Cremation

Our blogger community is growing! Welcome to our new "followers" of this blog, as well as those who are just casually reading. And thanks to those who posted comments as well!

Comments included questions about Cremation and also about Organ Donation. I'll address cremation briefly today, and then talk about organ donation in a post tomorrow.

A good summary about cremation's status in Jewish law is in a teshuvah (a written response to a question of Jewish law) in the archives of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) of the Conservative movement. This body addresses various issues of Jewish law, interpreting the tradition for contemporary situations using the lenses of both Jewish tradition and the needs of modernity.

The teshuvah is by Rabbi Morris Shapiro, and can be found at http://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/teshuvot/docs/19861990/shapiro_cremation.pdf.

While it is not entirely clear that the Torah or Talmud forbids cremation outright, the development of the tradition has made it so that, today, cremation is not permitted in Jewish law. It has become a very strong tradition within Judaism. There is an interesting debate, which Rabbi Shapiro explains in some detail, about why burial itself is so important. Some sources indicate that it is part of a process and series of rituals that helps the deceased atone for sin, while others maintain that burial is considered the most significant way to preserve the dignity of the human being (who is created from the earth, and should return, in a natural way, to the earth).

For me, the prohibition against cremation takes on additional significance in the context of living in a post-Shoah (Holocaust) world. During the Holocaust, millions of Jews were not only murdered, but then cremated. The purpose of cremation was not just as a measure to make the murder more efficient (and to control the health risks), but also as an affront to Jewish tradition. When Jews consider cremation, I often ask them to consider how many Jews were insulted by being cremated against their will, and how we can honor their memory by making a different choice that honors Jewish tradition.

Jews share various reasons why they might choose cremation. Some are concerned about costs, or they don't want to create a "shrine" for people to visit. But the community has ways to assist with any costs involved (and, with pre-planning, these can be minimized or made more manageable), and most families welcome having a place they can go to mourn and feel close to the deceased. Others feel that it is more "environmentally responsible" not to take up space in death. I would argue that the space is minimal, that cemeteries are, in fact, beautiful open green space (which are very hard to then "repurpose" for other development!), and that given some of the other arguments above regarding Jewish tradition and the Shoah, a people that constitutes less than 2% of the American population, and a tiny fraction of the world population in general, can take a little more green space to allow for what we consider to be a dignified burial.

I look forward to your comments!

Jacob