[Avodah] Spouse vs. parent

[Chanoch (Ken) Bloom]

On Tue, 2012-06-12 at 21:25 -0400, hankman wrote:
> RMF wrote:
> I have heard that the reason is that a parent is the only individual
> that
> can never be replaced (whereas a spouse or a child can be).
> 
> CM responds:
> Grandparents are also not “replaceable” but you do not even sit shiva
> for them at all. Similarly, an uncle or an aunt are also not
> replaceable (assuming the grandparents can no longer bear children or
> are no longer living) and one does not sit shiva for them either. It
> seems to my way of seeing things, that “replaceability” does not enter
> the calculus of shiva.

That doesn't mean that "replaceability" isn't a factor, simply that it's
only applied in conjunction with another factor -- namely the person
being close enough to you to require shiva in the first place.