Parashat Vayechi - Burials

Shabbat Shalom! As a rabbi, it is not infrequent that I am asked about “proper” burial practices for Jewish families. Halakha has some specifics about what is and isn’t “allowed” for Jewish burial, but sometimes people tell their loved ones or leave in their will specifications for non-Halakhic means of taking care of their bodies when they’re gone. Sometimes these are Jews who don’t know Halakha, sometimes they are Jewishly educated but have decided that cremation or donation for science is better for other reasons, and sometimes the situation is brought to me when the deceased is not Jewish but the family member left in charge of the memorial arrangements is. In whatever way someone asks to be laid to rest, making the arrangements is difficult for the ones left behind, and all the more so if the person making arrangements has reason to believe that their loved one will not really rest in peace or be properly mourned if they are not buried in a Halakhic manner.

I always tell people in these situations that they must follow their instincts. Ultimately, mourning practices are for the mourner, not the deceased. I let them know that if they feel they really need a grave to mourn, then they can get one because I do not believe the soul of the deceased will haunt them for doing what they thought was best with the body. I also tell them, though, that if they choose not to comply with the wishes of their loved ones, their guilt may haunt them. Commenting on Jacob’s final speech in this week’s parasha in which Jacob reminds his sons how and where to bury him and why it’s important to him, Rashi reminds us that “A kindness done to the dead is a true kindness, for one does not expect a favor in return.” So I let these families choose what works best for them, and I let them know that whatever they decide, I will be present to say El Malei Rachamim and the Mourner’s Kaddish. Whether it’s in front of an urn or a casket; in their home, in the graveyard, or on a cliffside, we will eulogize their loved one. We can plan a shiva for a single night or a full week as they see fit, and I will guide them through their grief as best I can throughout the process, regardless of their choices. It really can all be fairly flexible.

In this week’s Torah portion of Parashat Vayechi, Jacob and Joseph both die. Their deaths are spread over a number of years, but as the Bible is known to do, it glosses over a lot in those intervening years and only a few verses separate the descriptions of each of their burials. Jacob, surprisingly, is embalmed, probably because the journey from Goshen to the Cave of Machpelah is long enough to warrant it, though embalming is fairly atypical for a Jewish burial. Aside from the traveling and the embalming, though, he’s given a proper burial in the tradition of his family. He’s buried alongside his wife and parents and grandparents in the Holy Land. Joseph, on the other hand, is also embalmed despite not traveling post-mortem, and is buried in an Egyptian coffin. That is, presumably, a sarcophagus, and presumably these details point to a proper Egyptian funeral for Joseph. This could be a sign of his assimilation, but I think it’s more likely what his Egyptian wife needed to feel soothed in her grief. She needed her familiar rituals, and her sons, though blessed as founders of two of the future Tribes of Israel, went along with that for the sake of Shalom Bayit and the mitzvah of comforting the bereaved.

Rituals are a holy thing, and I believe strongly in their power. In the power of tradition, of following rules laid for us by our ancestors. However, there can be many variations, blended rituals and bent rules created by different sets of ancestors. When it comes to something as final and difficult as death, it is of utmost importance that the choices made are well-thought through and designed with intention so as to offer comfort and grounding and strength. Navigating through different cultural options as modern day American Jews, many of us with diverse backgrounds and multiple identities of differing ethnic traditions, is more important to me as a Reform rabbi than insisting upon rote rule following and sticking to the halakha.

I know these topics are uncomfortable to talk about if the timing hasn’t forced us to, but it’s really good and healthy to think a little bit about these choices before it’s too late. To talk with our loved ones and be sure that families understand what rituals will be most soothing to the most people involved when the time comes. To ensure that wishes can be accommodated without putting those left behind into too complicated a situation as they manage the painful tasks of making memorial plans and final arrangements. May you find peace in coming to final decisions together, that your soul may be assured rest in the world to come, and may you have many, many more years before such decisions need to be put into action. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.

Human Rights Shabbat - Parashat Vayigash

    Shabbat Shalom. This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Vayigash, in which Joseph, the viceroy of Egypt, reconciles with his brothers. The older brothers repent for their past misdeeds to Joseph, and prove their worth in trying to protect their youngest brother, Benjamin, from meeting a similar fate when Joseph, still hiding his true identity from them all, threatens to imprison Benjamin for a crime he did not commit. After Joseph reveals himself to them, and they all cry and hug and make up, the brothers go back to Canaan and bring their father and their wives to Egypt. Joseph sets aside the land of Goshen for them, and thus the Hebrews come to settle in Egypt.

Although we know this goes badly for them in a couple generations, at first they are warmly received. When Jacob dies in a few parshiyot from now, Pharaoh gives Joseph the time off from work and the resources to give Jacob a fancy funeral caravan to take them back to the Holy Land so that Jacob can be buried in the Cave of Machpaleh with his parents, grandparents, and one of his wives. It’s not clear how much the Israelites fully assimilated into Egyptian society in their years of comfort in Goshen, or if they kept to themselves, but it’s clear they were cared for by the royal court as long as Joseph lived, and that they continued to live with enough safety and material comfort for some time after that to enable them to sustain many children in each household for a few more generations.

The narratives of the Israelites in Egypt is our first source text for bigotry and tolerance. The Israelites are initially accepted, but are always seen as separate. They are considered distinct, different, foreign, even after they’ve been in the land for generations. Their cultural contributions to Egyptian society are forgotten, and they are punished simply for existing. I think it’s safe to assume that there were probably some Egyptians who were mistrustful of these outsiders and resentful of their settlement of the land of Goshen from the beginning, and there were probably some Egyptians who opposed the enslavement of the descendants of Jacob. We can imagine how their voices might have sounded, their reasonings for their fear and their reasonings for their embracing; the defences and arguments from both sides. We can imagine how the arguments ebbed and flowed throughout the intervening generations between the Joseph narrative and the Moses narrative we get in the Torah. How certain rhetoric probably came in and out of fashion a few times before it reached the zenith we see in Exodus. We can imagine these likely realities, because they probably sound a lot like the arguments and responses we hear in our Holocaust studies, and hear still today about racism, antisemitism, and anti-immigration rhetoric. If we’re listening, it might be the same arguments we have heard around the world against the Armenian, Tutsi, Bosnian, Darfuri, Rohingya, Uyghur, and any number of other ethnic and religious minorities, or other perceived political opponents to tyrannical regimes.

As Jews living in a period of increased antisemitism in America, we are on edge. But we know we are not alone in living in a time of increased hate crimes, and we know that we have seen all these things before. We know that we are stronger than bigotry, that love is stronger than hate, and that we have friends and allies in Prince William County with whom we can stand against bigotry of all kinds. I’d like to close with two poems I found while looking through the materials on the T’ruah website for Human Rights Shabbat. The first is the famous Holocaust poem from Pastor Martin Niemoller:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

The second was a response to this written by Rabbi Michael Adam Latz:

First they came for the African Americans and I spoke up—

Because I am my sisters’ and my brothers’ keeper.

And then they came for the women and I spoke up—

Because women hold up half the sky.

And then they came for the immigrants and I spoke up—

Because I remember the ideals of our democracy.

And then they came for the Muslims and I spoke up—

Because they are my cousins and we are one human family.

And then they came for the Native Americans and Mother Earth and I spoke up—

Because the blood-soaked land cries and the mountains weep.

They keep coming.

We keep rising up.

Because we Jews know the cost of silence.

We remember where we came from.

And we will link arms, because when you come for our neighbors, you come for us—

and THAT just won’t stand.

This Human Rights Shabbat, may we find ourselves celebrating diversity in this time of adversity, and may we find peace and strength in our richly diverse communities. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.