Torah For Our Times: Emor – Discovering Life in Death
I remember learning at a young age that all we can be certain of in life is living, dying, and paying taxes! However, how one approaches life and death goes a long way in determining one’s level of happiness and fulfillment. With regard to death, Bible scholar Pinchas Peli suggests, “It is because of respect for life on this earth that taking care of the dead is accorded a high priority in one’s religious duties.”
From its early beginnings, Judaism assigned the responsibility for burying one’s dead to the community. Every Jewish community maintains a Hevra Kadisha (literally, “holy society”) whose responsibility it is to prepare the dead for burial. Today, a number of individual synagogues maintain their own personal Hevra Kadisha. These “holy societies” are comprised of volunteer members of the Jewish community who take responsibility for cleansing, dressing, and preparing the body for burial. They purposely perform this mitzvah anonymously to avoid taking the immediate attention away from the departed.
Peli notes, “Funerals in ancient Egypt lasted seventy days: they were filled with pomp and ceremony. In Jewish tradition, the less time elapsed between death and burial, the better. The simpler the affair, the more commendable.” There exists a psychological barrier to spiritual healing as long as the dead have not been buried. Family members and gathered mourners actively participate in shoveling dirt into the grave. Actual participation in the burial brings a stark reality to the death and an act of closure to the grieving mourners. The sooner the funeral can take place, the sooner one can begin the active process of healing; returning to life.
The prayer most commonly associated with a death is the Kaddish. The words of this ancient prayer are notably directed at the mourners and those gathered, not at God! Pinchas Peli goes on to write, “[The Kaddish] declares that even at this moment of grief and loss, in the face of the helplessness and defeat demonstrated by death, we reaffirm the fact that the purpose of life in this world is that God’s name be magnified.” In other words, death becomes a reaffirmation of life, itself. Magnifying God’s name means doing God’s will to make this a better world for all people. Most notably, in Jewish tradition we do not stand at a grave and pray for the afterlife of the deceased, rather we invoke God’s assistance in sanctifying the lives of the living. The last verse in the mourner’s Kaddish said at the conclusion of the funeral is: “God who makes peace in the heavens make peace for us, Israel, and all humankind.”
Rabbi Howard Siegel
