[Avodah] a troubling halacha

[Elazar M. Teitz]

R. Micha Berger:

<RYBS writes that aveilus mishum availus is never more than 30 days. This is why the worst of mourning, when a parent loses a child, the aveilus is only 30 days. The rest of the year for a parent is caused by kibud horim, not aveilus itself.>

R. Joel Rich:

<IIRC he added because of the loss of the transmitter of the mesora.>

     I believe it was Rav Hutner who gave that reason, although with a connection to RYBS.

     In the year in which he sat shiva three times r"l, for his mother, brother and wife, on one of those occasions my father and RYH came simultaneously to be menachem aveil, and the question of the difference between aveilus for a child and a parent came up.  Each gave a different answer: RYBS mentioned the kibbud av va'eim aspect, RYH said that the passing of a parent means that we are one more generation removed from the origin of our mesora, and my father said that one has only one father and mother, while parents generally have more than one child.

     I have seen the story in print more than once.  Unfortunately, though not atypically for the sources in which I saw it, neither the identity of the aveil nor his answer were given.

EMT

      
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