Contacting the dead

Is there a way that I can establish contact with a friend of mine who passed away? I realize that it’s forbidden to hold seances, but maybe there is some other way that is permitted?

Torah forbids us to consult the dead (necromancy). It says that this is one of the things the Creator loathes. The Talmud and the Shulchan Oruch also state, that any method whereby a person can cause himself to be overcome by a spirit of the dead, or to communicate with the dead, is forbidden. It contradicts the maxim (Deuteronomy 18:13) “you shall be wholehearted with Lord your G-d” [which means wholeheartedly following all the commandments and prohibitions of the Torah, without looking for excuses].

Anyway, it’s important to emphasize, that necromancy is termed by the Talmud and by the works of halacha “a spirit of impurity”. The reason for this is that a person can only communicate with an impure part of a dead person’s soul, and not with the holy neshomah, which is a part of the Lord Above. I assume that what lures you is contact with your friend’s neshamah. They only road that is open to us is to wait patiently for the resurrection of the dead, may it come speedily.

May you be sealed for a good year

Deuteronomy 18:9-13; Tractate Sanhedrin, folio 65b; Shulchan Oruch, section Yore Dea, ch. 179, §13