“The Lord said to Moses: Behold, your days are approaching to die; summon Joshua, and stand in the Tent of Meeting and I will command him. Moses and Joshua went, and stood in the Tent of Meeting” (Deuteronomy 31:14). “The Lord said to Moses: Behold, your days are approaching” – halakha, a person of Israel whose deceased relative is laid out before him, what is the ruling; is it permitted for him to pray?
So, the Sages taught: One whose deceased relative is laid out before him is exempt from the recitation of Shema and from the Amida prayer. Why did our Rabbis teach us this? Since he sees his trouble before him, his mind is muddled. But once he is buried, all seven days of mourning, he is obligated for every possible matter of mitzva.
From where do you derive that mourning is seven days? Rabbi Abba bar Avina said: As we found regarding Joseph: “He observed mourning for his father seven days” (Genesis 50:10), and Shabbat is included in the count. Rabbi Yosei bar Zevida said in the name of Reish Lakish: You should derive it from another place. From where is it derived?
It is as it is stated: “I will transform your festivals into mourning” (Amos 8:10) – just as the days of the festival are seven,1This is a reference to a seven day festival. See Moed Katan 20a, which relates to the fact that Shavuot is a one day festival. so the days of mourning are seven. Our Rabbis said: There was an incident during the days of Rabbi Shimon ben Ḥalafta, who went to a circumcision.
The father of the baby made a feast, and gave them to drink wine that was aged seven years. He said to them: ‘I am aging from this wine for the wedding feast of my son.’ They were feasting until midnight. Rabbi Shimon ben Ḥalafta, who was confident in his strength, departed at midnight to go to his city.
He encountered the angel of death there on the way, and saw that he looked strange. He said to him: ‘Who are you?’ He said to him: ‘The emissary of the Omnipresent.’ He said to him: ‘Why do you look strange?’
He said to him: ‘It is due to the conversation of the people, who say: This and that we intend to do, but they do not know when they will be called to die. That man with whom you were dining, and [who] said to you: I am aging from this wine for the wedding feast of my son? The time for him2The son. to be taken will be reached after thirty days.’ He said to him: ‘Show me my time.’
He said to him: ‘I do not have control over you, and over those like you. At times, the Holy One blessed be He desires good deeds and adds life to you, as it is stated: “The fear of the Lord will add days”’ (Proverbs 10:27). The Rabbis said: The death of the righteous is onerous before the Holy One blessed be He. From where is it derived?
It is as it is stated: “Weighty in the eyes of the Lord is the death of His pious ones” (Psalms 116:15). Know that He should have said to Moses: “Behold, you are going to die,” but He did not say so. Instead, He forsook him and attributed his death to the days. From where is it derived? It is from what we read regarding the matter: “Behold, your days are approaching to die.”