Sitting shiva [the Jewish custom of a period of intense mourning during the first seven days following the death and funeral] can be understood from a multiple of vantage points. It can be seen anthropologically as a tradition of how the Jewish people respond to a death. It can be appreciated psychologically for the time and space it allows the mourner in our busy and goal directed society to integrate the impact of the loss of a close relationship. It can also be understood in a spiritual way: as caring for both the soul of the deceased, and the souls of the mourners.
During the first week after death, the soul of the deceased is understood in Jewish tradition to be visiting, back and forth, from its former home, to the graveyard, confused, itself mourning its loss of the world, wondering where it now belongs. When it sees mourners gathering for shiva and grieving, talking about the deceased, it begins to understand that the great transition has really taken place, and that it must continue on its journey: first, to the Garden of Eden, and ultimately, to be joined to God in the great Universal Life Force, or, as we say in Hebrew, the â??Tzror ha Hayyimâ?, the Bundle of Life. It is comforted, hearing mourners talk about it.
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