Comments on: Puzzling

By: citizenx

citizenx — Mon, 17 Mar 2003 09:57:17 +0000

Things, as always, are different in Jerusalem and the rest of the world.

In Jerusalem, the tradition is to bury the person before sundown and with a flat, more plaque-like marker than any upright headstone or other statue-ish thing. In other places, it is done as soon as possible (I believe it must be before the Sabbath) and usually takes about a day. Frozen ground means more work, although it should be able to be dealt with without such measures as jackhammers and dynamite: building a fire, boiling water, some other application of heat to make it softer, big strong men with determined faces and good tools.

And mausolea are right out. You come from the earth, and you return to the earth. That’s that.

If you care to strictly adhere to the law, that is.

By: flipzagging

flipzagging — Fri, 14 Mar 2003 19:42:42 +0000

You’re right, I misread the article.

By: zoratu

zoratu — Fri, 14 Mar 2003 16:53:03 +0000

Reform . . . well, they don’t care to adhere to the law.

But, the law says before the next sabbath. Without embalming, sure, things will begin to stink. In some areas religious officials allow burial exceptions. For example, in southern California, the requisite plain woodening casket is buried inside a cement container for earthquake reasons. The cement container is technically a boundary between two sections of earth, but it’s allowed because the religious officials okay’d it.

I asked my elderly relatives who did this in a frozen tundra in the beginning of last century. One said she remembered as a child, men working in shifts and using small, sharp shovels. One said he boiled water and poured it on the ground when the shovels didn’t work.

By: zoratu

zoratu — Fri, 14 Mar 2003 16:44:46 +0000

Jewish law says before the next sabbath.

By: pegs

pegs — Fri, 14 Mar 2003 13:29:17 +0000

They use heaters to thaw the ground and then dig. I’ve buried grandparents and a great-uncle in the dead of winter here. We northern people find ways of coping with this winter weather :P

By: flipzagging

flipzagging — Fri, 14 Mar 2003 13:22:08 +0000

Technology to the rescue?

In Groton, he uses a propane heater shaped like a casket which and thaws a rectangle of ground "just the spot I'm going to dig."

Overnight, it glows red in ghostly fashion.

-- The Plots Thicken, Lowell Sun, 24 Jan 2003

The story seems to say that in pre-propane-heater times people either broke the ground with incredible efforts or just waited till spring. The Jewish tradition was stretched to mean "as soon as possible" rather than "within 24 hours".

By: Rich

Rich — Fri, 14 Mar 2003 12:04:19 +0000

Understandable. It took quite a bit of work to call the site “Judaism 101” and not “JEWFAQ” when I wrote the comment above.

By: marm0t

marm0t — Fri, 14 Mar 2003 11:42:31 +0000

I CAN’T STOP SAYING “JEWFAQ”

By: Rich

Rich — Fri, 14 Mar 2003 11:37:23 +0000

Ooh, Straight Dope is a good idea. I was going to try Judaism 101 too, but I thought I'd try here first. :-)

By: marm0t

marm0t — Fri, 14 Mar 2003 11:30:09 +0000

Never seen jackhammers or backhoes in a Jewish cemetary, nope! :) I don’t *think* mausoleums are allowed, and in fact, there’s a tendency in Jewish cemetaries to eschew even the typical headstones in favor of a simple plaque that’s at ground-level, so the cemetaries look like vast, manicured fields rather than cemetaries. Which is nice. But which doesn’t answer your question.

I wonder how, too. Maybe they have some sort of funky ground-heater? Or maybe there’s some sort of foul-weather exception to the rules that I’m not aware of.

You should write to The Straight Dope and ask!