FROM DUST TO DUST

“The time approached for Israel to die, so he called for his son, for Yosef, and said to him, “Please – If I have found favour in your eyes, please place your hand under my thigh and do kindness and truth with me – please do not bury me in Egypt. For I will lie down with my fathers and you shall transport me out of Egypt and bury me in their tomb. He said, “I personally will do as you have said.” (Bereishit 47:29-30)

“Then he instructed them; and he said to them, “I shall be gathered to my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite. In the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which faces Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Avraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite as a burial estate. There they buried Avraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Yitzchak and Rivkah his wife; and there I buried Leah.” (ibid, 49:29-31)

Burial of the dead is perhaps the most ancient of all religious ceremonies. It features prominently in our Scripture. The funeral and burial of Yaakov which is described in our parsha (Bereishit 50:7-14) is the most elaborate of all those mentioned in the Torah but there are many others. These include: the burial of Sarah in the first piece of real estate ever purchased by a Jew in Canaan (ibid 23:19); the burial of Avraham, at which his sons Yitzchak and Ishmael were reconciled (ibid 25:9, see Rashi); the burial of Dvora, the nurse of Rivkah in Bet-El (ibid 35:8); the burial of Rachel on the road leading to Bet-Lechem and the erection of a monument over her grave (ibid 35:19-20); Yitzchak’s burial, officiated by his sons Yaakov and Eisav (ibid 35:29); the simple burial of Miriam in the Wilderness of Zin (Bamidbar 20:1); the very moving burial of Aharon on Mt Hor, during which Moshe removed his brother’s priestly vestments and transferred them to his nephew, Elazar, who became the new Cohen Gadol (ibid 20:22-29) and finally, the burial of Moshe which was performed by God and God alone in an undisclosed location on Mt Nebo, east of the Jordan.

The Talmud (Sotah 14a) notes: “Rabbi Samlai taught: With regard to the Torah, its beginning is an act of kindness and its end is an act of kindness. Its beginning is an act of kindness, as it is written: “And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin, and clothed them” (Bereishit 3:21). And its end is an act of kindness, as it is written (Devarim 34:6): “And He [God] buried Him [Moshe] in the valley in the land of Moab”. Burial is used as an example of God’s kindness and care for His creatures. Moreover, it is one of the highest forms of kindness, as Rashi (citing the Midrash, Bereishit Rabba 96:5) explains in our parsha (Bereishit 47:29), “The kindness shown to the dead is “kindness of truth” (true, disinterested kindness) since one cannot hope for any reward.” Often when one does an act of chesed, there might be a slight expectation that one day, the recipient of the kindness will pay the favour. In the case of attending to a dead body or being present at a funeral, there is no expectation that the recipient (the deceased) will repay the favour.

All of the examples of burial cited above are part of the narrative past of the Torah. They tell us what happened but not necessarily what ought to happen and what is required by law. Where does the Torah actually command us to bury our dead?  

The mitzvah of burial appears in an unusual context. Devarim (21:22-23) states: “If a man shall have committed a sin whose judgement is death, he shall be put to death, and you shall hang him on a gallows. His body shall not remain for the night on the gallows, rather you shall surely bury him on that day, for a hanging person is a curse of God, and you shall not contaminate your Land, which Hashem, your God, gives you as an inheritance.” Ramban explains this verse as follows: Even if someone is a criminal and has committed the most heinous crimes for which he deserves to be hanged, nevertheless do not allow his body to remain on the gallows overnight for the most accursed method of executing someone is by hanging and it is not proper that you bring shame to the land in this way. According to Ramban, the Torah selected the most extreme of all cases to teach us the law of immediate burial – if we are obligated to bury wilful sinners then we are most certainly duty-bound to bury ‘regular’ people and righteous individuals. 

One who fails to bury a Jew promptly is in transgression of two commandments, one negative and the other positive, for the Torah (ibid) states, “his body shall not remain for the night on the gallows” and “you shall surely bury him on that day.” The case of the criminal who is left on the gallows is used by the Torah as an example of leaving a body in a disgraceful manner but it is not the only scenario. Any time that a body is left unburied for a frivolous reason would be a transgression of this commandment. The only time that a body may be left unburied is where such a delay is for the deceased’s honour as opposed to the honour of the living.  As a practical matter, based on the ruling of the Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh Deah 357), the Chevra Kadisha will only sanction a delay if there is an immediate family member travelling to the funeral, such as a son coming to recite kaddish. Only seven relatives are considered immediate family members for this purpose – sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and spouses. Another exception is when a great Torah scholar passes away and the delay will allow many of his students to be present at his funeral, for they too are considered as his immediate family. Even in these instances, a lengthy delay is inappropriate and our local Chevra Kadisha has fixed the maximum delay at 72 hours. In Jerusalem, a body is never left overnight and funerals take place even at night in accordance with the ancient enactment of Ezra (see Bava Kama 82b). 

The Torah mandates that the remains of a Jew be buried in the ground and not disposed of in any other way, such as cremation. In fact, the verse uses a double expression “kavor tikbereinu”, “you shall surely bury him” to indicate that the entire body must be buried, and even the implement that was used to kill him, such as a sword (which contains his blood) must be buried. In Israel there is an organisation called ZAKA that fulfils the important and heart-wrenching task of picking up every human remain after a terrorist attack or motor accident so that they will be given a Jewish burial.

The plight of the hostages who were captured on 7 October 2023 has brought the importance of a Jewish burial into sharp focus. The anguish of the families of the hostages was of a dual nature – are their relatives still alive and if they are dead, will their remains ever be brought to ‘kever Israel’ (a Jewish burial)? Will their parents, children, spouses and siblings have a place to visit, a monument to eternalise their memories, or will they end up in a communal grave whose location is forever unknown? This trauma is not unlike that of many Holocaust survivors who have no tombstones to visit and no date on which to observe a yartzeit. The Nazis stole not only the lives of their relatives but also their bodies by cremating them in ovens and burying them in mass graves. It is a strong human need to know that after death one’s name will not be forgotten and that there will be a place for future generations to visit and recall the deeds of those long departed.

Jewish burial is a basic right for every member of our faith. It is the final act of kindness that we can do for someone for which we receive no compensation from the deceased and it is therefore the ultimate and true form of chesed. Let us ensure that no Jew is denied the privilege of kever Israel. 

Lee, Chani Merryl & Naomi join me in wishing you Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Liebenberg.

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