Rituals
Shemira
Funerary Rituals
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Origin 200 to 600 CE
The watching of a body from death until burial, so that it is never left alone. The watcher recites psalms continuously, traditionally the whole book in rotation, and does not eat, drink or study other texts in the presence of the dead, since to do what the deceased can no longer do is held to mock them. Shifts are taken through the night and the duty is often shared across a community. The stated reasons are protection of the body and honour to it, and modern practice retains the vigil even where funeral homes have made protection unnecessary.
Facts
Function
Stage of Life MarkedDeath and the disposal of the body 2 Practice
Who Performs ItAll adherents of the tradition 2 ObligationObligatory 2Tradition: Judaism Obligatory: the body is not left alone from death until burial FrequencyOnce, or at a turning point in a life 2 Continuously from death until burial Solitary or CommunalA single watcher at a time, in unbroken relay Origins
Origin Period Place of Origin Historical OriginEncyclopaedia Judaica traces the custom of watching over a body from death until burial to a wider concern in Jewish law that the deceased not be left alone, a duty later formalized among the tasks undertaken by a burial society. 2 Form
Implements and MaterialsRequires no object beyond the presence of the shomer, the watcher, though psalms are traditionally recited aloud through the vigil rather than kept in silence. 2 Attributions
TraditionThe Oxford Dictionary of World Religions situates shemira within the Jewish tradition of honoring the dead, the practice of a shomer keeping watch over the body between death and burial so it is never left alone. 1 PurposeProvides continuous respectful company to the deceased from death until burial, traditionally through recitation of psalms, so the body is never left alone. 2 Meaning
Literal MeaningHebrew for guarding, naming the practice of keeping continuous watch beside a deceased Jewish person's body from death until burial, traditionally through recitation of psalms. 2 Learn More
Watching Over the Dead
Shemira (guarding, watching) is the custom of keeping constant watch over a body from the time of death until burial, so that the deceased is never left alone. The watcher, the shomer, sits with the body and traditionally recites psalms, especially those expressing trust and refuge. Several strands of meaning are given for the practice: a mark of respect and companionship for the one who has died, a practical guarding of the body in earlier conditions, and, in some readings, an accompaniment for the soul, which tradition pictures as lingering near the body until burial.
Because Jewish law calls for burial as soon as possible, usually within a day, the watch is normally short, but where burial is delayed it may continue in shifts. The same period is also when eating and other pleasures are set aside by close relatives, so that the community's attention is turned wholly toward the dead and their burial.
Why the Watcher Cannot Also Study
The rule against the watcher studying Torah or other sacred texts in the presence of the dead is not an arbitrary restriction on the shomer's time but a specific application of a Talmudic principle usually translated as not mocking the poor, originally addressed to the idea that flaunting an ability the poor lack in front of them is itself a form of cruelty, and extended by later authorities to the dead on the reasoning that a body can no longer study or perform commandments, so studying openly in its presence risks the same insult by comparison. Psalms are treated as an exception because they are read here as an act of accompaniment and comfort rather than intellectual accomplishment, which is why reciting them continuously is the shemira's central activity rather than something the rule against study would also forbid.
The custom's origin is tied to the plain concern that a body should never be left alone between death and burial, a concern with roots in both simple respect for the dead and older practical fears about a body being disturbed or left unattended in a period before funeral homes existed to provide secure, supervised premises. Contemporary practice has adapted the obligation to institutional settings rather than abandoning it: many funeral homes today employ paid shomrim to fulfill the watching requirement around the clock in cases where family or community volunteers cannot cover every hour themselves, a paid substitute for a role historically filled entirely by unpaid community members.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Attested In
The watcher of Shemira recites psalms continuously, traditionally the whole Book of Psalms in rotation, through the vigil.
Belongs to Tradition
Kept in Breslov Hasidism. The body is watched continuously from death until burial.
Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. The body is watched continuously from death until burial.
Kept in Haredi Judaism, where the halakhic standard is the strictest and the most stringent opinion is ordinarily followed. The body is watched continuously from death until burial.
Kept in Hasidic Judaism. The body is watched continuously from death until burial.
Kept in Modern Orthodox Judaism, alongside full engagement with secular study and with the state. The body is watched continuously from death until burial.
The body is watched continuously from death until burial.
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