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Meaning in Mitzvot -
Lesson 100

Concluding The Mourning Period

21.09.2014
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In the laws of mourning, as in many other instances in halakha where days are counted, part of the day counts as a whole day at the beginning or the end of a continuous period of days.  For example, if the burial is completed a few minutes before nightfall on Monday, Monday is counted as the first day of mourning even though only a few minutes of mourning were observed.  The seventh day is now Sunday; if a short period of mourning is observed on Sunday morning then again we say that the part is considered as a whole, and the five and a half days with the additional short periods at the beginning and end count as seven days.

 

The same principal applies in counting the days of separation for a woman in nida, or the eight day period for circumcision; so a child born late Monday afternoon may be circumcised on the next Monday morning, which will be considered the eighth day.

 

Even so, we don't allow interruptions in the middle of these periods, and partial days count only at the very beginning and end of the period.  (Tosafot Pesachim 81a.)

 

The message of this principal seems to be that when the Torah tells us to count days, it is because each day has its own importance.  For instance, brit mila on the eighth day is not just because the infant has to mature for a period of 168 hours before he is physically developed; rather, he has to experience eight different days, which may more or less than this period of time.  This idea is rooted in the creation, when each day encompassed its own creation even before the fourth day when time as we know it was regulated by the creation of the sun and moon.

 

 

CHAPTER 217 – ONE WHO FAILED TO OBSERVE MOURNING

 

One who failed to observer mourning has to make it up, unless thirty days have passed.  We already learned that after thirty days only symbolic mourning is observed.  (Chapter 206.)

 

However, such a mourner does not tear his clothes.  Whereas the other expressions of mourning are basically refraining from normal activities, tearing the clothes is a visceral expression of grief which is appropriate only in the heat of grief, which passes after the first week.

 

 

CHAPTER 218 – TESTIMONY FOR MOURNING

 

If news of a death comes via a letter, and the letter comes from an uneducated person, then we assume the person instinctively sent the letter as soon as he heard the news; therefore, we presume that the death was recent and mourning is observed.

 

If the letter comes from a Torah scholar, we don't observe mourning, for two reasons.  First of all, a Torah scholar knows that it is best to delay the news, as we learned in chapter 206.  Second of all, even if the scholar decides that it is best to transmit the news right away, he would have indicated that mourning is required.

 

This teaches two things about a Torah scholar.  First of all, his actions are always measured and considered, never hasty second of all, he is always careful that no one should come to a misdeed, whether intentional or inadvertent, as the result of his actions.  "It is a reliable guide that a Torah scholar never lets anything in disrepair leave his hand." (Eiruvin 32a.)

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