Bereavement in Judaism

Bereavement in Judaism (Hebrew: אֲבֵלוּת, avelut ; mourning) is a combination of minhag and mitzvah derived from Judaism's classical Torah and rabbinic texts. The details of observance and practice vary according to each Jewish community.

Upon receiving news of the passing

Upon receiving the news of the passing, the following blessing is recited:

There is also a custom of rending one's clothes at the moment one hears news of a passing.

Orthodox men will cut the lapel of their suit. Non-orthodox practice may be to cut a necktie or to wear a button with a torn black ribbon This symbolic practice is called wearing a Kriah ribbon.

Chevra kadisha

The chevra kadisha (חברה קדישא "holy society") is a Jewish burial society usually consisting of volunteers, men and women, who prepare the deceased for proper Jewish burial. Their job is to ensure that the body of the deceased is shown proper respect, ritually cleansed, and shrouded.

Many local chevra kadishas in urban areas are affiliated with local synagogues, and they often own their own burial plots in various local cemeteries. Some Jews pay an annual token membership fee to the chevra kadisha of their choice, so that when the time comes, the society will not only attend to the body of the deceased as befits Jewish law, but will also ensure burial in a plot that it controls at an appropriate nearby Jewish cemetery.

Vaněk plays

The Vaněk Plays use are a set of plays in which the character Ferdinand Vaněk is a main character. Vaněk first appeared in the play Audience by Václav Havel. He subsequently appeared in three other Havel plays (Protest, Unveiling, and Dozens of Cousins), as well as plays by his friends and colleagues, including Pavel Landovský and Tom Stoppard.

Origins

Ferdinand Vaněk first appeared in the play Audience in 1975 as a stand-in for Havel. Vaněk, like Havel, was a dissident playwright, forced to work in a brewery because his writing has been banned by the Czechoslovak Communist regime. In the course of the play, it become clear that the brewmaster has been asked to spy on him. A long, rambling, comic dialogue proceeds, in the course of which the brewmaster eventually becomes a sympathetic figure, rather than a villain.

Since Havel's work was banned, the play was not performed in any theater. Instead, it was performed in living rooms and as samizdat. However, the work became quite well known in the Czech Republic despite that.