[Avodah] Hilchos Aveilus (was Children at a Wedding)

[Prof. Levine]

At 02:26 PM 11/2/2009, Micha wrote:
>Hilkhos Aveilus are wonderful that way. They remove from the aveil the
>decision of what is "enough" or "appropriate" to do for their parent's
>memory by giving him  standard to follow.

I have, unfortunately, sat shiva 4 times - once for each of my 
parents, once for a son, and once for my brother, so I have some 
experience with this issue.

If you look as the poskim when it comes to this topic, it seems that 
there is almost an opinion to back whatever you decide to do. For 
example, some say you can go to a Kiddush on Shabbos, others say you 
cannot, etc. There are different minhogim for virtually everything. 
Just have a look at Mourning in Halacha.

Everyone will tell you that you say kaddish for 11 months. Yet, IIRC, 
Mourning in Halacha says that a son of the Chasam Sofer said kaddish 
for him for 11 months and 3 weeks.

So I really do not see how,  "They remove from the aveil the decision 
of what is 'enough' or 'appropriate' to do for their parent's memory 
by giving him standard(s) to follow."

Yitzchok Levine 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20091102/f261d11f/attachment-0001.htm>