Free Jewish Mourning Calculator

Jewish Mourning Calendar: Shiva, Shloshim & Yahrzeit

Enter the date of passing to instantly calculate when shiva ends, when shloshim ends, and the date of the first Yahrzeit — the three pillars of the Jewish mourning calendar.

Jewish mourning is one of the most thoughtfully structured grief systems in the world. Rather than leaving mourners to navigate loss alone and without guidance, Jewish tradition provides a graduated calendar that moves from the most intense, immediate grief inward — and then gradually outward, back toward life. Each phase has a name, a duration, and a set of practices that have been refined over thousands of years.

Knowing when each phase begins and ends is practically important. It tells you when shiva visitors are expected, when the mourner may leave the house, when they may return to work, and when the Yahrzeit candle should be lit each year. This calculator gives you those dates in seconds.

The Three Phases of Jewish Mourning

Jewish law describes mourning in concentric circles — each phase wider and less restrictive than the last, guiding mourners from acute grief back toward participation in daily life. Here is how they work.

Understanding Shiva

Shiva — the Hebrew word for "seven" — is the most intense phase of Jewish mourning. For seven days after burial, mourners are expected to remain at home, receive visitors, and focus entirely on their grief. The community takes on responsibility for feeding the mourner; arriving at a shiva house with food is a mitzvah (a religious obligation). The meals of consolation brought by neighbors and friends are not optional gestures — they are part of the structure of mourning.

The practices of shiva — covering mirrors, sitting on low chairs, not wearing leather shoes — are not arbitrary. Each one serves a purpose. Covered mirrors remove vanity and the preoccupation with appearance at a time when that focus would be a distraction from grief. Low seating physically expresses that the mourner has been brought low by loss. The restrictions on leather are ancient in origin and serve as a form of asceticism — a physical acknowledgment that the body is in mourning.

Shiva ends on the morning of the seventh day. The mourner does not need to sit the full seventh day — they rise from shiva when the morning prayers end on day seven. Shabbat counts as one of the seven days but publicly observed mourning practices are suspended for Shabbat.

Shloshim and Beyond

Shloshim — "thirty" in Hebrew — extends the mourning period to thirty days from burial. During shloshim, mourners return to most aspects of daily life: they go back to work, leave the house, and are no longer expected to receive visitors at home. But restrictions remain. Mourners avoid haircuts, shaving, attending parties or celebrations, wearing new clothes, and listening to live music.

For losses other than a parent, shloshim marks the end of the formal mourning period. For the loss of a parent, mourning (avelut) continues for twelve months, though by long-standing custom Kaddish is recited daily for only the first eleven — the twelfth month is skipped so as not to imply the parent needed the full purification period reserved, in tradition, for the wicked. This extended observance acknowledges that the loss of a parent is categorically different: the people who brought you into the world leave a particular kind of absence that deserves extended recognition.

The Yahrzeit — the annual death anniversary on the Hebrew calendar — continues every year indefinitely. On the Yahrzeit, mourners light a candle that burns for 24 hours, recite Kaddish at synagogue, and often visit the grave. It is a day of remembrance, not additional mourning — a way of keeping the connection alive year after year.