21
In this particular case R. Lau was upholding the UOR’s ruling. The latter’s ruling (viewable here) was based on Rema (EH 154:21), citing earlier authorities, who permits to withhold any aid to a “sarvan” (one refusing to grant a get) including circumcising or burying his children. Upon this precedent the UOR ruled that preventing the mother’s burial is ...
15
You asked: Is this a Jewish minhag? If so, what is the source for it?
Yes. it is mentioned in the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 199:10 - סימן קצט - דין הקבורה ובית הקברות
"The custom - when leaving a cemetery - is to pluck some grass and throw it behind one's back, and say זָכוּר כִּי עָפָר אֲנָחְנוּ - remember that we are dust."
You asked: What does it mean?
...
15
On chabad.org it says the following:
On the way out of the cemetery, it is customary to pull out some
grass, throw it back over the shoulder, and recite the passage below.
This symbolizes the Resurrection of the Dead in the era of Moshiach,
when the body will awaken and return from the dust of the earth, as it
is written, "And may they blossom out ...
14
Although rabbinic literature has yet to discuss death on Mars, the issue of being wholly buried underground, and the various complications to that happening (e.g., state requirements for burial in a coffin, a corpse under water, a buried corpse with limbs above ground, etc.), have been discussed. My theoretical answer depends on the work of the Rambam, the ...
14
There is a Jewish practice to tear one's clothes when in mourning. In recent times, it has become common for non-Orthodox Jews to tear a black ribbon pinned to their clothes rather than the clothes themselves in order to avoid damaging an article of clothing.
I am not sure whether using the ribbon satisfactorily fulfills the obligation according to the ...
13
This question is raised in the Talmud:
Yevamot 7a
הדר אמר קבורת מת מצוה תדחה שבת מק"ו ומה עבודה שהיא דוחה שבת קבורת מת מצוה דוחה אותה מולאחותו שבת שנדחה מפני עבודה אינו דין שתהא קבורת מת מצוה דוחה אותה ת"ל לא תבערו
Then he argued: It might be inferred a minori ad majus that the burial of a meth mizwah should supersede the Sabbath, [thus]: If the ...
11
Based on a shiur by Rav Amnon Bazak at Yeshivat Har Etzion quoting the Arugas Habosem the amount paid by Avraham was enough to buy 2.4 million square Amos.
In an extraordinary piece of arithmetic computation, the Arugat
Ha-bosem proves that 400 shekel - the price of sdei ha-machpela - was
enough to buy 2.4 million square amot, based on the price of ...
10
The Rabbis at the time ruled that since the dead could not be moved from the Old City they should be moved into a temporary grave until an opportunity would allow them to be re-interned on the Mount of Olives. Unfortunately that took another 19 years to happen.
.. in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem some 40 fighters and others who were ...
10
This is a huge mitzvah, so yashar koach for participating!
Certain people are not supposed to participate in this mitzvah. Ask your Rabbi to make sure you aren't one of them.
Some things to consider:
You will be dealing with a lot of water, some of which will be spilling onto the floor. Consider wearing galoshes or boots, or at least an old pair of ...
10
The basic source is Deuteronomy 21:23, "You shall bury him on that day." (Whether it also applies to non-Jews is not so simple. The Ramban there mentions that Joshua took care to bury the bodies of the Canaanite kings (Joshua 10:27), though he says maybe that was more so as not to contaminate the land of Israel. Another relevant source is the long ...
10
Shulchan Oruch Yorei Deyoh 362 (1) says
הנותן מתו בארון ולא קברו בקרקע עובר משום מלין את המת. ואם נתנו בארון
וקברו בקרקע אינו עובר עליו, ומכל מקום יפה לקברו בקרקע ממש אפילו בחוצה
לארץ.
Someone who puts his deceased relative in a coffin and does not bury
it in the ground transgresses the prohibition of delaying burial. If
he put the relative ...
10
Yes above-ground burial is halachically acceptable if done properly.
For instance Israel suffers a lack of enough burial space and has developed a number of high-capacity above-ground "burial buildings". To respect the halachic requirement to be buried in earth (see this other answer), these buildings are built with vertical building columns filled with ...
9
Out of respect for the deceased, we do not put bodies on display. Even the mourners (the immediate family) only look long enough to confirm identity. As Dr. Ron Wolfson writes at My Jewish Learning: "The deceased is a [nireh v'ayno roeh], someone who is seen but who cannot see. To open the casket and allow people to look at the deceased is to turn the ...
9
The Yerushalmi (Nazir 9:3) records that the standard way of burying people is with their legs extended and their hands over their hearts. Elsewhere (Kilayim 9:3) it records how R Yirmeya asked to be laid on his side, as if ready to awake and greet the Mashiach, in his grave. The Bavli (BB 74a) describes how the Jews who died while wandering the desert for 40 ...
9
According to this article describing the burial of a Jewish police informer in Luban, Russia (who had presumably caused much suffering on the part of his fellow Jews), Rav Moshe Feinstein was of the opinion that "after death according to Jewish law a person doesn’t own his body and cannot leave orders about his body for after death. Therefore I say you need ...
9
The Meshech Chochmo here answers your question.
He writes:
ויתכן שמה שהזכיר במרים ותמת שם מרים ותקבר שם, להורות כי השבטים היו נשואים לקוברן בארץ, ומרים לא נשאו לקוברה בארץ, אעפ"י שהיא מתה בחו"ל, מפני שקדש עיר קצה גבול אדום, ולעתיד יתן הקב"ה את קיני, קניזי, קדמוני, שזה אדום, עמון ומואב, א"כ יהיה הכל שייך לא"י, ותהא קבורה בא"י. ...
9
The Rema in Yoreh Deah 363:1 writes:
יש נוהגין לתת מעפר א"י בקבר (א"ז) (ויש למנהג זה על מה שיסמוכו) (מדרש תנחומא פ' ויחי)
Some have the custom to place some earth from the Land of Israel in the grave (Refer to the Or Zaruah) (and this custom has a basis - see Midrash Tanchuma Parshas Vayechi)
The Midrash writes over there a reference to the fact ...
8
ABSOLUTELY NOT.
Recall that a Cohen -- even a Cohen Gadol -- is obligated to contact a dead body if that's the only way it will receive a proper burial -- this is known as meis mitzva.
So in your hypothetical scenario, the Cohen is now in a position whereby he is the only one who can ensure this corpse remains intact for proper burial. Hence, halacha ...
7
The reason that we keep 2 days on all festivals outside of Israel is because originally it was a doubt whether the new month had been declared, and word did not reach far enough for them to know by the middle of the month. Even once the calendar was set, they maintained the minhag of their predecessors (Beitza 4b).
The Ba'al HaMe'or to Beitza 5a explains ...
7
According to Rabbi Munk in his commentary on Vay'chi, it is because Esav was attempting to deny that he had sold his "birthright" completely. That is, he claimed that he had sold the "first born" rights and had sold the (future) settlement of the land of Canaan (to avoid the 400 years of slavery that was still ahead) but not the 50% share of the remaining ...
7
Rabbi Sorotzkin compares it to the 100 kesitah that Yaakov paid for the land in Shechem on which to settle himself, his family and his flocks. IIRC, Rabbi Sorotzkin says that a kesitah was a quarter of a shekel (.25). Thus, 400 shekel was 1600 kesitah.
This means that Avraham paid 16 times what Yaakov did for just the burial cave. Of course, Efron "included"...
7
One does not tie a "permanent" knot on the tachrichim (burial clothes) in order to show that the death is not permanent. That is, the person will get up at techiyas hameisim (resurrection of the dead) after the mashiach comes. Additionally, the knots are this way so as not to hinder the dissolution of the tachrichim with the body. The chevra kadisha that I ...
7
Encyclopedia Judaica's entry for "Hamadan, Iran" says:
The Persian Jews identify Hamadan with "Shushan ha-Bira," which obviously is a mistake.
An essay entitled "Esther’s Tomb Iran's Jewish queen defies decay and dissolution." by the Diarna Project offers an alternative explanation for the tradition that the tomb is in Hamadan:
Mount Alvand, which ...
7
Rav Elchanan Lewis answers your question saying,
A Jew can enter a non Jewish cemetery and attend a non Jewish funeral.
(see Bava Metziah 114a) The only prohibition is to enter a church if
the ceremony takes place there.
See here for a discussion of a Kohen attending such a funeral/wake.
7
R. Benet's son, R. Naftali, wrote in a letter (Misped Gadol Ve'kaved Meod, here) to the Nikolsburg community that his father died in Carlsbad while there for therapeutic reasons (ibid, note). He then goes on to report that his father asked that he be buried in Nikolsburg, his home town, or at least in Prague, however, the city authorities did not permit the ...
7
The question is not about the body - the police do not resurrect (as of now), but about its condition and the consequences of the discovery:
First, if the body looks fresh and recent - you must call the ambulance first, as the person might be not as much dead as you think!
If it's fresh there might be a following Pikuach Nefesh danger for others (think of ...
7
I’d suggest the quote, albeit not exact, is from Tosafot (Chulin 125b s.v. Yachol):
בהא דאמרינן בביצה (י.)... דהתם במת שלם דאין דרך לשורפו ולנתחו פחות מכזית
7
R Jason Weiner (senior rabbi at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles), in his article Jewish Guidance on the Loss of a Baby or Fetus (Hakirah vol. 23) writes
It is customary to give the baby or fetus a name that is somewhat uncommon (Minchat Shlomo 2:96(2); Nishmat Avraham, YD 263:5(14) (365
in 3rd ed.). R. Auerbach gives the examples of Metushelach ...
7
There are a few Midrashic sources that tell us that the animal kingdom seemed to take care of things:
In Pirkei D'Rebbi Eliezer 21 it notes that firstly his sheepdog did 'shmira' over the body, and then a raven showed Adam what to do.
הכלב שהיה משמר צאנו של הבל הוא היה שומרו מכל חית השדה ומעוף השמי' והיו אדם ועזרו יושבים ובוכים ומתאבלי' עליו ולא היו יודעים ...
6
See the pertinent text proof from the talmud Gemara in Moed Katan 27a
בראשונה היו מגלין פני עשירים ומכסין פני עניים מפני שהיו מושחרין פניהן מפני בצורת והיו עניים מתביישין התקינו שיהו מכסין פני הכל מפני כבודן של עניים
Rough Translation:
Originally they would leave the faces of those who were wealthy uncovered [at the time of the funeral], and they would ...
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