· Pre-Funeral Preparations

     · Where to Hold the Service  

     · Viewing the Body  

     · Who Goes to A Funeral: Special Circumstances  

     · Funeral Liturgy

     · Music At A Jewish Funeral

     · Processional

     · Pall Bearers

     · Kohen At A Funeral

Pre-Funeral Preparations There are some practical preparations that should take place before that family leaves for the funeral. Shiva is a hectic time, especially the first day. Having the following in place can smooth over rough spots in the day.

• Set up a container of water, washing cup, and towels outside the home for post-funeral hand washing.
• Place seven-day Shiva candle on the mantle or table top to be lit after the funeral. (Put a plate or trivet underneath the candle to shield the mantle or table from heat damage)
• Arrange the low stools or benches for the mourners to sit on while receiving Shiva visitors
• Collect Siddurim, prayer books, and an assortment of kippot, head coverings for men
• Make chairs available for visitors
• If a Se-u-dat Havra-ah, meal of condolence, will not be brought by neighbors or friends, put out some bread (at least) to eat after the funeral.
• Cover mirrors

   

Where to Hold the Service

No specific place is hallowed exclusively for the funeral service. It may take place at home, in a funeral home, at a cemetery chapel, by the gravesite, or in the synagogue.

Funeral services in a synagogue are usually reserved for leaders who are mourned by the community at large.

Funeral homes and cemetery chapels are the usual choice, because they are well equipped for the myriad of details that go into setting up for a funeral and transporting the deceased for burial. If the only chapel available is designed for non-Jewish funerals, care should be taken to remove or cover non-Jewish symbols during the funeral.

Viewing the body

Contrary to popular norms, having an open coffin for visitors to pay their respects is not considered an honor in Jewish thought.

The preparation a body must undergo to be fit for viewing: painting on makeup and positioning the body so it looks lifelike are thought to denigrate the body’s dignity.

Accepting the reality of death is a step along the mourning journey, one harder to take if the deceased appears to just be asleep. The body may be viewed to ensure that the right remains are at the right funeral.

Who Goes to Funerals: Special Circumstances

Ex-Spouses

Divorced spouses are not obligated to mourn each other, but there is not prohibition against attending an ex-spouse’s funeral. If a couple was separated, or had otherwise agreed to divorce but didn’t legalize the decision, there is no halachic expectation for the surviving, nearly ex-spouse to mourn.

Mourners

Mourners who are within the first three days of Shiva are too fragile to attend a funeral. Exceptions are made for mourners who lose a parent, sibling, spouse or child.

Mourners who are sitting Shiva may attend the funeral and burial of someone who has no other fellow Jew to see them off. Even a mourner who is facing the sharpest pangs is expect to answer the call to do this mitzvah of selfless loving-kindness.

According to some opinions, a mourner who has passed the third day of Shiva may attend a relative’s funeral, but not the burial.

Attending the Funeral of a Non-Jew

Two opposing considerations shape the halachot of attending a non-Jew’s funeral.

There is the desire to honor another person, but the prohibitions against participating in non-Jewish religious ceremonies still stand.

Some Jews will attend a funeral, but not the religious rites at the interment. Others will attend the pre-funeral condolence period, but not the service in the chapel.

A rabbi should be consulted if skipping any of the funeral or burial would be noticed and misconstrued as discourteous.

First Words

After the mourners have gathered, the family will take their seats in the front row and the service will begin.

There is no official liturgy written for the funeral although some prayers have become customary.

Rabbis tend to open the service with a welcome and some psalms. Psalms 15, 23, 24, 49 and 90 speak of God as a protector and guide and speak of the closeness with God that comes as a reward for a good life.

Readings from Jewish sources, poetry, passages from books personalize the service.

El Maleh Rachamim – The Memorial Prayer

The El Maleh Rachamim “God is filled with mercy” memorial prayer is often chanted to close the funeral. Chanted in Hebrew while the congregation stands, El Maleh Rachamim asks a merciful God to care for the soul under sheltering wings of peace. To help the soul merit this closeness, a pledge to charity is promised.

Music At A Funeral

Traditional Jewish funerals have no background music. The Jewish traditions of simple funeral arrangements and the restrictions on the mourner keep the organ hushed, the cellos silent. Mourners are prohibited from feeling music’s cathartic power all throughout their mourning period.

Jewish mourning emphasizes the need for a mourner to find his or her own solace and to not rely on the temporary lift outside forces, like music and intimacy, can bring.

As the service ends, the rabbi closes by sharing the Shiva information, where the Shiva will be held, and if a minyan is needed for services in the home. The casket is wheeled from the room and is followed by the rabbi and the pallbearers. The family follows close behind.

Once the gravesite is reached the family and the mourners will form a procession. Joining a funeral procession is a selfless act, a chessed shel emet, because the kindness cannot be repaid.

Levaya, the Hebrew word for funeral, literally means “accompanying.” The Talmud remarks that one who sees a funeral procession, but does not take even a few steps along with it, ought to be banished from the community. Even one who is busy learning Torah should stand to honor the procession.

The mitzvah of levaya may be fulfilled by walking a minimum of six to eight feet . Several times along the way, the some rabbis will halt the procession. Pallbearers may be exchanged at this time, but the custom is observed to recall the word “hevel,” vanity, which appears several times in Ecclesiastes.

Hevel is written three times in the singular (three stops) and twice in the plural (four stops). With evidence of life’s finite span so plainly before the mourners, the momentary stops remind them to use time wisely.

Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern-European descent customarily accompany the deceased to the cemetery and remain graveside until the coffin is lowered into the grave.

Among Syrian Jews, sons form the procession for their mother, but their father stays behind.  In Morocco, women traditionally did not go to the cemetery. Jewish women of Moroccan descent broke with this practice. Until recently, women in Greece, Turkey, and the Balkans would not go to the burial. At times, a father would not attend his child’s interment. Women of Spanish-Portuguese heritage have recently begun going the gravesite.

Pall Bearers

Sons, brothers, and other close male relatives are the traditional choice for pallbearer honors. Estranged relatives may serve as pallbearers to make up for missing out on supporting each other in life. Halacha dictates that Jews alone accept this honor.

The last names Cohen and Katz, among others, mark their bearers among the descendants of the Kohanim who served in the ancient Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

To serve in this holy atmosphere, a male Kohen had to live a life apart from various sources of spiritual impurity. Contact with the dead is a source of impurity a Kohen had to avoid. Three times a day Jewish prayers make numerous requests for the rebuilding of the Beit Hamikdash, the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. These are not empty wishes, so a Kohen makes every reasonable attempt to maintain at least a semblance of the purity needed to serve in the Temple should it be rebuilt.

As in Biblical times, a Kohen only attends the funeral of close relatives: parents, children, brothers and unmarried sisters. If a Kohen wishes to attend other funerals, he should not be in the same room with the body. A Kohen stands outside of the chapel if a casket will be at the service. He does not enter the cemetery either.