[Avodah] a troubling halacha

[Zev Sero]

Eli Turkel wrote:
> In the latest shiur of R. Zilberstein he repeated the halacha against
> informing women of the death of a close relative

What halacha?  I don't believe there is any halacha against telling.
It's just natural not to want to bring bad news to someone, and if the
news might harm them then there's a greater reluctance.  But I've never
heard that this applies especially to women.  Surely it all depends on
the situation; if a woman is pregnant, for instance, why upset her?
Let her find out later, if possible.  Or if a person is elderly, male
or female, or in poor health, why upset them?  Why risk their health,
or just cause them agmas nefesh for no reason?  For that matter, why
subject an elderly or frail person to the physical deprivation of
the laws of avelus, if it's not for a parent?

But sometimes there's nobody else to sit shiva, so you have to tell
*someone*, and that would preferably be a man, who will say kaddish.
But none of this is halacha.



> Sitting shiva especially together with the family is of great
> importance for most people and they are greatly offended if denied
> that privelege. It caused great anguish to my mother when it happened.

Every person is different, and you have to be able to assess how the
person will react if and when they find out.  If it's an old person
it may be possible to keep the news from them permanently, until they
meet the niftar, either in Olam Ha'emes or at Techiyas Hamesim.


> In fact in the story in the gemara  R. Chiya in fact does tell Rav
> that his parents passed away but only indirectly.

Other way around.  Rav is the one breaking the news to R Chiya about
his (Rav's) parents, or according to Tosfos about R Chiya's parents.
The gemara is in Pesachim 4a.

But this story isn't really a direct proof to us, because R Chiya
directly asked Rav about his parents' health, so he had to answer
*something*.  Had he not asked, perhaps he'd never have told him.
What we do learn from the story is the great reluctance to bring bad
news.  And R Chiya doesn't react, as your mother did, with regret that
he didn't get to have the "shiva experience", but by immediately
announcing that after a brief avelus he will be off to the bath house.
Perhaps if Rav had known that R Chiya felt like your mother about it,
he'd have written to him immediately after each of his parents died,
so that he could perhaps get the news within 30 days, and get to sit
a full shiva.  Or perhaps not; the gemara doesn't say.


Micha Berger wrote:
> What about the chiyuv mishum kibud av va'eim?

If the person knows, and doesn't mourn, then they're violating KAvE;
if they don't know then they have no chiyuv.


> Also, those who follow minhag Vilna and its environs would have her
> say qaddish. So the assumption doesn't apply.

In those families do daughters say kaddish even if there are sons
saying it, or only if there aren't any?  If the latter, and if in
this particular case there are sons, then the same considerations
apply.  For that matter, even with a son, if there's already one son
who knows and is saying kaddish, it's not necessarily right to tell
the other sons; it would depend on how they will feel if they learn
later that they were deprived of saying kaddish.  Which brings us
back to the earlier point, that with women too it depends on how they
will react, and one can't make one rule to fit all.

It's well known that when the LR's brother died, he kept the news from
his mother for the rest of her life.  When he was sitting shiva he
painted his slippers to look like shoes and would go every day to visit
his mother as he usually did.  And afterwards he would forge letters
from his brother and have them posted to her from EY so she wouldn't know.

Some personal anecdotes: When my mother's grandmother died, my mother
was pregnant, and my father asked everyone to keep the news from her,
but after a few months my great-aunt forgot, and mentioned it in a
letter.  This obviously wasn't a case of shiva.

When my father's uncle died, we got the news early on Purim.  He had no
surviving children, and the only people left to sit shiva for him were
his brother and sister.  The brother's grandchild was getting married
later that week, so nobody wanted to tell him and disturb his simcha.
Thus it was decided that my grandmother had to be told.  She was
persuaded with some excuse to hold the family Purim seudah early, and
then they broke the news so she could sit shiva.  I'm not sure whether
the brother was told right after the wedding, or whether they waited 30
days to tell him so he wouldn't have to sit for more than a short time.

In that same family, when one of the siblings died shortly before a
yomtov, the others weren't told the news until erev yomtov.  (In that
case the niftar had children who sat the whole shiva.)


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas