The Shiva Visit
We have seen the origins of both the obligation to mourn in general and the practice to do so specifically for seven days. But where does the practice come from to visit the mourners? Once again, this is based on Biblical precedent. In this instance, however, we are emulating God Himself. The Torah tells us that after the death of Avraham, God blessed his son Yitzchak (Genesis 25:11). Rashi cites the Talmud (Sotah 14a) that God “paid a shiva call” to Yitzchak to console him for the loss of his father. The gemara continues that comforting mourners in this manner is one of God’s behaviors that we are meant to emulate.
Comforting mourners is a unique act of kindness in that it benefits both the living (i.e., the mourner) and the deceased (Mishneh Torah, Hilchos Aveil 14:7). Rav Moshe Feinstein (Iggros Moshe, OC IV, 40:11) explains the Rambam’s statement that shiva benefits the deceased by referring us to an incident in Talmud Shabbos 152a-b. There, the Talmud describes how a man in Rav Yehuda’s neighborhood died without any surviving relatives to mourn him. Lacking a shiva house to visit, Rav Yehuda brought a minyan to the place where the man had died, every day for a week. After the week of shiva had concluded, the deceased appeared to Rav Yehuda in a dream and informed him that the act had served to bring him peace.
The halacha is that the visitor to a shiva house should not initiate conversation. Rather, he should wait for the mourner to address him first (Yoreh Deah 376:1). The Talmud (Moed Katan 28b) learns this behavior from Iyov (Job). Job 2:13 describes how Iyov’s friends visited him when he was in mourning. They sat there silently for a very long time, none of them speaking “because they saw that his grief was very intense.” None of Iyov’s friends addressed him until after verse 3:1, “After this, Iyov opened his mouth.” One must wait for the mourner to demonstrate that he is ready to talk. (One may be lenient in the case of a mourner who is not aware that he is supposed to initiate conversation.) It is generally accepted that if the mourner never acknowledges the visitor, the visitor may nevertheless bless the mourner with the traditional text upon departure (Iggros Moshe OC V, 20:21, et al.).
A shiva call is not the place for frivolity or to discuss business or politics. The purpose of a shiva visit is to console the mourners for their loss. Accordingly, the deceased should be the focus of the conversation. The bare minimum to fulfill the mitzvah of nichum aveilim (consoling mourners) is the standard blessing of “HaMakom y’nacheim eschem…,” that God should comfort the mourners for their loss, but it is preferable that the visitor engage the mourners in actual words of comfort (Ahavas Chesed 3:5; see also Moed Katan 28b, Kesubos 8b, et al.). For more on this topic, see our final installment in this series, A Practical Guide to Paying a Shiva Visit.
When the visitor gets up to leave, he recites the text “HaMakom y’nacheim eschem b’soch shar aveilei Tziyon Virushalayim,” “May the Omnipresent One comfort you along with the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.” In Sephardic communities, the practice is to say “min haShamayim tenuchamu” or “tenuchamu min haShamayim” – “May you be comforted by Heaven.” In all of these cases, the generally-accepted practice is to always recite the text in the plural form (eschem, tenuchamu) even if only one mourner is present, similar to the way “shalom aleichem” (also plural) is the appropriate greeting even for a single person. One explanation for the plural text, at least in the case of shiva, is what we said earlier about the shiva visit serving as a comfort for both the mourner and the deceased.
Next: When Unable to Make a Shiva Visit
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