Jewish tradition around loss is generally considered a source of deep wisdom, but it is not without its limitations. When talking about the ritual of shiva, of consoling the mourners inside their home the first week after the funeral, we are usually speaking about comforting siblings, children, spouses and G-d forbid, parents. According to Jewish law, those are the categories of relationships that give one the status of mourner.
A few weeks ago, I attended a shiva at the home of a mentor of mine, who lost her best friend, Irene. Irene converted to Judaism late in life and didn’t have any Jewish blood relatives. According to Jewish tradition, there were no family members to say the mourner’s kaddish prayer for her. Without Jewish blood family, there was no obvious address for the consolation. Except there was: Her best friend stepped up and decided to host the shiva. As it turns out, having your closest friend of many decades take on this role solves more than one problem.
What a gift to be able to host a shiva for a best friend! As someone outside the inner circle, I witnessed at least three levels of gifts from this gathering—expected, yet unexpected given the circumstances.
Level one: A gift to the self.
Loss from one’s inner circle of loving relationships is hard no matter who it is. Losing a good friend is an enormous loss and deserves time to recover, heal, and process. Jewish traditional observance encourages us to face loss head-on by receiving support and allowing ourselves time to mourn.
Shiva literally means seven. Traditionally, mourners take seven days in their home before beginning the process of reintegrating back into their lives; one is not expected to resume day-to-day responsibilities immediately after that type of loss. These calculations are assumed when the mourner is a family member, but the death of a friend can be just as profound a loss. It takes a certain amount of courage and freedom to silence the inner critic to declare, “This impacts me as well.” Grief exists outside the traditional family structure. We serve ourselves better when we act on that.
Level two: A gift for the community.
When a close friend hosts a shiva, that shiva can become a conduit for the loss felt by the entire community. In the case of my mentor, opening her home allowed dozens of friends and congregants to show up and connect to Irene’s life that might not have otherwise had the chance. Without the family to anchor the loss, the shiva house provided the community with something it did not know it needed.
The primary Jewish organizing principles around death revolve around “comforting the mourner” and “honoring the deceased.” When a best friend is hosting the shiva, many in attendance, who were also friends, may feel a little more permission to mourn themselves. As if to say, this is our loss as well. There also might be a different conversation on what it means to honor the dead. One of the highlights of the shiva I attended was when one of the rabbis in attendance read aloud the incredible dvar Torah (sermon) Irene gave at her adult Bat Mitzvah, only a few years prior. Its message still completely resonated for many people in the room. A different kind of communal magic perhaps is created at a shiva like this.
Level three: A gift to the spirit of friendship.
A best friend shiva offers a deeper appreciation of what the idea of friendship is and might be. For some, our inner circle of friends have become our “chosen family.” They are the ones who often know us better than our biological family, maybe even better than we know ourselves sometimes. A shiva hosted by a best friend reminds us that we can be in relationships with people where we feel completely seen and understood, which in turn releases a sense of spiritual expansiveness as humans beyond blood. By demonstrating how we might honor our fallen friends, these kinds of rare gatherings give us permission to take stock in how committed we are to our existing friendships, how open we are to making new friendships, and how we let go of them. Acute loss can invite us to ponder the idea of friendship in ways we haven’t before.
We are going to need our friends. On the whole, we are living much longer lives than at any point in human history. Longevity has altered the human condition in ways we both can and cannot yet measure. Our family structures are changing. Loneliness has never been more rampant. The organizing principles around building communities in previous generations are changing rapidly.
The skills needed to make and navigate friends are worth cultivating. Not simply “having friends,” but forging those relationships, maintaining them, and then, when the time comes, releasing them. In an article about friendship, Jancee Dunn of The New York Times wrote, “Strong relationships are what make for a happy life. More than wealth, I.Q., or social class, it’s the robustness of our bonds that most determines whether we feel fulfilled.”
Judaism makes it clear how to honor our departed relatives, and this wisdom has helped hold us together during the hardest moments of our lives. What might it look like to apply some of that wisdom to our friendships? We can learn a great deal from a shiva organized by a best friend. May Irene McHenry’s memory be for a blessing.