THE RENTED HEARSE

QUESTION:

At a recent funeral, the bereaved family learned that the hearse used by the Jewish funeral director was rented from a Gentile funeral director (or that both of them use it in a sort of partnership). They strongly objected, insisting that there should be a hearse used only for Jews. Is there any traditional background and justification for this objection on the part of the family? (Asked by Rabbi Murray Rothman, Newton, Massachusetts.)

ANSWER:

BEFORE GOING INTO the question, I inquired whether it is a widespread practice for Jewish and Gentile funeral directors to use the same hearse. I learned that funeral directors who have very many funerals may have their own hearse, but in general, since livery is expensive nowadays, most funeral directors rent their hearses as they rent their limousines, and so the same hearse is, indeed, used for both Jews and non-Jews.

I also inquired from funeral directors whether the objection of the Jewish family you referred to has been heard in their cities, and I found that this objection is not at all widespread. However, the fact that the ob jection is not widespread does not make the question less important, because it is in the psychology of bereaved families to add new restrictions on themselves, being eager to do “the right thing” for their departed one. Thus restrictions, observances, and prohibitions multiply even when there is little basis in the legal tradition to justify them. Since, therefore, this objection to the rented hearse may well increase and spread, it would be worthwhile, at least at this early stage, to see what there is in the tradition that led people to this protest.

First, it must be understood that the use of a hearse is itself new as a method of transporting the dead from the home to the cemetery. Up to about a century ago, the bodies were carried on the shoulders of pallbearers. This custom is traced back to the burial of the patriarch Jacob, whose body was carried by his sons to his grave in the cave of Machpelah (Genesis 50:13): “His sons carried him into the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field of Machpelah.” It was only in comparatively modern times, when the cemeteries in the large cities were at a great distance from the Jewish homes, that it became virtually impossible for the bodies to be carried all the way. Since it became impossible to do without transportation, the authorities were compelled to permit it.

An interesting form of the question is found in the responsa of Maharam (Moses Schick), Yore Deah 35. The inquirer said that the people feel that the honor of the dead (in the eyes of the Gentile community) would suggest that when the body is transported to the cemetery, it be transported in a hearse similar to the ones which the Gentiles use. Moses Schick permits the use of a hearse but suggests that the Jewish community make its hearse look different from the one the Gentiles use.

The same question is discussed by Eliezer Deutsch of Bonyhad, a leading Hungarian authority, in his Dudoye Ha-Sodeh, #25. The question came to him from Rabbi Klafter in New York, where the Jewish neighborhoods are far from the cemeteries. Deutsch says, of course, that the preferred transportation is by pallbearers (“shoulders”). Next to that, an automobile-drawn hearse is preferable to a horse-drawn hearse since horses are unclean animals. Then he gives the same caution as did Moses Schick, namely, that the hearse should be so constructed as to look different from the Gentile hearse so as to avoid the sin of imitation (chukas ha-goy).

Of course it is clear that both authorities speak of hearses owned by the Jewish community and so in actual fact only Jewish bodies would be transported in them. But that does not mean necessarily that if a hearse had at one time or other been borrowed from the Gentile community, the rabbinical authorities would object to its use, on the ground that Gentile bodies were transported in it. After all, they were describing the situation that prevailed in Europe, where there were no Jewish funeral directors conducting funeral-directing as a private business. All the funeral paraphernalia were owned by the community, and these authorities take that fact for granted, and therefore they said that the community-owned hearse should look different from the one owned by the Gentile community.

But would they have ground for objecting to a borrowed or rented hearse if such were possible in Europe? Of course, where a hearse was not used and the body was carried on shoulders, the pallbearers would come into direct contact with the coffin, and one can see at once why there would be objection in those days to Gentile pallbearers. As a matter of fact, just such an objection is recorded with regard to the funeral of the patriarch Jacob. Jacob had Gentile grandchildren. In the listing of the children of the patriarchs (Genesis 46:10 and Exodus 6:15), there is mentioned, among the sons of Simeon, “Shaul, the son of a Canaanitish woman.” According to the Midrash, Jacob on his deathbed asked his sons not to permit any of his Gentile grandchildren to carry his coffin (see Genesis R. 100:2): “Be careful that no uncircumcised shall touch my bier so that the Shechina shall not depart from me.

This Midrashic statement about Jacob is nowhere codified as law; but certain Chassidim—for example, the Lubavich Chassidim—object to any non-Jew driving the hearse. The local funeral director, to satisfy their scruples, has a Jewish driver for the hearse, and at the cemetery only Jewish men open the doors of the hearse to remove the coffin. But this objection against any contact of the body by Gentiles has never been codified into law and is based solely upon the Midrashic narrative of the patriarch Jacob.

As a matter of fact, not only is it not the law that Gentiles may not conduct a Jewish funeral, there is even a definite requirement in the law that necessitates their taking an active part in it. The law clearly states (Orah Hayyim 526:1) that if a man dies on the first day of a holiday, Gentiles must attend to the funeral arrangements. This does not refer to intimate contacts, such as washing the body. It refers to such laborious work as digging the grave and filling it up and making the shrouds; according to some authorities, even the transportation of the body in the public domain must be the work of Gentiles (see especially the opinion of Rabbenu Tarn to the Tur, ibid.). In fact, it is forbidden to wait until the second day in order for Jews to perform these functions. This law of Gentile participation in the funeral goes back to the Talmud (Beza 6a).

On Sabbath and on the Day of Atonement, a body may not be moved or transported at all, and, as the law puts it (Shulchan Aruch, Orah Hayyim 526:3): “Even Gentiles may not move it.” This clearly implies that other than on Sabbath and the Day of Atonement Gentiles may transport the body, i.e., on the first day of the holidays, Passover, Shavuos, and Succos. Of course, according to the Shulchan Aruch (Orah Hayyim 526:1), on the first day of these holidays Jews also may move the body.

Perhaps the objection of this family has some vague connection with the laws of ritual uncleanliness; namely, they imagine that the fact that Gentile bodies have been carried in the hearse somehow makes the hearse ritually unclean (tuma) for the use of Jews. But, first of all, it must be understood that all the laws of ritual uncleanliness through contact with the dead (tumas ha-mayss) are no longer applicable except to Kohanim. Kohanim are still forbidden to go to cemeteries or to be in the same room with a dead body, except for certain close relatives. If the family which raised the objection was a family of Kohanim, then one could understand their extra sensitiveness on this matter. But even so they are mistaken. It is a general rule in the law that the bodies of Gentiles are ritually clean. In other words, they would not defile a priest ritually as the body of a Jew would do. The only way in which the body of a Gentile would be ritually unclean for a priest would be if he came into tactile contact with it. The body of a Jew is unclean for a priest not only by tactile contact but by “enclosure” (ohel). The priest may not be in the same enclosure, in the same room, with the body of a Jew not his close relative. But the law is clear that a Gentile body is ritually clean by enclosure (see Maimonides, Hil. Avel. 3:3); therefore a priest may even walk in a Christian cemetery, although the Shulchan Aruch ( Yore Deah 372:2) tells him to be careful about doing it.

Therefore, even if a non-Jewish body were still in the hearse, the hearse would not be ritually defiled as an enclosure. Certainly the fact that a non-Jewish body was in the hearse yesterday has no effect on the usability of the hearse for a Jewish body.

To sum up, then: These popular notions with regard to burial tend to multiply and therefore must be carefully watched and analyzed. The transporting of the dead by auto-hearse is comparatively new. The scrupulousness of Jacob that no Gentile should touch his body goes back to the time when bodies were carried by pallbearers. Nevertheless, the participation of Gentiles in funerals, as on the first days of holidays, is required in the law (of course, for certain parts of the funeral). The past presence of a Gentile body does not affect the usability of the hearse since it is clear in the law that the bodies of Gentiles are clean ritually by enclosure (ohel).