Hesped: How to Write and Deliver a Jewish Eulogy

The funeral is probably within a day or two, because that is how Jewish burial works, and someone has asked you to give the hesped. You may never have heard the word before this week. You may have heard it your whole life and still not know what is expected of you when you stand up.

This guide covers what a hesped is, who gives it, when in the service it happens, what tradition asks it to contain, how long it should run, the days it is traditionally not said, and two sample passages you can adapt tonight.

What Is a Hesped?

A hesped is the eulogy delivered at a Jewish funeral.

The word (הספד, plural hespedim) refers specifically to the funeral address for the person who died. The classical codes, in Yoreh De'ah 344, treat eulogizing the dead properly as a serious obligation rather than an optional courtesy, and the Talmud discusses whether the eulogy exists for the honor of the person who died or for the comfort of the living. The accepted view holds that it is primarily for the honor of the dead.

That framing matters for what you write. A hesped is not a performance and it is not a highlight reel. It is the last public account of a person's life, given in their presence, and tradition treats the accuracy of it as a form of respect.

There is a second, blunter tradition attached to it. A hesped is meant to move people to cry. Not to comfort them yet, not to tidy the grief away. Comfort comes later, at shiva. The funeral is for grief.

Who Gives the Hesped?

The rabbi almost always speaks. Beyond that, communities differ:

• In most Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist congregations, and in many Modern Orthodox ones, family members speak as well. Children, grandchildren, and close friends are all normal choices.
• In some traditional communities, the hesped stays with the rabbi or with a Torah scholar who knew the person, and family members speak instead at the shiva house.
• Some families designate one speaker per branch: one child, one grandchild, one friend.

Ask the officiating rabbi in the first phone call. Two questions get you what you need: how many people may speak, and how many minutes each. Those answers change what you write more than anything else in this guide.

If you are writing about a parent, the shape of the piece differs enough by relationship that we have separate walkthroughs for a hesped for a mother and a hesped for a father.

When Is the Hesped Given: Chapel or Graveside?

There are two places the hesped happens, and often both.

At the funeral chapel or synagogue. This is where the main hespedim are given, before the procession to the cemetery. The service is short by the standards of many traditions: psalms, the hespedim, keriah (the tearing of a garment by mourners), and El Malei Rachamim, the memorial prayer.

At the graveside. Remarks here are brief, two or three minutes at most. People are standing, often in weather, and the burial itself is the focus. Some communities give the full hesped at the graveside instead of at a chapel, particularly for a smaller funeral.

At shiva, sheloshim, or the yahrzeit. Longer remembrances often happen at these later gatherings, when there is time and the family is less raw. If you were not asked to speak at the funeral and you wanted to, this is your moment. If you are not sure how the week ahead is structured, our guide to Jewish funeral and mourning practice lays out the sequence from burial through the year.

What Goes Into a Hesped?

Tradition gives you three jobs. A good hesped does all three.

1. Praise, honestly

Speak about the person's middot, their character traits, and give evidence for each one. Not "he was generous" but the specific thing he did that you would call generosity.

The classical rule here is worth knowing: you may exaggerate a little, but you may not attribute qualities the person never had. Praising a woman for a piety she did not practice is understood as an insult, not a kindness. It also tells everyone in the room that you did not know her, or that you did not think the truth was good enough.

So write from evidence. The hospital visits. The check she sent without being asked. The forty years at the same job.

2. Move the room

The hesped is supposed to open grief rather than close it. Practically, that means:

• Speak to him, not only about him. A few sentences addressed directly to the person will do more than a paragraph of description.
• Use his name and his voice. Quote something he actually said, in the way he said it.
• Do not resolve the pain. "We know she is in a better place" flattens the room. Naming the size of the loss does not.
• Let yourself stop. Pausing is not failing. Have a glass of water on the lectern and a relative ready to finish if you cannot.

3. Draw a lesson

Traditional hespedim take something from the life and hand it to the living. Not a moral lecture. One concrete thing the people in the room should carry out the door.

He kept a list in his shirt pocket of people he owed a phone call. That is the whole lesson. Call the person you have been meaning to call.

That is the mussar haskel, the takeaway, and it is what distinguishes a hesped from a general tribute.

The traditional shape

Many hespedim, especially those given by a rabbi, follow a recognizable order:

1. An opening verse or Torah thought that fits the person
2. Who they were: their Hebrew name, their family, where they came from
3. Their middot, with evidence
4. Their role in the family and the community
5. The lesson for those listening
6. A request for forgiveness, mechila, on behalf of the family
7. A closing blessing for the soul

You do not need all seven. Numbers 3, 5, and 7 carry the piece.

How Long Should a Hesped Be?

Five to ten minutes for a single speaker. Three to five when several people are speaking. Two or three minutes at the graveside.

Here's the reason it stays tight: Jewish practice discourages delaying burial, and the whole service is built to move. A long, wandering hesped works against the rest of the funeral. Nobody has ever complained that a eulogy was too short.

Written out, five minutes is roughly 700 words. Print it in large type, double spaced.

Are There Days When a Hesped Is Not Given?

Yes, in traditional practice, and this catches families off guard when a death falls near a festival.

The general rule of thumb used in many communities: on days when the penitential Tachanun prayer is omitted, hespedim are omitted too. Those days include:

• Shabbat and Yom Tov, when Jewish burial does not take place at all
• Chol HaMoed, the intermediate days of Pesach and Sukkot
• Rosh Chodesh, the new month
• Chanukah and Purim
• The month of Nisan, in many communities
• Various other days of a joyful character, which vary by community custom

There is a well-known exception: for a chacham, a Torah scholar, a eulogy may be delivered in the presence of the body even on many of these days. Communities apply that exception differently.

Two honest caveats. First, these customs vary considerably between communities and between rabbinic authorities, and the details are more granular than any web page should pretend to settle. Second, most Reform and Conservative communities do not apply these restrictions, and the funeral will go ahead with eulogies regardless of the date.

What to do with that: ask the officiating rabbi or the funeral home as soon as the date is set. If eulogies are not being given, you have not lost anything. The words move to the shiva house, where there is more time and a smaller room, and many families find that better.

Two Sample Hesped Passages

Adapt these. Change every name and every detail. The structure is what you are borrowing.

Sample one: for a father

My father's name was Yaakov ben Shmuel, and everyone in this room called him Jack.

He was not a scholar and he would be annoyed if I said he was. He was a man who showed up. Forty-one years at the shop on Grand Avenue. Minyan most mornings, in the back row, in the same seat, with the same worn siddur he refused to replace. When my mother was sick, he learned to cook four things and made them in rotation for two years without a word of complaint.

Here is the thing about my father: he never once told me he was proud of me. He told other people. I found out at his sixtieth birthday, from a man I had never met, who repeated back to me a story about my job that my father had clearly told a hundred times.

Abba, I wish you had told me. I know it anyway.

If you want to honor him, do the boring thing well. Show up early. Stay to stack the chairs. That was his whole Torah.

Tehei nishmato tzrurah bitzror hachayim. May his soul be bound up in the bond of life.

Sample two: for a grandmother

My grandmother was Chana bat Miriam. To thirteen grandchildren she was Bubbe, and to about half the neighborhood she was also Bubbe, which tells you most of what you need to know.

She came here at nineteen with a sister and no English. She learned it from the radio and from customers at the bakery, and she never lost the accent, and she was not sorry about it.

Her table was the point of her. Every Friday, no matter who was fighting with whom that month. She would seat the two people who were not speaking directly across from each other and pretend it was an accident. It was never an accident.

Bubbe, we are sitting at your table this week without you at the head of it, and it is unbearable, and we are going to keep sitting at it.

If you loved her, set a Shabbat table this Friday. Invite someone who is not speaking to someone else.

Yehi zichrah baruch. May her memory be a blessing.

Notice what neither passage does. No lists of adjectives. No claim that either of them was a saint. One specific scene each, one line spoken directly to the person, one instruction for the living.

How to Write Yours Tonight

You likely have hours, not days. Work in this order:

1. Write down five specific memories. Not qualities. Scenes, with a place and a time. Twenty minutes.
2. Pick the two that only you could tell. The rabbi will cover the outline of the life. Your job is the part nobody else in the room has.
3. Name one trait each memory proves. Write the trait after the story, not before it. Evidence first is stronger.
4. Write four sentences addressed to the person. Second person. This is usually the part that lands hardest, and it is usually the part people cut because it feels exposed. Keep it.
5. Choose the lesson. One sentence, phrased as an action.
6. Add the opening and closing. Their Hebrew name at the top, a blessing at the end.
7. Read it aloud with a timer. Cut to fit the minutes you were given.

A few practical notes for the day itself. Print it, large. Bring water. Tell one person that they may need to finish it, and give them a copy. Do not memorize it, because grief takes memory first. Reading a hesped from paper is completely normal and nobody will think less of you for it.

Words and Phrases You May Want

• Z"l (zichrono livracha), of blessed memory, used after the name
• A"h (alav hashalom, aleha hashalom), peace be upon him or her
• Yehi zichro baruch / yehi zichrah baruch, may his or her memory be a blessing
• Tehei nishmato tzrurah bitzror hachayim, may his soul be bound up in the bond of life
• Mechila, forgiveness, as in asking the person's forgiveness for any way the family fell short
• Middot, character traits
• Mussar haskel, the lesson drawn from a life

To mourners after the funeral, the customary words are HaMakom yenachem etchem b'toch she'ar avelei Tzion v'Yerushalayim, may God comfort you among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. That belongs at the shiva house, not in the hesped itself.

Families who are holding more than one tradition at once, which is most families now, may also find our overview of funeral customs across communities useful for seeing how these pieces line up.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a hesped?

A hesped is the eulogy given at a Jewish funeral. The classical codes treat delivering one properly as an obligation toward the person who died, and its traditional purpose is to praise the person honestly, move the room to grief, and draw a lesson from the life.

Who gives the hesped at a Jewish funeral?

The rabbi almost always speaks, and in most communities today family members speak as well. Some traditional communities keep the hesped to the rabbi or to a Torah scholar. Ask the officiating rabbi early, because the answer shapes how long each speaker gets.

How long should a hesped be?

Five to ten minutes for a single speaker, and shorter when several people are speaking. Graveside remarks are usually two or three minutes. Jewish practice avoids delaying burial, so the whole service is normally kept tight.

Are there days when a hesped is not given?

In traditional practice, yes. Eulogies are generally omitted on Shabbat and festivals, on Chol HaMoed, and on days of a joyful character such as Rosh Chodesh, Chanukah, and Purim, with some communities extending this through the month of Nisan. Customs differ, and there are exceptions, so ask the rabbi.

Can you exaggerate in a hesped?

The classical sources allow slight exaggeration but not invented virtues. Praising a man for scholarship he never had is considered a dishonor rather than a kindness. Say what was true, and say it warmly.

What do you say at the end of a hesped?

Common closings are yehi zichrah baruch, may her memory be a blessing, and tehei nishmato tzrurah bitzror hachayim, may his soul be bound up in the bond of life. Many speakers also ask the person's forgiveness, mechila, for any way they fell short.