Thursday, November 30, 2017

Food Serving and Storage During Shiva

Part of the shiva experience is the community mobilizing to send in meals for the mourners and their families.  Friends and non-immediate relatives take care of serving the meals and managing the kitchen, while the mourners receive comfort from callers.  The amount of food gifts can be overwhelming, and if not treated strategically, can spoil and crowd the refrigerator.  


~Some tips:

  • All scheduling and planning of meals should go through one point person.  There are online tools such as www.takethemameal.com that can assist with this process.  For all gifts, be sure to record both
    • the type of food expected/received (to plan some variety) and
    • the names of those who sent it (for acknowledgement purposes)
  • Don’t leave the freezing and food storage for the end of the week - things will spoil - once the next meal arrives at the home, left overs from previous meal should be frozen right away in portions appropriate to the family size
  • Make sure to remind the mourners to drink throughout the day - shiva is exhausting and the mourners are not focused on their bodily needs. Have available cold bottles of water, glasses with ice, coffee, gatorade, etc. and distribute regularly.
  • Plan designated meal times spaced reasonably around services so that mourners have time to chew and swallow some food without being inundated by visitors.  Note that eating may be onerous for the mourner during this time… try not to rush the meal if possible.   You may want to post specific times for visitors and specific times for family privacy.  If these are listed outside a locked front door, visitors will know when to return.


For those involved with organizing the shiva house, you can find a shopping list here for some items you will want to have on hand.





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I am an educator who is trained to reflect, not a rabbi or any type of halachic authority. These writings are in no way binding, and may not represent all approaches to and experiences in navigating grief. In fact, there will likely be those who disagree with me or can offer additional suggestions and reflections. For this reason, I am leaving the comments section open so that together as a community, we can broaden the scope of this blog to include a majority of human experience.

One important request: Please be respectful in posting your comments and be sure to frame your tips in the most positive phrasing possible. I reserve the right to delete any unkind comments and plan to update the original posts occasionally to include additional insights and reflections from our combined experience.

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