[Avodah] No hesped?

[T613K at aol.com]

From: "Rich, Joel" _JRich at sibson.com_ (mailto:JRich at sibson.com) 

>>There seems  to be a not infrequent practice to allow for funerals held
on days when there  are not supposed to be hespedim , "recollections"
and/or "life lessons"  (substitute appropriate Yiddish depending on your
venue ) .  Given that  according to many  (while bechi is a goal) the
main element of hespedim  is to remember who the individual was and the
impact of his absence, what is  the halachik basis for these talks?  Is
anyone aware of whether this has  been minhag Yisrael for a long time for
the  masses?<<

>>>>>
I don't know sources and I don't  know how long this has been "minhag 
Yisrael" (if it can even be called a  minhag), but my grandmother A'H passed away on 
chol  hamoed Pesach.   And I remember that my father said at the  levaya that 
you don't make hespedim on chol hamoed, and then  he  addressed his mother 
directly in Yiddish, just a few sentences, of  which I remember only:   "Mama, 
you used to come to school every day  to bring me a hot lunch."  
 

Parenthetically I think he may actually have been embarrassed, as a young  
boy, by the fact that his mother showed up at school every day with a hot lunch  
-- no one else's mother did that -- but (something I learned only years  
later) his mother had another son, a brother my father never met, who died of  
hunger in World War I. I don't remember what else my father said, only that he  
said goodbye to his mother and did not directly address the people at the  
levaya.  Of course, addressing the niftar is not unusual, one often sees it  at 
levayos even not on yom tov.  But I guess that technically that's not a  hesped. 
 My father certainly would have spoken at greater length, and in  English, if 
it had not been chol hamoed.  




--Toby Katz
=============
Romney -- good values,  good family, good hair
Best hope against  Hillary




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