Healing
Searching for meaning or solace in a time of sickness or pain? Here we offer Jewish insights and rituals, both traditional and contemporary, for those in need of healing.
To access the CLAL Healing Archive, click here.
Mourning
There are many customs associated with shiva, the period of mourning, such as covering mirrors, not greeting or being greeted by visitors, and allowing others to cook for us and tend to our household chores. All of these customs are designed to free us from worldly concerns while we are preoccupied in grief. It is a custom that when shiva ends, the mourners leave their house and walk around the block. The first step out the door is surely symbolic of the return to the larger world outside of hearth and home which, during shiva, was a holding place for very wounded hearts. The mourners may now greet and be greeted by others, and begin to resume normal daily activities. Terribly jarring at first, in the fullness of time, being woven back into a less heavy world will become second nature.
Meditation
May it be your will that I slowly accept your comfort into my heart, O Lord. Help me to return to your broken world by greeting all whom I meet with "Shalom" (wholeness and peace) and wishing them "Shalom" as we depart. Eternal one whose name is peace, grant my heart healing and shalom.
Ritual
At the conclusion of shiva, the mourners leave their house and walk around the block. Returning back home does not mean that mourning and being comforted are over, but it does signify that the time has come to restore connections to a living world and to begin to seek healing of one’s broken heart. Greet all those you encounter, both while walking and on return home with "Shalom," symbolizing our hope for increasing wholeness and peace.
(CLAL Faculty)
To join the conversation at Healing Talk, click here.
To access the Healing Archive, click here.
To receive the Healing column by email on a regular basis, complete the box below:
