On Burial

Q: Sometimes archaeologists unearth human remains.  Or during construction a burial mound is found.  Other times a ship goes down at sea.  What are we supposed to do when that happens?

A: In the story of Creation, God took a lump of earth and molded it into the shape of a person.  The lifeless form remained inert until the Holy One breathed into it the breath of life and caused it to become animate.  God then declared to the new being, “From the dust you were taken and unto the dust you will return.”  Thus it was decreed that when a person died his body would revert back to its primary state, earth.  Only later was it written into law when the Bible formulated ‘ki kavor tikbarenu,’: you shall surely bury him” (Deuteronomy 21:23).

For Jewish people when a person dies there is only one option, burial.  Embalming or preservation of the deceased in a mausoleum impedes the course of nature.  In the final analysis the body will decompose despite any efforts we may take to stop that process.  On the opposite extreme. a willful act to speed the process, such as cremation, is equally repugnant to Jewish law.

It therefore stands to reason that if a person died long ago and their body was recently uncovered or someone died at sea without the benefit of burial that we inter them, or reinter them in a dignified manner.