“[T]he Jewish religion is tasteless and mean,” wrote the ancient Roman historian Tacitus in his “Histories” some 1,900 years ago. “Things sacred to us to them have no sanctity, while they allow what with us is forbidden.”
Among the Jewish practices he listed with apparent disapproval is this one: “They are wont to bury rather than to burn their dead….”
Tacitus’ description of Judaism contains so many inaccuracies and slanders that it holds a place in the history of anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, even Orthodox authorities like Rabbi Maurice Lamm of Yeshiva University, author of “The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning,” cite Tacitus as evidence of how long-standing is the tradition that Jews bury their dead in the earth.
But today, some Jews are finding alternatives to that and, apparently, more and more are planning to make use of them.
Milwaukee attorney Donald Levy, 69, and his brother, Lowell, have purchased ten above-ground crypts in the mausoleum at Spring Hill Cemetery, the only Jewish cemetery in the Milwaukee area to offer this alternative.
They did this, Donald Levy said, because “My whole family is there,” and “there wasn’t a huge block available in the traditional burial areas,” so this seemed the best way to guarantee that he and his brother’s families would have space there. “It wasn’t a big deal being above or below ground or anything else,” he said.
Milwaukeean and retired industrial psychologist Sidney Fine, 88, is planning on cremation — not because he wants to make any statement about Jewish tradition, but purely for “convenience and economy.”
“It happens my wife [Marilyn] has a dedicated plot” that “cannot accommodate two coffins,” and they want to be buried together, Fine said. Besides, “I don’t attach any particular importance to my physical being after I’m dead.”
There are other reasons Jews give besides these, according to area rabbis. “Cremation is usually the biggest issue,” said Rabbi Gideon Goldenholz, spiritual leader of Beth El Ner Tamid Synagogue (Conservative). “Some of the reasons include the person doesn’t want to take up space in the ground, doesn’t want to be a burden on the family [by compelling them to deal with the corpse].” Also, there can be “financial considerations,” such as not wanting the family to pay for upkeep of a grave, he said.
Rabbi David Brusin, spiritual leader of Congregation Shir Hadash (Reconstructionist), added that some Jews seeking to practice “Eco-Judaism” — which finds spiritual value in helping to preserve the environment — justify cremation on those grounds. Such people say that “it doesn’t make [ecological] sense to take up space with cemeteries,” Brusin said.
Whatever the reasons, there is definitely a market for the alternatives, said Michael Schuman, executive director of Spring Hill Cemetery. “This cemetery’s philosophy has always been to offer as many options as the Jewish community wished for burial alternatives,” he said, including mausoleums and acceptance of cremated remains.
“That’s truly how we are,” he continued. “There are choices for all of us. Even when it comes to death, that rule still applies.”
Does this constitute a break with or even rebellion against Judaism as it has traditionally been understood? As with so much in Jewish life today, the answer depends on whom you ask.
The Orthodox position is clearly stated in Lamm’s “The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning.”
The operative verses from the Torah are two: Genesis 3:19, in which God tells Adam, “For dust you are and to dust you shall return”; and Deuteronomy 21:23, the commandment that an executed felon must be buried on the same day, which later rabbis interpreted to be “binding as regards all other dead,” according to Maimonides’ “Book of the Commandments.”
Therefore, wrote Lamm, interment in a mausoleum above the ground is “unquestionably prohibited” and cremation “is never permitted.” Even if the deceased left an instruction for cremation or above ground interment, that instruction must be disregarded, according to Lamm.
Cremation is considered particularly abhorrent. Cremated ashes cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery, and “Jewish law requires no mourning for the cremated,” wrote Lamm.
“Those who are cremated [willingly] are considered by tradition to have abandoned, unalterably, all of Jewish law and, therefore, to have surrendered their rights to posthumous honor.”
Several reasons explain this abhorrence, according to Rabbi Mendel Senderovic, dean of the Milwaukee Kollel Center for Jewish Studies. For one, as shown by Tacitus and others, cremation was a pagan custom.
For another, the Talmud teaches that “decomposition is what effects the final atonement for the sins the body committed during life,” said Senderovic. “To cremate the body is denying it that atonement.” However, this is the case only with voluntary cremation. When it happens to Jews involuntarily, in an accident or after being murdered, as by the Nazis during the Holocaust, “their death alone would effect their atonement,” he said.
This, of course, means that an Orthodox spiritual leader like Rabbi Nachman Levine of Anshe Sfard Kehillat Torah will probably seldom if ever have to deal with post-death issues for someone not buried.
But if he ever were invited to lead or speak at a memorial service for someone who had chosen cremation, “I would have to think about it,” Levine said. “A memorial service, talking about the person, I don’t see anything wrong with that. The word ‘memorial’ means you want to bring forth memory, which is what should be done for everybody.”
In the course of research on this topic, one also encounters what Lamm called a “supplementary reason” that burial is required and cremation prohibited — because Judaism teaches that at the end of days God will resurrect all the dead.
Brusin finds this idea “strange and mysterious. If you believe that someday decayed and decomposed remains will arise, it is no more of a miracle to have cremated ashes come together.” And Levine added, “What about the six million [murdered by the German Nazis, many of whose bodies were cremated in the death camps]? You can’t say they’re not going to be resurrected because of that.”
However, both Lamm and Senderovic clarified that willful cremation “is condemned as a denial of the belief in the resuscitation of the dead,” said Senderovic. “If you don’t believe it, you don’t get it.”
But were these prohibitions always operative? Levine and other rabbis said that archeologists in Israel have found Jewish burials within the walls of caves, which Levine said is considered a form of “going into the earth.”
Rabbi David Cohen, spiritual leader of Congregation Sinai (Reform), added that there is “documented evidence” from the time of the rabbis of the Talmud, that at least sometimes a body was placed in a stone sarcophagus, allowed to decompose, then was transferred to a final resting place. “Clearly there have been changes in how the community has handled this,” he said.
And despite Tacitus, the Encyclopedia Judaica’s article on “Cremation” cites evidence that some Jewish authorities thought burial was more of a custom than a commandment and “suggested that as long as the body is brought into contact with the earth as soon as possible … it does not matter how the corpse is disposed of.”
Naturally, the more liberal Jewish movements allow more latitude of individual choice. The Encyclopedia Judaica states that the Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis, for example, in 1892 decided to allow its rabbis to officiate at cremation ceremonies.
Moreover, while the Conservative movement follows the traditions, it would not “ostracize someone” for not following them, said Goldenholz.
Nevertheless, all the rabbis interviewed for this story said they encourage people to follow the traditions in this regard.
“My sense is that Reform Jews have understood that traditional Jewish burial practices have an inherent wisdom and logic to them,” said Cohen. “Jewish burial traditions promote a cathartic response which often assists families in confronting and dealing with their loss” and provide “a clear road map at the very time people are seeking direction.”
Brusin agrees. “I see halacha as a repository of the thoughts of sensitive people struggling with the issue and reality of death,” he said. “And so I have tremendous respect for the tradition.”
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