The funeral is followed by shiva, a period of seven days where the community gathers to support the mourner, our rabbis, and lay leaders will organize a “minyan” service at the shiva home each evening as desired.
Common practices during shiva:
- A candle is lit in the home where shiva is observed, and burns throughout shiva.
- A meal of consolation, including symbolic foods like hard boiled eggs is eaten as soon as one returns from the burial. Our Kesher Committee will provide this first meal, or another meal.
- Mourners avoid wearing leather shoes, bathing, or using lotions and marital relations.
- Mourners sit on a lower chair.
- Mirrors in the shiva house are covered.
Shiva is suspended by Shabbat, resumes Saturday night after dark, then concludes the morning of the 7th day after burial. At the end of shiva, it is customary to go for a walk, leaving the shiva home as a symbolic end to the first stage of the mourning process.
It is customary to honor the memory of deceased in several ways:
- Reciting Kaddish each day during the first 11 months after the loss, and on the anniversary each year, as part of a minyan of ten Jews. B’nai Torah offers a twice daily minyan service which is a supportive environment for mourners.
- By reciting the Yizkor prayer on Yom Kippur, and on Shemini Atzeret, Sukkot, Passover and Shavuot.
- By offering a gift to tzedakah in memory of the deceased. One may do so by donating a yahrzeit plaque, which commemorates a loved one’s name in lights on the wall of our sanctuary or by donating to have their name listed in our Yizkor book.