MRR 237-240

WIFE’S ASHES IN HUSBAND’S COFFIN

QUESTION:

It is customary in Reform cemeteries to open the grave to bury the ashes of some relatives of the person already buried there. Now a wife asks that her ashes be buried not merely in the grave but actually in her husband’s coffin. Should this request be granted or should it be discouraged? (Asked by Rabbi Robert I. Kahn, Houston, Texas.)

ANSWER:

THERE HAS been a noticeable tendency towards over sentimentality and almost gruesomeness with regard to some modern Jewish burials. Quite a number of the questions which colleagues have referred to me reveal this only too clearly. I have been asked, in the case of a young husband killed with his favorite dog in an auto accident, whether the dog may not be buried with him. I have also been asked, with regard to a wealthy donor of the building of a new synagogue, whether his ashes may not be kept in the cornerstone of the building. It is clear that it is our duty nowadays to be especially on our guard against the possible growth of such sentimentality. Therefore the question you ask becomes an important one and we must judge it according to the spirit of Jewish legal tradition.

It is an established rule in the law that a coffin should not be opened once the body is put into it and the coffin closed. This is based upon a decision made by Rabbi Akiva in Bava Batra 154. A young man had been buried. Relatives claimed that the young man had been a minor and therefore the sale of certain properties which he had made was not a legal sale. They wanted to have the body uncovered again and examined so as to judge his age. Rabbi Akiva said: “You are forbidden to show his ugliness,” (lenavlo) i.e., to shame the deceased by looking at the ugly decay of his body.

From this basic prohibition to uncover the buried body itself the law grew more extensive, and soon it was prohibited even to open the grave even though the body was not revealed thereby. This additional prohibition is based upon what we would consider to be superstitious or folkloristic reasons, e.g., that the body itself is terrified by the disturbance, fearing an additional punishment, etc. Whatever be the folkloristic source of the extended prohibition (i.e., not to open the grave even when the body is not disturbed thereby) this enlargement of the law became established as a fixed practice (Yoreh Deah 363:7) . However, although it is a fixed and general practice that the grave be not reopened and disturbed in any way, nevertheless it is clear that this was not taken as an absolute prohibition. In many of the old cemeteries in Europe they buried (as it became necessary) one body above another. The justification for this was that the first body buried in that grave was not disturbed when the grave was redug for the second body because the six handbreadths of horizontal partition was not disturbed between coffin and coffin. Thus it could be considered that each body still has its own grave.

As a matter of fact, even opening the coffin itself was permitted, but only in very special and exceptional circumstances. On one occasion it was permitted in order to identify a body of a husband so that there should be absolute proof of his death and his wife be permitted to remarry (Ezekiel Katzenellenbogen, in Keneset Yechezkel, Even Ha’ezer #46). Again it was permitted in rather sad circumstances in the city of Brussels. Some ghouls had dug up graves in the Jewish cemetery and stolen the shrouds. Jacob Reischer, Rabbi of Metz, (Shevut Yaakov, II, 113) permitted certain graves to be opened to see if any of the bodies had shrouds. But it is clear that this permission to open the coffin itself was very rarely given because, after all, the opening or disturbing of the coffin is a basic prohibition, being given in the Talmud itself (the decision of Akiva mentioned above).

Therefore as to the question that is now asked, there would be no objection to making an opening in the grave to bury the ashes; but to open the coffin itself would certainly be contrary to the spirit of Jewish law. The permission to do so was granted only rarely and that under special circumtance in order to avoid some worse tragedy. Surely this request referred to here does not involve the avoiding of any tragedy and should certainly be discouraged.