Hilkhot Avelut: Understanding the Laws of Mourning
Hilkot Avelut: Understanding the Laws of Mourning
Rabbi David Brofsky
Maggid/RCA
266 pp
Looking forward to getting my hands on it since the announcement of
it’s release, this week I finally got my copy of David Brofsky’s new work on the Laws of
Mourning, “Hilkhot Avelut: Understanding the Laws of Mourning.”
Hilkot
Avelut dissects all the major aspects of mourning, presenting them from the
original texts, usually the Talmud right through to the practical halacha. It is the only work of its
kind on the laws of mourning in the English language. There is no other place
to turn in order to understand the evolution of the laws and customs of mourning.
Unfortunately, the table of contents does not do justice to the book
as it only lists the “primary” topic of every chapter, for example, there are chapters on: “Aninut”, “Burial”,
and “Yahrzeit”. However, each of these chapters contains a treasure trove
of sub-topics besides actual mourning that readers would want to read about. For
example, there are tangents on issues such as the reasons for burial, burial in
non-Jewish cemeteries, the importance of burial in Eretz Yisrael, cemetery etiquette,
shiva house etiquette, autopsies, and cremation, among others. It’s too bad that
this is not made clear to those who might peruse the sefer in a bookstore and
judge the content solely on the listing in the table of contents. The content of
this book is far more valuable than the table of contents lets on.
I see this book as far more of an education in the laws of mourning
than a practical guide. Indeed, there is so much Torah and sources in its pages
that it may even be questionable whether a mourner during shiva is even permitted to
read the book! Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration (but only a bit, really) but
one who needs instant answers and how-to advice would not find convenience in
the main body of the book. That being said, the beginning of the book does have
a straight forward, ruling by ruling, thirty-page summary of all the practical
laws of mourning. Although nicely done, such brevity, and the lack of any sources
in this section, may leave the “Mourning in the Halacha” by Rabbi Chaim
Binyamin Goldberg as the go-to book for instant answers for those in mourning.
Indeed, as the sub-heading of the book testifies, it is more about “Understanding
the Laws of Mourning” rather than a “Practical Guide to the Laws of Mourning.” As Rabbi Brofsky himself writes: "I believe that this book falls in between two excellent, but radically different books: R. Maurice Lamm’s “The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning," and the Artscroll translation of the Pnei Baruch [Goldberg]." Well, from the perspective of insights and understanding the origins of the laws of mourning, I feel that it exceeds both books. From the practical perspective, however, it does indeed "fall between [the] two."
In any event, the publication of Hilkhot Avelut is a yama tava l’rabanan.
It is an amazing, no, --the best-- resource for both rabbis and serious laymen
who want to understand the laws of mourning from the original sources right through
to modern day application. It is well written and engaging and it is certain to
be a book that one will make reference to over and over again.
