Washing Hands

Q: Why do we wash our hands when leaving the cemetery?

A: the cemetery, as a house of the dead, is filled with impurity. As the Torah and Rabbinic literature spell out, tumah is contracted through contact with the dead. As an act of ritual purification we wash your hands after having visited such a place.

Water results of the symbol of life and birth, as it is the first thing that comes out when a baby is born.  Also it is the stuff of the primordial universe.  Remember in Genesis it says, “God’s Spirit hovered over the deep?”

We wash our hands as a gesture of the fullness of life. Death is not the end. We believe that those who passed from this world are eventually reborn in Paradise.

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.

Kaddish for a Non Jews

Q:  May a convert to Judaism receite Mourner’s Kaddish for his parents as they are non-Jews?

A: Someone who converts to Judaism is considered as a re-born person.  Through study and practice they leave their previous world behind and join an entirely new world.  Hence, they take on a Hebrew name that indicates a new patrilineal assignment. “Ben” or “bat” Avraham (son or daughter of Abraham) becomes their new lineage.  Their soul becomes realigned and connected with all our Jewish forbears wending their way through the epochs.  In effect, they sever their relationship with their non-Jewish kin and take on a whole new family.

For these reasons someone who has converted is not required to recite Kaddish for their deceased non-Jewish relatives.  Yet, if love burns strongly for their family of origin, there is no rabbinic prohibition or objection to saying Kaddish as a final act of love.