Carrying the Deceased to the Cemetery

Mark Podwal (b. 1945)
Digitial archival pigment print on paper
7 7/16 x 7 9/16″
USA, 2020
© Mark Podwal

To escort the deceased to burial was regarded as a foremost obligation in early rabbinic Judaism. To fail to do so was considered to be mocking God. Haste was made to bury the deceased, and even today effort is made for burial to take place within a day of the death. Many of the Jewish burial customs performed today originated in the Middle Ages and reflect a fear of the supernatural. The Zohar, the primary work of medieval mysticism, offers two reasons why burial should be performed quickly. First, the soul, which dwelt in the body for so many years, is grief-stricken and this grief lasts as long as the body is not buried. Moreover, by not burying the body immediately we may be interfering with gilgul (reincarnation), God’s plan to transfer that soul to another living body. A tradition to pour out all the water from jars and pitchers in the deceased’s home was explained as a response to the Angel of Death, who, according to Talmudic legend, fulfills his task with a poison-tipped sword and might cleanse his sword in water near the dead, making the water unsafe to drink. At the conclusion of funeral rites, it is a custom to uproot some grass and earth and toss it over the right shoulder. Among the reasons offered for this tradition is that just as the torn grass will grow back, so will it be with the deceased; at the time of the Resurrection the dead will return to life. The custom of washing one’s hands after a funeral was thought to dispel the clinging demons of uncleanliness that would follow the mourner home. Tyrnau, in his Sefer HaMinhagim, was the first to name the first anniversary of a death “yahrzeit” and to discuss its observance in detail.