Introduction to the Prohibitions of the Mourner (1) – Moed Katan 14b to 16a
We are now going to begin a lengthy series that addresses the various behaviors that a mourner may not engage in during shivva, shloshim and the 12 months. In some ways, this is the bread and butter of Hilkhot Aveilut, as many mourners’ questions involve these topics. As we will see, some of these prohibitions feel intuitive to us today while others speak less readily to the 21st century mourner.
I also want to emphasize the following point: people in Yeshivot often think about the laws of Aveilut as based heavily on minhag. While a few areas are, in fact, driven by long standing communal practice – particularly around matters relating to davening – the vast majority of this material functions as normative Rabbinic law.
Despite the fact one siman asks which aspects of Aveilut are from the Torah and which from the Rabbis, most of these laws are understood to be Rabbinic, with a few exceptions. However, there does appear to be more flexibility in the laws of Aveilut than we might typically expect to find. Nonetheless, we should not read that flexibility as meaning that these are “just” minhagim; instead, that flexibility reflects the Rabbinic understanding that these laws are meant to express and respond to a deep human need. …