Hot answers tagged cemetery-grave
16
A less poetic but more probable explanation than the one Isaac Moses linked to...
Dates back to when grave markers were cairns, which is the biblical meaning of the word "matzeivah" (before we shifted it to mean tombstone). A cairn is a pile of stone. With rain and wind, the pile would shrink. So, out of respect for the deceased, so they not be forgotten, ...
15
R' Yehosef Schwartz, in his Tevuos HaAretz (composed in the 1840s), writes (translation from here):
Twenty-five miles southeast of
Baal-bek is the village Sachala, where
the inhabitants point out a monument,
which they allege to mark the grave of
Noah. That, however, but little faith
can be placed in such like popular
legends, will appear ...
11
The Shulchan Aruch rules (YD 373:2) that the prohibition of contracting impurity from a corpse does not apply to female descendants of Kohanim. His source is the Mishna in Kiddushin 1:7 which lists 3 biblical prohibitions which do not apply to females: this one, destroying the 5 corners of one's beard, and rounding off the corners of one's hair ("peyos").
8
From the Be'er Heiteiv, Orach Chaim 224:8:
מה שתולשין עשב או צרור ומשימין על םצבה אינו אלא משום כבוד המת להראות שהוא על קברו.
Translated,
That one takes up grass or a stone and places it on the grave marker is simply to accord honor to the deceased; to show that one has been present at the grave.
Quoted in the "laws" section of the OU/Artscroll ...
6
First of all, I am not aware of any actual halachic source that states that a suicide is to be buried separately from the main Jewish cemetery. If anyone knows of a source for this, please let me know.
In any event, while many of the halachos of mourning do not apply in the case of suicide (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 345), this is only true if the person ...
6
Anything which can contract impurity cannot block impurity from passing through it (Megillah 26b, Shulchan Aruch YD 371:1). A vessel can only contract impurity if it is made from cloth, sackcloth, leather, bone, wood, metal, or earthenware (Rambam Keilim 1:1, see Leviticus 11:32-33 and Numbers 31:22). Plastic therefore cannot contract impurity, so it can ...
5
Based on this article there are a number of points to consider
Anything that absorbs tumah cannot serve as a separation (Rema to Yoreh Deah 371:1)
Anything that is metal or even plated with metal absorbs tumah (see note 15 in article)
If someone enters a forbidden area in a "box or tower that moves through the air" he becomes tameh because a moving ...
5
The Chevra Kadisha in Yerushalayim strictly does not allow a person's children or grandchildren to be present at his burial. This is based on non-halachic, Kabbalistic considerations. This is not because of anything the son may have done, but because the person who passed away may be guilty of certain sins. In any case, I have never heard of this minhag ...
5
Nitei Gavriel Hilchos Aveilos 2 - 88:5 mentions that some people have a Minhag if they have not gone for 10 years to their parents grave not to go anymore. Then he goes on to say that there are those who after 7 years of not going to their parents grave do not go anymore. And he concludes that there are those who are not concerned about this at all. Sources ...
4
Gittin 61 Says we bury the dead of non-Jews with dead of Jews. (קוברים מתי עכו"ם עם מתי ישראל).
This is mipnei darkei shalom
Rashi there comments that the gemarra shouldn't be understood as "with" literally, but "also" like we bury our own, when we find them together.
Rambam brings gemarra down as is.
Tur brings down gemarra and Rashi. Beis Yosef notes ...
4
The She'arim Metzuyanim BaHalachah (128:12) writes that the custom not to visit your father's grave after not seeing him for seven years has no basis in halachah, and we even have a proof to the opposite from the Zohar.
4
There are many different customs with regards to visiting graves.
The biography prefacing Igros Moshe volume 8 writes that Rabbi Moshe Feinstein didn't visit his father's grave -- "not the custom of Volozhin." Yet years later, when Rabbi Feinstein knew he would soon be leaving Eastern Europe for good, he traveled to his father's grave to say goodbye.
3
Practices vary.
Suicide is a very complex subject; traditionally we'd apply every benefit of the doubt ("we assume he fell, not jumped"), and today when we add in mental-health issues it's even more complicated. On this one all I can say is consult a rabbi on a case-by-case basis, and we pray not to have such cases.
My impression is that most synagogues ...
3
I found this: http://books.google.com/books?id=f83YJDHRZycC&pg=PA70
And this: http://www.judaicseminar.org/halakhot/father_burial.htm
May a son attend the burial of his father? I have been told there is a problem of shedim. Is this possible?
Rabbi Shamah's response: Although some discourage a son from attending his father's burial, this is a ...
3
Jews often pray at the graves of righteous people. One popular site, for example, is Me'aras HaMachpelah, the biblical grave of many of the forefathers. It seems that Muslims also pray there, though perhaps don't use the place as a mosque.
However, praying to a person is absolutely forbidden as much as idolatry. If there are any historical accounts of a Jew ...
3
I don't see why there would be a problem with non-Jews tending to Jewish graves if, as it says in Shulchan Aruch Orach Chayim Siman 526 (especially Se'if 4), non-Jews do the burying of Jews on Yom Tov.
3
The majority opinion follows Rabbi Yechezkel ben Yehuda Landau (1713 – 1793) opinion at Noda B’Yehuda I, Yoreh Deah (YD) 90, who holds that the mitzvah to bury separated body parts is required only of people who are dead, because it would be a disgrace not to. Rav Moshe Feinstein (1895-1986), however, held that even the body parts of living people must be ...
3
It's actually not a universal custom (even among Ashkenazim) to use a kittel in burial. R' Yechiel Michel Tykoczinski, in his Gesher Hachaim (27:4), writes that the custom in the Land of Israel is specifically not to do so, as there is a specific number and list of pieces of clothing used for burial shrouds that should not be changed.
3
They're similar, but not necessarily identical.
I've heard in some German communities, the groom is presented with his burial shrouds as a wedding present by his in-laws elect! But usually today, what I heard from someone in a Chevra Kadisha (Jewish burial society) has a bunch of standard garments. They recite the verse about the Cohen wearing his ...
2
http://www.ravaviner.com/2009/02/cohanim-and-kivrei-tzaddikim-graves-of.html
In Iturei Cohanim (Sivan 5766 #261),
Rav Aviner was asked, is it
permissible for a cohain to enter
Ma’arat Ha-Machpelah? He answered that
there is a dispute, but Maran Ha-Rav
Kook did not enter. Similarly, in the
weekly parashah sheet "Olam Katan"
(#169), Rav ...
2
I heard a lecture from Rabbi Elchanan Zohn, head of the Chevra Kadisha of Queens, about this.
Something like a small tumor, or tonsils, would certainly not need burial.
A limb -- flesh, bone, and sinew -- such as a finger would require burial.
For internal organs, the opinion heard orally from Rabbi Moshe Feinstein -- and repeatedly from his son Rabbi ...
2
I don't definitively know the answer to this, but it sounds quite a bit like the procedure of the person who has to escort the goat 'L'Azazel' to the cliff and throw it off during Yom Kippur. In that instance, the person selected has to walk miles in the desert to get to said cliff. The person passes a series of booths (stationed a mil apart - about half a ...
2
There are a number of issues:
A flying object/tent is not considered a tent to separate.
Something that is Mekabel Tum'ah cannot separate.
A Kohen may not put himself in a circumstance of Tum'ah upon which a Nazir would have to shave and start over Nezirus.
The fact that the airplane MAY fly over Jewish Graves would probably be because it's like flying ...
1
Even if we were to assume that plastic is not Mekabel Tum'ah according to what the Rambam writes in Hilchos Tum'as Meis 13:3&4 it would not help to block the Tum'ah.
Halacha 3:
These substances convey ritual impurity and intervene in the face of it: over sized wooden vessels, keilim made from stone, animal turds, or earth that are over sized, simple ...
1
https://www.jewishpress.com/printArticle.cfm?contentid=41065
Per this link, the whole idea of not drying hands when leaving a cemetery is a "Minhag Taus" and there would not be any problem with air drying them.
1
Maaneh Loshon is the text compiled by the "Mitteler Rebbe" of Lubavich to say by the grave of his father the "Alter Rebbe".
This text is edited for recital by the graves of the Lubavicher Rebbes in Queens.
It contains instructions, as to when to light the lamp, what to say when lighting, etc.
http://hebrewbooks.org/15693 is the text in Hebrew.
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