. In that case, the Cohanim should not stand or walk under those trees. They should find an alternative access route by one of the lateral streets.

3. In case one of the seven direct family members passes away (father, mother, son, daughter, brother, single sister, and spouse), the Cohen comes near the lifeless body, and he is allowed to have contact with it or the coffin until the end of the burial ceremony.

4. When there is no other possible way, the direct relatives could go in proximity to other graves to accompany the coffin to its final destination. When the ceremony is over, they should leave the burial site by the shortest way.

5. Women who are daughters of a Cohen or married to a Cohen do not have any restriction regarding access to the cemetery or being in contact with a dead body.



DO PRAYERS WORK?

We prayed together, we cried, and we begged the Almighty with thousands of Tehilim. We prayed with our words, with our hearts and with our tears. We held our hope that God will listen and change the decree. And yet, our community experienced a profound and heartbreaking loss in the passing of Dorina Kalaty, Zikhrona Librakha, who was a shining light for so many of us.
After losing someone we loved very much we realize that there is so much we don’t understand. One of our questions has to do with prayers and how they affect real life.

Sometimes, it seems as though our prayers are not reaching Bore Olam. How are we supposed to comprehend this? When we care for someone and pray for them – were our prayers of any use?

I remember a few years ago there was a Jewish old man agonizing and in pain with no medical hope for his recovery. There was a tortured and painful debate among rabbis: should we stop praying for him? Why praying for Refua Shelema, a full recovery for someone that was inevitably dying? Do we pray for miracles?

I searched for wisdom and found guidance in Mr. Nassim Bassalian. He taught me a simple but very powerful lesson about prayer. In Hebrew the word refua that we usually translate as “health” has a wider meaning. Refua also means “alleviation”, “relief”, or “softening”. When we pray for refua shelema we are asking HaShem to have mercy for the person we are praying for: if possible, “Hashem, grant her a full and speedy recovery”. But if HaShem in His infinite wisdom decides that this is not possible, then: “Hashem, please, grant alleviation from her pain, and soften her suffering”. This is also what we ask HaShem in our daily silent prayer (‘amida).“Grant us healing and relief for all our illnesses, all our pains and all our wounds”.

We should never ever give up asking God even for a miracle. But we should also never believe that our prayers did not work —or that they were, God forbid, useless, if the miracle we prayed for did not happen. We should always believe that our prayers have helped the person we prayed for. Alleviating her pain, or in other ways that we can’t possibly fathom… Our loved ones might have been granted more time with us because of our prayers. Very often I hear doctors saying that the patient has just hours to live, and then they live for another week. It could very well be the result of our prayers that HaShem grants “smaller” but extremely meaningful miracles, like precious days or hours or even extra minutes of life, or consciousness.

Lastly, I believe that Hashem takes all our prayers and channels them for those we care about. Perhaps Hashem takes all the prayers we prayed for Dorina’s healing and uses them on behalf of her loved ones. I don’t have a source for this idea. It is an intuition or a wish that all those thousands and thousands of sincere and beautiful prayers for Dorina will be used by HaShem to protect Dorina’s loved ones and give comfort to her wonderful husband, her beautiful children, her amazing parents and all her family that are going through so much pain right now.

R. Yosef Bitton

Dedicated to the memory of Dorina Kalaty z”l.



The end of the burial ceremony

1. After the qeri’a is performed, the officiant reads the prayer Patach Elyahu hanabi. Then, when the burial is completed and the sign with the name of the deceased is placed at the head of the grave, the mourners say the first Kaddish, known as Kaddish deHu Atid. This is a special Kaddish which the mourners will recite only on this occasion. Is the only Kaddish that has any allusion to death, resurrection, and a prayer to God to stop sickness, and other calamities from us.

2. The recitation of this Kaddish is usually said by the mourners following the officiant, because some Aramaic words are unusual and difficult to pronounce.

3. Once the Kaddish dehu atid is said, the officiant recites the prayer: siduq hadin, which is said to inspire the mourners into the acceptance of the divine decree. The Siduq hadin, which is recited by the officiant includes the hashkaba, which is the memorial prayer where the Hebrew name of the deceased and his or her father are mentioned.

4. At the end of the siduq hadin, the officiant recites the Mishna “Rabbi Chanania ben Aqashia omer…” and the mourners together with all the attendees who wish to say Kaddish say the Kadish Al Israel.

5. At the end, the officiant or one of the family members announces where they will be sitting Shib’a, the time for Mincha, Arbit, the date for the Didan, etc. The officiant also informs the mourners of the basic laws and traditions of Jewish mourning. After the burial is finished, the attendees are allowed to visit other graves, say hashkaba, place a little pebble on the stone, etc.

6. Before leaving the cemetery, all those present must wash their hands, pouring water three times on each hand, starting with the right hand. The hands should be left to dry naturally, and no paper or towel should be used.



Kaddish ál-Israel

Play Sound Kaddish



KADDISH DEHU ATID

This Kaddish is said by the mourners at the cemetery, at the end of the burial ceremony.

 



The burial ceremony.

At the moment of creation of man the Almighty announced “Let us make man on our image and likeness.” This plural form (Let “us” make…) implies that God was speaking to another entity, and was object of multiple and profound interpretations. One of them says that the Creator addressed the Earth, inviting the earth, so to speak , to create man. The Creator provides the divine soul and the earth the body. The human body, indeed, is mad of earth, atoms. When death occurs, each element returns to its source of origin. The soul goes back to its celestial dimension and the body is reunified with the Earth…”Because you are made of dust of the earth and you shall return to dust of the earth”. The soul arrives by its own means to its heavenly soul, but the body has to be taken by the family members to its final resting place, inside the earth.

There is no formal protocol regarding an universal burial ceremonies for all Jewish communities. Beyond the basic steps, the order of the funeral varies from community to community. In the following lines I describe in detail the steps of the burial ceremony as is done in our community cemetery.

First, the coffin is downloaded from the car and placed in a special carrier. Then, it is carried by the relatives of the deceased. Women do not take place in carrying the coffin. In other communities, which follow Minhag Yerushalaim, the sons are not allowed to carry the coffin. In our community, however, we do not hold such restrictions and we allow any male to take part of it.

The body inside the coffin is transported until the grave, by hand. We have the tradition to make some stops for men, not for woman. Usually we make seven stops, but if it is Friday or the eve of a Jewish holiday or if there is more than one funeral service to do, we stop only three times.

While the body is carried, the rabbi or the officiant recite yosheb beseter elyon (Psalm 91) for a man or eshet chayil (Proverbs 30), for a woman.

Once the people arrive to the gravesite the cemetery employes place the body to be downloaded into the grave. There is a mechanic switch to lower the body, that switch is activated by the officiant or by one of the family members.

Once the body is lowered to the ground, the children begin to shovel earth. First, the sons, three times each. Our custom is to stick the shovel into the ground after the third time, without handing it to somebody else. In our community, we allow women to take part in this ritual. They either pour some earth from the land of Israel, which is specially brought for them, or they take a fist of earth from the gravesite and throw it into it, three times.

After the coffin is covered with one layer of earth, and while people still shovel earth into the gravesite, we do the qeri’a.

Before we explain the qeri’a let me clarify that it is absolutely permitted to allow the gentile workers to shovel earth into the grave, by hand or by the means of a machine. In our community, most families cover the first layer of the coffin by themselves and then allow the workers to finish the job. Other families, prefer to cover the entire gravesite by themselves. In any case, this should not be a reason for machloqet, because there is not prohibition involved and every family should be allowed to decide in this matter. Except if it is Friday or the eve of a holiday, when it must be done only what is required.



The funeral

The body is taken, from the Hospital, hospice or home where the person died, to the funeral home. In the funeral home, in preparation for the burial, the clothes are removed and the body is washed. This important ritual is called Tahara. Once the Tahara concludes, the deceased is wrapped with a white shroud or Takhrikhim. In the case of a male, in some communities they use to cover the body with the Talit that the deceased used during his lifetime. In other communities, they placed the Talit inside the grave. In these cases, one of the Tzitziot of the Talit must be cut and removed.

After the Tahara, the body is placed inside the coffin.

The customs regarding the funeral varies from community to community. In many communities the body is transferred directly to the cemetery or to a funeral home, before the actual burial takes place. In our community, the body is taken to the Synagogue, before is the taken to the cemetery. There, the family in mourning is greeted with words of consolation and comfort by relatives and friends. Then, everyone enters the Sanctuary and the prayer Patach Elyahu haNabi is recited. Following this prayer, the rabbis pronounce a few words (eulogy or hesped) in honor of the deceased, and brief words of consolation to his or her family members.

At the end of the eulogies, the mourners leave the sanctuary and stand in the social hall, where every person approaches them and salutes them with a gesture of respect and with additional words of comfort and consolation. Then, the body is taken to the cemetery and relatives and friends accompany it to its final destination, the burial place.

Accompanying the deceased to its final resting place is a Mitzva called Levayat haMet. Some people, close relatives and friends, would accompany the body to the cemetery and other people, would walk behind the coffin for a few steps.



WHEN DOES THE BURIAL TAKE PLACE?

Our Torah indicates that burial must take place as close as possible to the moment of death. To leave the body without burial once the soul has returned to God, according to our tradition, might represent a transgression of a biblical prohibition (lo talin) and a disrespect for the memory of the deceased. Jewish Law, therefore, requires that the body be buried preferably within the day the person died or at least within 24 hours after the decease In some extraordinary occasions –as it shall be explained below – burial could be delayed.

1. As a general rule, the proper time to perform the burial is within the first hours of the morning. If the person died during the early hours of the morning, burial might take place in the afternoon. If death occurred during the afternoon and there was no time to bury the body before sunset, one should wait until the following day. There are factors which are obviously beyond the power of the relatives in charge of the burial arrangements, like obtain the death certificate and sometimes other procedures which might not allow to bury the body as explained above.

2. Only in a situation which would be considered “in the honor of the deceased” the burial might be postponed beyond the time already explained. For example, if a son or daughter or any other relative of the deceased, whose presence in the funeral would bring honor the deceased, must come from overseas. In all these cases, one must consult a rabbinic authority to approve the delay. In no case this delay should take more than three days.

3. If a person died during Friday there is not enough time to perform the burial before Shabbat, or if the person died during Shabat, the burial should be delayed until Sunday morning.