'Sitting Shiva' is a mourning custom in judaism. It starts immediately after the funeral and lasts seven days and nights ('shivah', literally means seven).
The 'shiva' is kept at the residence of the deceased or in the home of one of the principal mourners (relatives of first degree). The mourners usually sit on low beds and stools, express their grief, and discuss the loss of the loved one with visitors that come to offer their condolences and comfort .
web picture (from the Jewish Chronicle) -Sitting ShivaShortly before my retiring from work, the secretary at our office lost her mother, a last year hospice patient.
The 'shiva' was held at the home of the secretary's sister. The latter, a TV writer and director, wife of a well-known hospital doctor, lived in a beautiful house, located in a respectable neighborhood of a central city.
We were a bunch of four-five people from the office coming to extend our condolences to the bereaved family.
The spacious living room was occupied by the sister and her family awaiting the visits of high society people from the TV and medical fields.. We were directed to an adjacent room where we found our secretaryׂ with HER visitors.
I felt very badly about that, not to say shocked. The 'shiva' is meant to be a custom of togetherness not of separation, of human solidarity not of human polarization.
The thing is I've met the sister on a previous occasion and she had left a great impresion on me: good- looking, witty, polite, kind. And now this... perhaps, her husband's idea. Who knows.
We (the office colleagues), were too embarassed to discuss the matter among us.