Communal Mausoleums

There is a large nonsectarian mausoleum in one of the cemeteries in this city. No attempt is made to reserve a section of the building for Jews or Christians, re spectively. The individual crypts are sold for burial as they are available. Should we not attempt to acquire a section of the mausoleum, to be reserved for Jewish burial? (From Rabbi David Polish, Chicago, Illinois)

The question you ask will be of increasing importance as the years go by. On the Pacific Coast the custom of mausoleum burial is actually tending to supplant earth burial. I am informed that in one of the larger cities, where the Jewish congregation has a large congregational mausoleum in its cemetery, there are many more people buying crypts in the mausoleum than graves. In the recent past, when the only mausoleums were private ones and expensive to build, such burial was comparatively rare, but now that a crypt in a congregational or communal mausoleum is not more expensive than an earth grave, crypt burials are rapidly increasing. Since this tendency on the West Coast (where people seem more susceptible to novelty in these matters) seems likely to spread eastward, the question you raise should be carefully explored.

First, as to mausoleum burial as opposed to earth burial, does Jewish tradition have a clear preference? There can be no doubt that burial in ancient Israel was more like mausoleum burial than earth burial. People were buried in niches in rocky caves. The patriarchs and matriarchs were buried in the Cave of Machpela, and all later legends depict them as lying on their beds, not as covered with earth. In Isaiah 22 : 16 the prophet says (to the king): “Thou hast hewed thee out here a sepulchre … on high and gravest a habitation for thyself in the rock.” The Mishna (Baba Bathra VI, 8) carefully describes the arrangement of niches in a cave.

It was in Babylon, where there were no rocky caves, that the custom developed to bury exclusively in the earth. The law soon showed a preference for such burial, since it hastened the decay of the flesh. This preference for speedy decay of the flesh arose from the procedure followed with criminals executed by the Sanhedrin and buried in the cemetery belonging to the Court. Only after the decay of the flesh were the relatives of any of these criminals permitted to take the bones to a family burial place, for it was understood that with the decay of the flesh full atonement had been attained (m. Sanhedrin VI, 6).

Therefore the law came to insist that all burial be directly in the earth which hastens decay and even closed coffins were deemed improper (Yore Deah 362). Thus it is not surprising that burial in mausoleums was expressly declared to be forbidden (see, for example, the responsum of Yudelewitz, “Av B’chochmo,” p. 124).

Nevertheless, it is clear that mausoleum burial is increasing, and it well may be that just as burial in a closed coffin has become acceptable (even to many Orthodox Jews), so mausoleum burial may well become customary and ultimately acceptable, even among tradition-minded Jews.

The question is therefore no longer whether there shall be mausoleum or earth burial. Both are now established customs, the former especially so on the West Coast and among non-Orthodox Jews. The question, then, is whether the large mausoleums should be Jewish mausoleums or is that not necessary? As a matter of fact, many of them are exclusively Jewish; they are built by the congregation in the congregational cemetery. But there are many nonsectarian ones in which, as you describe, crypts are sold to all in turn. Is it against Jewish law for a Jew to be buried in a crypt next to that of a non-Jew?

Again, this is more a matter of tradition than of actual law. Separate Jewish cemeteries are nowhere specifically required by the law (as are synagogues and schools). Whenever rabbinic scholars endeavor to prove the legal necessity of a Jewish cemetery, they have great difficulty in doing so. (Cf. Elazar Deutsch in “Duda’ay Ha-sodeh,” #66 and #89, and Elazar Spiro, of Muncacz, “Minhat Elazar” II, 41.) Strictly speaking, the law requires only that a man should be buried in his own property (b’soch she’loh), based upon the debate in b. Baba Bathra, 112a. Technically, then, all that is required is that a man be buried in his own property and that there be six handbreadths of space between body and body. (See Jacob Reischer, “Shevus Ya’acov” II, 95, who adds that for lack of space it is no longer the custom to be careful about the required spacing. Moreover, since the partitions between the crypts are of marble, the distance between crypt and crypt need not be more than the thickness of the marble.

Isaac Schmelkes, Rabbi of Lemberg, in his answer to a question of the Jewish community of Paris, says that the six handbreadths which were usually required were necessary when the partition was of earth (which could crumble away); but that since they (in Paris) were then using marble for the partitions, six fing erbreadths would be quite sufficient (“Bays Yitzchok,” Yore Deah II, 153).

However, in spite of the technicalities of the matter, a separate Jewish cemetery is an established and worthy custom. When European governments a century ago established municipal cemeteries each of which had a Jewish section, the rabbis insisted upon a due separating space between the sections and, when possible, upon complete ownership of its section by the Jewish community.

There are many obvious advantages in having a special Jewish section or bay in the general mausoleum. The window can have Jewish symbols. Charity boxes can be placed there. Families can be buried together. With Jewish bodies scattered indiscriminately throughout the mausoleum, the pious custom of visiting the various graves of the family will fade away.

In sum, it cannot be said to be wrong to bury a Jew in a crypt next to and among Gentile crypts, but it would be preferable to have a separate congregational mausoleum, as many western congregations now have, or, failing that, to acquire—if possible, permanently—a separate Jewish section in the general mausoleum.