A soul’s departure from this world does not happen in one moment. According to the mystical Torah, the soul undergoes seven journeys, some just before and others after death, in order to become fully detached from the world. The stages of this detaching are reflected in the halakhot of mourning, which end only after the soul’s complete detachment from the body.

One month before death:

The life force, along with the soul, departs from the body in seven stages…(1) Thirty days before death the soul begins a partial departure…(2) In the last hours the [spiritual] image [that accompanies a person from the time of his birth] withdraws from him…(3) The life force is extinguished [i.e., the actual moment of death], and the spirit returns to God…and on that day the bereavement at his passing is most intense.

The seven days of mourning:

(4) Three days after death, the soul abandons the body…and during those first three days, when the soul has not entirely departed the body, the halakhot of mourning are at their peak…as it is said: “Three days for weeping” (Moed Katan 27b)…(5) After the seven days, there is a further departure, and this is why most of the halakhot of mourning apply for seven days…and this is as it is written in Sha’ar HaMitzvot:

Seven surrounding lights … remain in the home, in the place where he died…during all seven days of mourning, the soul comes and goes, and it is hard for it to depart from there, and it is also hard for it to separate from its inner soul. Therefore it goes back and forth from the house to the grave and from the grave to the house. On each of the seven days of mourning, one of the seven surrounding lights attaches to the soul. When the seven days of mourning end, they have all separated from the house, and they come to rest on the grave.

From the end of the seven days of mourning, until one year after the death:

(6) After thirty days, the soul moves up an additional level…(7) The final stage is at the conclusion of twelve months. At that point, the soul departs from all matters of the material world, ascends to its heavenly source, and is not concerned with inconsequential material accomplishments…and since the soul has not totally departed from the body until twelve months have passed, there are mourning practices for one’s father and mother for the entire twelve months. (Rabbi Yeĥiel Mikhel Tukachinsky, Gesher HaĤayyim 2:26)