PART I
Before life on earth begins, a person exists in his mothers womb. It is the source of his sustenance. At birth, a person leaves the womb of his mother and enters the womb of earth. Earth is like a womb in that during a person's lifetime, it is the source of his sustenance. Similarly, at death, a person leaves the womb of earth and enters the womb of creation. The life of a person is the bridge which connects the events of birth and death. By way of illustration, let us imagine two twins living in the womb of their mother. One twin is called The Thinker, the other, The Believer. They are speaking to each other. The Believer says: "Lets say, hypothetically, we could leave this place and enter creation. How would the creation around us look?" The Thinker responds: "There won't be anything much different than what we find before us now. There would simply be a dark, watery atmosphere and possibly a long, narrow room in which to move around."
The Believer meditates a bit deeper, however, and comments that he heard from his teachers that the outside world is much different. It contains mankind which has the ability to eat (with its mouth), walk, run, etc. The Thinker says the Believer is crazy!
The Believer continues with descriptions of the moon, sun, day and night. He says there are animals, rivers, lakes, woods, etc. The Thinker, whose life exists totally in the darkness before him, objects vehemently to the very notion that there could be a living, breathing world outside of the nice, comfortable world the twins now share. The Thinker insists that the world outside the womb is just like their world inside the womb, dark and watery. If they left, he is sure, they would fall into a deep, bottomless pit.When the twins finally enter the world, at birth, The Thinker has to admit that the world is much different than he could have ever imagined it.
We learn from this illustration that a person's view of life cannot be based solely on what he sees before him and around him. A deeper view is required. We must believe the teachings of our great sages with our hearts and with our minds. Like the twins in their mother's womb, we cannot imagine what the next world is like, based on our experience in this world. The Believer realized that the next world he would enter would be vastly different from his present world. It would be the real world, not like the temporary world in his mother's womb.
Similarly, when we leave this world and enter the next world, it is as though we are leaving the temporary world of our mothers womb, being born, and entering the true world which is the next world.The Thinkers conception of life was limited by his imagination, which was, in turn, limited by his own experience. In the same respect, our conception of the next world is limited by our imagination, which is in turn limited by our own experience in this world.
The idea of cremation results from this faulty understanding of life and death. Burial is compatible with the truth that the life of a person does not end. Life is eternal. Burial results in purification of the body, and the plantingof the seeds in a persons soul through which he will grow at the time of the Revival of the Dead.
According to Jewish law, if a person insists that he not be buried, we may not listen to him. The law is even more restrictive regarding a request to burn a body. In the Navi Amos 2, it states that the third sin of Moab was that they burned the bones of the king of Edom. The Talmud in Sanhedrin daf 82 brings down that the scalp of Yehoyakim was taken and burned. These passages teach us that the burning of the body in any way is a forbidden act.
The repercussions of burning the body are brought down in the Zohar Hakadosh. It states that a body must be buried in the ground until it rots completely and all of the impurity (tuma) goes into the ground. Only then is the rot (remainder of the body) fit for the Revival of the Dead.
We explained earlier that the earth is compared to the womb of a mother preparing a person for life. Similarly, wheat and other plants only start growing after the seeds rot completely into the earth. The earth contains the four basic forces of all life: fire, water, air and earth. From these basic forces emanate the powers of energy, heat, electricity, hydrogen, nitrogen, etc. Rot means separating the parts and particles of an object and bringing it back to its source in order to renew its growth. Burning results in destroying and demolishing the parts. Burning the seeds of a plant makes any further growth and reproduction impossible. Fertilizer which comes completely from rot gives a plant the power of growth. However, fertilizer that comes solely from ashes has had all the energy burned out of it. It cannot provide plants with nourishment for growth unless it is mixed with a rot-based fertilizer the essence of which remains intact. So it is with the burial of a persons body in the earth which is necessary preparation for the growth of new life which we will experience at the time of the Revival of the Dead.
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Part II - Cremation
Part III - Proper Attitude
at a Jewish Funeral
Part IV - Visiting the
Sick
Part V - Vidui -
Confession
Part VI - The Law of a
Goses