another naiL in the coffin of JeWish traditions rabbi LeibeL MiLLer

Jewish burial tradition for thousands of years has con sidered an eventual interment in the sanctified grounds of a Jewish cemetery of paragon importance. The Biblical Com mandment, “To the ground you shall return” is one of the first directives recorded in Genesis. Abraham, the father of the Jewish people, purchased what would become our forefathers ʼ ancestral burial grounds in the ancient city of Hebron in the Holy Land. Later when his grandchildren dwelt in Egypt, Jacob, and Joseph after him, made their progeny swear to bury their earthly remains in the ancestral land of Israel and not amongst the non Jews. To this day, the holy burial sites of the Jewish people are vis ited not only in Israel but also throughout all of the lands of our exile. Traditionally, one of the very first communal activi ties of every Jewish community has been to establish a cem etery and the burial society re sponsible for its operation. The

Jewish burial society, or Chevra Kadisha, has always been con sidered one of the most impor tant and holy groups within any Jewish community. How is it possible that now not only are the majority of Jewish people in America no longer being interred in accordance with Jewish traditions, but more than 25 percent are actually be ing cremated?

To understand this unfortunate trend we must first view it in the framework of the larger is sue of assimilation. Quite often we find that the affected indi vidual ʼ s subconscious desire is merely to “go with the flow” of contemporary society he simply does not sense anything intrinsically wrong with behav ing in accordance with the cus toms of his fellow countrymen. Many Jewish households place a tree for what they refer to as “The Holidays” each year, paint eggs in the springtime and commemorate the Patron Saint of Love on Valentine ʼ s Day. If pressed, the average Jewish American would likely deny that any of these observances is in anyway connected with religion. This simply results in a natural progression to other more significant non Jewish observances.

Cremation in its modern form is a relative newcomer to the American funeral industry. Prior to World War II, crema tion was to a great extent lim ited to the destruction of medi cal waste and amputated body parts in hospital incinerators. Cremation does have an ancient history and tradition in many religions and undoubtedly in some cultures it is considered the normal method for dis posing of human remains. In Western society however it was nearly unheard of, with the no table exception of horrendous public executions infamous for burning their victims. It is actually quite amazing how in just one generation what was considered to be the greatest crime inflicted upon the physi cal bodies of the Jewish people by the Nazis should become a relatively accepted method of “burial”. The amazing in congruence of this situation is emphasized when one realizes that the technology and method of cremation in America is basically the same as the one utilized in the concentration camps during the Holocaust. Many of the actual engineers and their designs were import ed only after World War II from Germany.

The average person who con siders cremation would be hor rified to even imagine that the body of their loved one could be in any way damaged after death. The idyllic media influ enced image of a “Gandhi like” funeral fire blinds the Ameri can Jew to the horrific reality. Cremation is the burning of a human being leaving only what continued on page 19 is mostly a skeletal frame. A device referred to as a bone crusher is then necessary to pulverize the charred skeleton into the appearance of ashes.

All of the aforementioned still does not take into consider ation the importance of Jewish burial. Both from the spiritual and heritage perspective how we honor our dead is of para mount importance. Our Torah teaches us that when G d cre ated man he called him Adam, for G d made him from the “ad amah”, Hebrew for earth. Our Rabbis teach us of the spiritual importance of returning that physical part of ourselves to its source in the earth so that the spiritual soul can feel free to return to its source in Heaven. It is also interesting to note that in accordance with Jewish tradition any object utilized for a holy purpose must be treated with reverence. A Jewish per son would never think, heaven forfend, of throwing a Bible, prayer shawl, or other sacred object in the trash. These ob jects are ceremonially interred in what is called “Genizah” at a Jewish Cemetery due to the honor in which we hold them. Surely a Jewish person whose mission is to bring a revelation of G dly light into the physical world deserves no less respect than the book or prayer shawl that he uses.

Of the Jews of Europe it is often said that in many places all that is left of them is their graves. With assimilation, intermarriage and conversion the American Jewish popula tion is at great risk of fading into history. It seems, un fortunately, that some of our brethren would not even leave a sign that we were ever here. The time has come for us, so to speak, to draw a line in the sand. Through Jewish educa tion, synagogue affiliation, and Jewish observance of our Mitzvot we can turn the tide against a potential national religious Holocaust. Let ʼ s all work together to return to our beautiful Jewish Heritage in all of our ways. The beauty of entering an eight day old baby into the covenant of Abraham, the joy that comes from raising children with the proper Jew ish education, the community that comes with regular atten dance in the house of worship and study, the satisfaction of charitable acts and yes, even the holy duty of guaranteeing that we don ʼ t place any more nails in the coffin of Jewish Heritage.

Rabbi Miller represents the Chevra Kadisha Burial Society of Chabad Lubavitch of Florida