This section was written by Dr. Cornelius Groop
Director of the Center for Psychiatric Counsel
Shaare Zedek Hospital, Jerusalem
In Jewish tradition every single moment concerning death and funeral rites is detailed and ritualized, beginning with the vidui the confessional prayer, continuing with the laws concerning the dead body and concluding in the burial procedure and mourning practices. As viewed from the point of the dying person and his or her family, this ritualization provides everyone involved a firm structure concerning the timetable and the particulars of the things to be done. In times of death most people have difficulty thinking in a focused way and will, therefore, proceed in a disorderly fashion. The traditional ritual leaves little to chance or private initiative. In a paradoxical way, these rigid details leave those involved in the process free to focus fully on their personal mourning; the ritual itself is done in an almost automatic fashion, and demands much less energy than would have been necessary if it had to be improvised. Moreover, the ritual, having often been practiced in the past, is usually well known and provides the mourner with a feeling of security: the process of dying itself is bound to elicit very basic fears and feelings of uncertainty, loss of confidence and doubt. The rigid structure of the ritual is a response to these feelings and fears, and reassures the mourners who have merely to follow the procedures.
In the process from dying to funeral and mourning, Jewish tradition places a strong emphasis on social support. The responsibility for dealing with the body in a dignified manner is assumed by the community. The funeral, the shiva, and additional rituals are all designed so as to involve family and friends of the deceased. Tradition turns one’s natural reliance on others into a religious obligation, by having the community provide for all the mourner’s basic needs (like food and drink), psychological needs (visiting the mourner) and spiritual needs (praying).
A mourner has to deal with several psychic phenomena, which are almost universal during such times: 1) sadness 2) rumination (i.e. an intense preoccupation with the deceased), and 3) a feeling of derealization, or alienation from the usual surroundings, which seem futile and lacking significance. The Jewish custom of shiva confronts each of these feelings. The community is called upon to comfort the mourner and participate in his mourning. The expressions of empathic involvement are an effective psychotherapeutic intervention in instances of sadness and depression. Shiva places the deceased at the epicenter, legitimizing the mourner’s preoccupation with the deceased’s life and death. The mourner’s sense of detachment from life is instutionalized in the shiva through the changes that he is expected to make in his dress, food, and even sleeping habits. Thus, for example, the almost universal difficulty a mourner has sleeping peacefully is acknowledged by Jewish tradition and legitimized by the custom to sleep on a low mattress or on the floor. All this serves to reassure the mourner that his intense psychic changes are not abnormal or pathological, but rather a very natural, universal manner of dealing with grief.
