RR 179-182

COVERING THE MIRRORS

The custom of covering the mirrors in the house of mourning during the seven days has had surprisingly little notice in the literature. Joseph Schwartz, who has written a number of books on mourning ritual and custom (as did his father-in-law, Elazar Deutsch, of Bonyhad, who devotes a whole volume of his responsa to the subject), has, as far as I can find, only one reference to this rather widespread custom. It is found in his well-known rabbinic magazine, V’Yelaket Yoseph, Vol. XIV, No. 110. He speaks of the custom and explains it as follows:

“I have heard the reason that in the house of mourning there are dangerous, malevolent spirits [Mazikim] and that in order that one should not see these evil ones, the mirrors are covered.”

Hirshowitz (in “Ozar Kol Minhagey Yeshurun,” #72 and #73, p. 303) gives a kindlier answer when he says that the departing spirit might be caught in the mirror. Joseph Schwartz, feeling somewhat discontent with the explanation involving evil spirits, reports a more halachic explanation that he heard ascribed to Moses Sofer, based upon the ancient mourning custom that the beds be overturned during the week of mourning (so that mourners would sleep on the ground). (Cf. b. Moed Katan 15a, b and Shulchan Aruch, Yore Deah 387 : 1, 2.) Nowadays, since this old custom of overturning the beds has lapsed (see Yore Deah 387 : 2), we turn the mirrors instead.

But, as is the case with the fear of taking anything from the house of mourning (discussed above, in Section D), it seems convincing that the explanation given first by Joseph Schwartz is the correct one, namely, the fear of evil spirits. If the custom has so little grounding in Jewish literature and yet is so widespread, then clearly it must have been borrowed from the folklore of surrounding people.

Dr. Kate Kolish, of the Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, has provided the following references to world folklore on this subject:

In the Encyclopedia of Superstitions, by E. Radford and M. Radford (p. 174), there is this paragraph:

If after a death, a person sees his image reflected in a mirror in the same room as the dead, he will shortly die himself. . . . With reference to the seeing of one’s reflection in a mirror in the room of a dead person: in Scotland folk invariably covered all mirrors in a house after a death, for the very reason given above. Incidentally, so do the Bombay Sunis, and the Zulus and Basutos of Africa. The origin of this belief is that the soul projected out of a person in the shape of his reflection in a mirror may be carried off by the ghost of the departed person, and thus, would not go to Paradise.

In The Golden Bough, by James G. Frazer (p. 223), speaking of ancient India and Greece:

Further, we can now explain the widespread custom of covering up mirrors or turning them to the wall after a death has taken place in the house. It is feared that the soul, projected out of the person in the shape of his reflection in the mirror, may be carried off by the ghost of the departed, which is commonly supposed to linger about the house till the burial.

In Customs of Mankind, by Lillian Eichler (p. 649):

In Europe, the country people always turn the mirror to the wall when someone lies dead in the house. They believe that whoever looks into a mirror when there is death in the house will die also. This custom of turning the mirrors to the wall, evidently to avoid seeing the evil spirits which cause death, originated among the early Irish, but quickly spread among superstitious people everywhere. The custom is practised even in the United States among various peoples, and frequently all pictures hanging on the walls, as well as all mirrors, are turned around.