42:1).</b> May it please our master to teach us the number of days during which a mourner is forbidden to work. Thus did our master teach us: A mourner is forbidden to work during the seven days following the burial. However, if he is an extremely poor man, he may return to his labors after the third day to obtain sustenance for himself and the members of his household.
Why is one permitted to return to work after three days? R. Kahana said: After three days, the flesh becomes putrid, the countenance changes, and the soul pleads for itself, as is said: <i>But his flesh grieveth for him, and his soul mourneth over him</i> (Job 14:22).
Observe that though the law permits a mourner to return to his work and be comforted after three days, our patriarch Jacob refused to be comforted over the loss of Joseph, as is written: <i>And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted</i> (Gen. 37:35). Why was that? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, concealed the fact of Joseph’s survival in order to fulfill the decree <i>Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger</i> (Gen. 15:13). If that had not been so, would not Isaac his father, a prophet, who was still alive and aware that Joseph still lived have disclosed it to him? He had said to himself: If the Holy One, blessed be He, concealed it from him, shall I tell him? When the prophetic spirit bubbled up in Jacob, the tribes were wandering about the marketplace, neither understanding nor hearing what was transpiring there, while Jacob our patriarch, sitting at home, knew what was happening in Egypt, as it is said: <i>And now Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt</i>.