Yahrzeit

Yahrzeit, meaning “year time” in Yiddish, refers to the anniversary of a death, traditionally observed on the Hebrew date. It is marked by lighting a candle that burns for 25 hours, from sundown to sundown. Tradition dictates that the closest mourners (parents, children, siblings, spouses) light a yahrzeit candle every year to honor the life of the person they have lost.

Little is instructed beyond that. There is no specific prayer, no blessing you are required to recite. After a year of meticulously detailed mourning rituals (Shiva, Kaddish, Shloshim, the unveiling), many people find this absence of instruction unsettling. I certainly did. The only rule is that the candle burn a full 25 hours, beginning at sundown of the night before (when, in Jewish tradition, a new day commences). 

What you do in those 25 hours is yours to decide. You might want to make up your own blessing, recite a poem, play their favorite music, eat the thing they loved, send money to an organization/cause they supported or dim the lights and watch the shadows dance on the wall as the candle burns.

This year, as I observe my father’s eighth yahrzeit, and after a year of researching and thinking about the tradition, I’ve come to a new understanding: the absence of instruction is not an oversight; it’s intentional. It gently nudges the mourner to sit with the discomfort of loss. For those emerging from the first year of highly structured mourning, this lack of guidance accompanies a transition to a new phase of self-guided grief. And precisely because there is no instruction for living with loss, the mourner is free (or even empowered) to construct rituals that are authentic to their singular experience.

I have also come to understand the tradition as more than a commemoration of the person who died. In the purest sense of “year time,” the yahrzeit is an invitation to reflect on the year gone by, not unlike Rosh Hashanah. What were the moments you wished you could have shared together? Does this yahrzeit feel different from last year’s? How has your grief shifted in a year? It is a time to think back on the first raw days and months of grief, and to notice how that impossible pain and all-consuming sense of loss has somehow transformed. It allows you to recognize that your life has evolved in ways you could never have imagined. In ways the person you loved inspired. In ways they would be proud of.

Each yahrzeit brings with it a different note along the bittersweet spectrum, and the notes change as you age. Lighting the yahrzeit candle remains constant while each observance is novel. A ritual simultaneously simple and profound. Do what you want with it. That is the ritual.

A postscript. 

My father, Richard Siegel z”l, was the creative force behind The Jewish Catalog. Published in 1973, it was a how-to guide for people who wanted a Jewish life on their own terms, outside the rabbi-congregation hierarchy. It became a viral phenomenon in its day; its legacy lives on today in Reboot. In fact, I would argue that this glossary project is a modern continuation of the Catalog’s mission. 

After six years of lighting the typical yahrzeit candles — the ones you find next to the matzah ball mix in the international aisle — I went on a mission to find a yahrzeit candle I actually wanted to use: one that is sustainable, clean and beautiful. I repeatedly came up empty handed. That was when I realized I needed to make my own.

Early in the research phase of the project, it occurred to me that I ought to look up what the Catalog had to say. The yahrzeit entry is four short paragraphs, and notes that “candles that burn at least twenty-five hours can be found at Hebrew bookstores, and even at some food stores carrying kosher products.”

And then, characteristically, it tells you about the emerging alternatives: 

“Several different types of Yahrzeit candles have been designed recently. Of particular note is one designed by Chana Wolpert Richard. The candle (replaceable) is placed inside a glass casing which has the verse נֵר יְהֹוָה נִשְׁמַת אָדָם inscribed upon it. It is available for $5.50 from the Tobe Pascher Workshop at the Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Avenue, NY, NY 10028.”

Now, fifty-some years on, I am remembering my father with a new alternative yahrzeit candle from Mere Mortals, a company I co-founded to make the candle I couldn’t find. Come September 2026 it will be sold at the same Jewish Museum as the one listed in the Catalog back in 1973… Mere coincidence? Maybe. Either way, I know he is kvelling.

Ruth Siegel is co-founder of Mere Mortals, a yahrzeit candle company inspired by ancient Jewish tradition and reimagined for today’s sensibilities, designed with Reboot Network member Rebecca Garza-Bortman and the generous support of Reboot.