Jerusalem Funeral as a Microcosm of the

The Jerusalem Funeral as a Microcosm of the “Mismeeting” between Religious and Secular Israelis Studies in the Anthropology of Israel. (Eds. Abuav, Hertzog, Goldberg & Marx) Detroit: Wayne State University Press. 2010. ‎מלקינסון ר, רובין ר, ויצטום א (עורכים), אובדן ושכול בחברה הישראלית. כנה ומשרד הביטחון , 1993 pp. 181-96, Henry Abramovitch Funeral: Text and Performance The study of death rituals provides a key to understanding the core values of a society (Palgi and Abramovitch 1984). Confronting death forces each community to deal symbolically with the question: “What is the meaning of life, for us as a community, when faced with such loss?” In Madagascar, when I had conducted my previous fieldwork, the ancestors were in the center of social life. The most important life cycle event for each Malagasy occurs years after his biological death, at the second funeral during which their bones are removed from the earth and placed in coffins above ground. In a moving and joyous ceremony, the chief mourner asks that the soul of the deceased be received in the realm of the “Great Ancestors.” The successful completion of this final rite of passage places an enormous economic burden on the living descendants. The ancestors, however, are conceptualized as the actual leaders of the corporate kin group and their impact may be felt in a wide variety of ways, through dreams, illness, prophesy, sacrifices, and spirit possession. As Roger Bastide has noted, the African community is a dialogue of the dead with the living. In Israel, the customs and relationships connected with death are undergoing rapid and controversial changes. Burial, the sole form of disposal of the body, remained until recently a religious monopoly of orthodox Judaism establishment, under bureaucratic control of the ministry of religion and its affiliated religious councils or burial society (Hevra Kadisha). In the past, the Hevra Kadisha was an exclusive, voluntary society affording high social status. Their status has declined both in the religious community and even more so in the secular one. The dead themselves who as in Madagascar occupied an important role in social life are now increasingly left out and marginalized. In order to better understand the changing Israeli attitudes toward death and the internal dynamic between these ritual experts and their increasingly secular clients, I conducted field work as a participant-observer of a Jerusalem Hevra Kadisha. Before discussing the results of the fieldwork, I want to mention some dilemmas I encountered during the fieldwork, especially regarding the sense of entry into a stigmatized work identity. Entering the Field At the beginning my fieldwork with the Hevra Kadisha, when I asked for permission to participate in their activities, I was overtaken by sudden anxiety: “Would they accept me, a stranger, in their holy work?” To my surprise, I was accepted willingly and “with a blessing.” The officers of the Hevra Kadisha were aware of the decline in their social image in Israeli society and were very interested in seeking ways to improve that image. They saw my work as a way of doing so and, as it were, of getting their side of the story across. I quickly learned how the members of this “holy brotherhood” suffered from stigmatized work identity, which clashed with how they wished to perceive themselves as doing the “highest form of loving-kindness,” since the dead could never repay their kindness. In the past, I was told, one could join the Hevra Kadisha by invitation only, making it an exclusive club as well as a cornerstone of Jewish life. With the rise of secularization, there was a growing antagonism between religious and secular Jews, heightened by the sharp decline in the belief in an afterlife. What had been sacred and honorable had become a stigmatized and debased job. Secular critiques accused the Hevra Kadisha of making money from the dead. Some regular workers remained proud of their work and its traditions, but others would avoid admitting the exact nature of their work out of fear of social exclusion. I recall one man who actually worked only in the office and had no direct contact with corpses at all. When asked where he worked, he would reply mysteriously, “The last stop.” As a participant-observer in the Hevra Kadisha, I was present at many funerals. At first I was an observer, looking on from the side. Gradually I became one of the workers. I carried the body on the stretcher, I traveled in the van with the body, I carried the body to grave, and I helped with the burial itself. I then rushed back for the next funeral. Eventually, I even observed the purification rituals themselves. I went through a process of becoming one of them. In doing so, I violated a number of social taboos, doing things that others never do, things they prefer to leave to others and afterward despise those who do the “dirty work” for them. During funerals I often felt that I was violating my own sense of privacy and perhaps the privacy of the mourners, even though a funeral is in its essence a “public event.” It was as though “acute grief” was not a subject that should be investigated. In time, as I was increasingly accepted by the Hevra Kadisha, these sentiments disappeared and I had a work routine. Acceptance by my fellow workers also allowed me to see “behind the scenes.” For example, while riding in the van with the corpse, the fellows would recite Psalms, especially Psalm 91. Suddenly, the walkie-talkie came on in full volume calling: “hesed 3, hesed 3” (“hesed” is the term for “loving-kindness”). It was an absurd moment that combined piety and electronic technology. Following this interruption, the prayers often stopped and conversations, usually in Yiddish, turned to daily concerns. In this way, I could sense how the routinization of funerals for these ritual experts often detracted from the uniqueness of the event. For the family of mourners, the funeral is a one-time event; for the Hevra Kadisha, it was just another funeral. In this chapter, I consider two distinct aspects of the Jewish funeral in Jerusalem. First, I present an anthropological/ethnographic description of the unique aspects of Jerusalem mortuary against the background of more general Jewish custom. In addition, symbolic aspects of the ritual are discussed in an attempt to reveal social and psychological functions of funeral ritual as part of the mourning process. Second, I discuss the Jerusalem funeral as it is performed in practice. Specifically, I focus on the situation in which secular mourners (Israeli Jews from a nonreligious background) participate in the burial ceremony as part of the religious monopoly of rites of passage, such as weddings and funerals. As a result, nonreligious, non-observant secular Israeli Jews are forced to participate in an orthodox religious ceremony. Such an orthodox ceremony reflects basic values dissonant with those of secular Jews. Instead of reinforcing basic shared values and group cohesivenesss (Durkheim 1969; Huntington and Metcalf 1979), the funeral promotes dissension and dis-harmony. Indeed, the confrontation of values in the Jerusalem funeral may be seen as a microcosm of the “mismeeting” between the secular and orthodox Jewish communities in Israel as a whole. I examine the funeral, in its ideal form, as a text for a central social-religious drama. Later, specific performances of the social drama are analyzed against the backdrop of the secular-religious conflict. Material for both sections was collected as part of a participant-observer study of the major Jerusalem burial society, which handles over half of all funerals in the Israeli capital and by far the majority of funerals for secular Jews. By presenting both sides of the religious-secular divide as faithfully as possible, I hope to clarify the position of each and show the basic points of their mismeeting. The Religious-Secular Continuum The terms “religious” (dati) and “secular” (hiloni) require some clarification. In practice, these polarized social categories reflect the contemporary folk classification of Israeli society. As in many other cases of conflict, be they religious, political, interethnic, or economic, there is a pervasive tendency to dichotomize social categories into in-group/out-group, with-us/against-us polarities. Such a split serves to reinforce rigid group boundaries and exclusive identity, feeding the cause of extremists on each side. The social reality is much more complex, resembling a continuum more than a dichotomy. There are ultra-orthodox individuals who hardly come into contact with nonreligious individuals and institutions. Likewise, there are atheist Israelites who have no contact with religiously minded Jews of any group, do not celebrate Jewish holidays, know little or nothing of Judaism, and even overtly refuse to participate in a religious burial ceremony. Both extremes, however, constitute tiny minorities. Most Israelis lie on a continuum of more religiously minded or more secularly minded. Many members of the Hevra Kadisha studied do reserve army service, albeit often in the burial unit. At least one has an advanced secular degree, though a majority studied primarily in religious educational settings. Most so-called secular Jews celebrate at least some religious holidays, in addition to the holidays of the Israeli civil religion. Many secular Jews have or had religious parents or grandparents who directly or indirectly influence their perceptions. A common occasion of mismeeting is the situation in which an observant parent is buried with full ritual to the dismay of the nonreligious children. Many secular Jews sit shivah (observe the seven-day mourning period) and observe the thirty-day commemoration (shloshim). Most observant Jews, the so-called knitted skullcap (kipa sruga) Jews, participate fully in mainstream secular Israeli society, with its mix of civil religion and Judaism. These individuals, while clearly in the religious camp, often have attitudes, opinions, and even behaviors similar to those of their nonreligious fellow citizens. There are always individuals who defy the simple continuum, for example, an ordained orthodox rabbi who works for the secular Citizen’s Rights Party, or secular Israelis who keep no rituals but following a death begin religious observance or, in extreme cases, become “born again” Jews (hozrim betsuva). Thus the dichotomy religious-secular, while reflecting a basic cleavage of Israeli society, hides at least as much as it reveals. In terms of funeral behavior, individuals on the religious side of the continuum are more likely to understand and share the worldview of the burial society. As mourners, they are more likely to “know their parts” and to participate in the religious drama as it unfolds, without prompting. Individuals toward the nonreligious side are much less likely to comprehend or accept the orthodox worldview. They are more likely to be confused by the sequence of events and react angrily to the imposition of specific customs that offend their sense of a funeral aesthetic. Secular Jews are therefore less likely to agree with the ritual script that the burial society proposes. The struggle in extreme cases is often acute, precisely because funerals are occasions in which the basic group values of a community need to be reinforced. The polarized extremes have few if any values in common, and the funeral ceremony becomes the battleground over which a set of values will be reinforced, elaborated, and even celebrated. Death is a time when people need to feel they have an answer to the meaning of life, to feel there is a reason to continue living. The tragic mismeeting occurs when the values and answers of the burial society seem irrelevant to or antagonize their secular clients. The Task of Funerals Funerals, like other rites of passage, perform a number of simultaneous tasks in the social and psychological life of a community. In this section, I discuss the interrelationships between three of these tasks. For convenience, I shall refer to these three tasks as initiating mourning, providing social support, and ushering the soul of the dead into the afterlife. Each task refers primarily to one of the three main actors in the funeral drama, respectively, the chief mourners, the rest of the community, and the body and soul of the deceased. Although ritual initiation of grief often begins long before the ritual disposal of the body, it is with the funeral that the initiating of grief is most pronounced. The survivors are confronted with the reality of the death and their loss. Their social status is typically altered or reduced. They are obliged to display signs of their grief, such as changes in diet, habits, clothing, ritual pollution, and so on. These changes help the mourners in contouring the grief process and ultimately allow them to successfully resolve the loss. Funerals are also occasions that bring people together. The community gathers in support of the mourners and helps them in their ritual tasks. Like other ceremonies, these rites provide a renewed sense of togetherness and social solidarity at the very moment when the continuity and permanence of the social group is threatened by the loss of one of its members. Providing social support takes many forms. It might include comforting the mourners, feeding them, or just sitting together in silence. The comforting presence helps the mourners overcome the sense of aloneness that death almost inevitably brings and helps them complete the tasks of mourning. The primary formal task of funerals, however, involves the dead, not the living. It is connected with the parallel obligation of appropriate disposal of the corpse while ushering the soul of the dead into the culturally conceived afterlife. This transition is often fraught with dangers and is in part dependent upon the behavior of the mourners. The successful navigation of this transition, however, reenacts a symbolic victory over the reality of death through reference to a sacred order that transcends everyday experience, which Geertz (XXXX has called a “religious perspective.” Although the funeral usually only begins the process of ushering the soul into another realm, it does provide a collective sense that, even in death, there is a potential for continuity and even the regeneration of life. These three tasks in the funeral process usually go hand in hand and indeed are interdependent. The mourners are supported by the entire community, who as a whole take solace in ushering the soul of the dead into the afterlife and the symbolic victory over death this provides. The fortunes of the mourners are in some complex manner linked to the successful transition of their relative who might return as a wandering ghost or an agent of misfortune if the transition fails. The dead man’s soul is often in turn dependent upon the performance of specific rituals by his relatives and, occasionally, the community to complete this passage to the other world. In describing the funeral process in these terms, I have emphasized their functional aspect. Circumstances might occur in which the tasks might clash in a dialectical process, in which the demands of one are temporarily set aside in favor of the needs of the other. In this study, I want to describe a somewhat anomalous case, in which I will argue that the demands of providing social support to the mourners are set aside, indeed negated, at a crucial moment in ushering the soul in his passage to the afterlife. Specifically, I shall discuss an aspect of the Jewish funeral in the holy city of Jerusalem. Prior to the start of a father’s funeral, all lineal descendants, literally “all those who have issues from his loins” (children and grandchildren), are forbidden to follow the funeral procession. In former times, when the body lay in state at home, these children were left behind and did not attend the funeral at all. More recently, following the letter of the injunction not to follow their deceased father, children are sometimes permitted to walk in front of the procession, ahead of their father’s body, and arrive at the graveside in advance of the rest of the funeral party. In either case, this injunction, known as herem Yehoshua bin Nun (Hebrew, “the ban of Joshua son of Nun”), serves to set off a man’s children and grandchildren not only from his body but also from the rest of the community at the very time when these lineal mourners are presumably most in need of psychological and social support. The Jerusalem Funeral and the Jewish Mourning Cycle Before analyzing this custom of ritual exclusion, it is necessary to place it within the context of the Jerusalem funeral practice and the Jewish mourning cycle. In the course of this discussion, I shall restrict myself to orthodox Jewish custom, which follows the Shulhan Aruch and other standard codes of Jewish law. The contours of orthodox Jewish mortuary ritual are shared by most Jewish communities, although there is considerable heterogeneity in the details of burial and mourning. In Jerusalem, for example, during the British Mandate period in the 1930s, there were at least thirty-two different burial societies, and each Hevra Kadisha jealously guarded the specific traditions of its own religious practice. In the 1950s their number was reduced, and today there are about twelve active burial societies. Most of these are geared toward an ethnically homogeneous immigrant group, for example, Persian Jews, North African Jews, or specific religious sects such as Hasidic Jews. The burial society in which I was a participant-observer is the sole nonsectarian organization and is used by Jerusalemites of diverse ethnic backgrounds, religious and secular Jews alike. In practice, they are responsible for over half the funerals performed in Jerusalem. Most Jewish communities oblige descendants, especially children, to escort their father to the grave. Indeed, the Hebrew word for funeral, Levaya, derives from the root laveh, “to accompany.” All Jews are required by religious law (halakha) to follow the funeral cortege, at least a number of symbolic steps, even if they are simply passersby. This restriction on children in Jerusalem burial custom stands out all the more in contrast. Orthodox Jewish funerals are simple, standard, and rapid affairs. Virtually the same service is performed for all. No great expense is necessary. In Israel, standard burial plots and burial garments are covered by social security, though one can buy a specific plot if one wishes, and the erection of a tombstone can be a considerable expense. In addition, some Jews specify in their will that they be buried in Jerusalem, and the transportation from overseas plus the obligatory purchase of a plot and tombstone can run as high as ten thousand dollars. However, most people are buried free of charge. Ideally, a dead person should be buried as quickly as possible, preferable before nightfall of the same day. In many communities it is, however, acceptable to postpone the funeral to the following day or until the heirs and chief mourners arrive. In Jerusalem, the importance of immediate burial is greatly stressed because of the sanctity of the holy city. As a result, individuals are often buried within hours of their demise, even at night. Because burial is not permitted on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, funerals on Saturday night, after the Sabbath is over, are common. The Jewish mourning cycle divides up mourning into four distinct and time-limited phases. From the moment a person learns of the death of an immediate relative (father, mother, brother, sister, child, or spouse) until burial, he is considered an onen. An onen, “one whose dead lies before him,” is absolved of the fulfillment of all positive commandments. He is not required to pray or even answer greetings. His entire attention is absorbed by the obligation to make arrangements for the burial. After the funeral, the mourner becomes an avel (mourner) and begins the prescribed initial seven-day period of mourning, shiva (Hebrew, “seven”). During the first seven days, a mourner is forbidden to work, to wash, to have sexual intercourse, to study, to offer greetings, to wear freshly washed clothes, to cut his hair or beard, and to participate in any festivities. Usually he sits on the floor or on a low stool. He is not permitted to prepare his own food nor should he leave his house. It is customary for members of the community to visit and sit with the mourners during the shivah. The shivah period is typically ended by a visit to the grave of the deceased. Some of the prohibitions of the shivah continue until the thirty-day shloshim (Hebrew “thirty”), for example, wearing new clothes or cutting hair or beard. The shloshim is usually celebrated by a visit to the grave and a large meal, called the feast of the thirtieth day (seudat shloshim). Except for parents, formal mourning is completed on the thirtieth day. Mourning for parents continues for twelve months. The anniversary of the death is likewise observed by a visit to the grave, recitation of prayers, and often a meal. The anniversary is observed in a like manner every year. These four phases, or statuses, onen, shiva, shloshim, and, in the case of parents, the remaining eleven months of the year, make up the four divisions of the Jewish mourning cycle. For each of these divisions, there is culturally appropriate social support that relatives and friends are expected to offer. In addition, each phase is said to mark stages in the transition of the soul of the deceased in the other world; the fate of the soul and the cycle of mourning depend on the actions of the mourners, who pray, study, and give charity in honor and aid of the deceased. The cycle is completed when the soul reaches its place in Paradise and may act as a cultural resource and intercessory on the behalf of his relatives, especially his children. Initiating Mourning Rather than present a chronological sequence of Jewish Jerusalem funerary ritual, an account will be given in terms of three tasks of the funeral discussed previously. Unless noted, customs apply to Jewish funerals generally. Upon learning of the death of an immediate relative, one is obliged to “rend one’s garments.” Although this obligation should be performed at the moment of learning of the death, standing, saying the phrase, “Blessed is the True Judge,” in Jerusalem, and elsewhere, it is also formally incorporated into the funeral ritual. Thus, just prior to the beginning of the formal ritual prayers, the leader of the Hevra Kadisha cuts a garment, such as a shirt or scarf, with a razor, which the mourner continues to tear. The mourner is then instructed in the appropriate phrase. The tear is the first behavioral indication of loss and seems to symbolize the tearing of the psychosocial fabric of society. The tear is never meant to be fully repaired, evoking the sense that once a close relative dies, something in the inner world of the person is irrevocably torn and can never be fully mended. It is also customary in Jerusalem to spill all standing water. The reasons for this are complicated, even contradictory: to avoid effects of ritual pollution, lest blood somehow enter the water supply, or to avert the Angel of Death. In any case, spilled water in a Jerusalem courtyard was a sign that a death had occurred. With the advent of indoor plumbing, this custom is infrequently observed. Concerning the status of onen, Lamm has written, “Practically, then, the onen must make immediate and significant decisions based on the reality of death. Psychologically, however, he has not yet assimilated it or accepted it” (1969, 21). This initial phase corresponds to the stage of shock and disbelief, with a subtle psychological identification between the onen and his dead relative in that both are cut off from the demands and requirements of social and religious life. It is significant that at the funeral, which ends the status of onen, the mourner’s main task is to say the Kaddish prayer and reaffirm his belief in God. Traditionally, family members participate in a vigil over the corpse because a dead body ought not to be left alone. In Jerusalem, in most cases in which the funeral is delayed overnight, the body is refrigerated, and in many cases no vigil is conducted. At the end of the ritual purification in Jerusalem, it is customary for the members of the burial society to invite the eldest son to place earth over the eyes of his parent. My informants told me that this is done because the eye is the organ of desire and envy, and needs, as it were, to be specially treated in order for it to accept its demise. The symbolism of “earth to earth, dust to dust” was also cited in this connection. For the son who places the earth over the eyes, this last direct encounter with the body dramatically brings home the reality of death. Although most communities outside Israel use some sort of coffin, traditional Jewish practice, which is still followed in Israel, rejects absolutely the use of closed coffins, and the deceased is dressed in seven burial garments enclosed by a winding sheet. These shrouds are often prepared by the deceased while still living, and in such cases, it is a family member who makes them available to the burial society. Moreover, the body wrapped in a plain white sheet, lying on a simple bier, is itself another poignant reminder of the fragility of human life. In Jerusalem, the funeral begins when the leader breaks a bit of porcelain over the doorway and recites the Hebrew phrase from Psalm 124:7: “the snare is broken and we have escaped.” My informants were not clear about the meaning of the phrase, whether it referred to the soul of the deceased (in which case it concerns the ushering of the soul into the afterlife), or whether it concerned the break between the world of the living and the realm of the dead. In any case, like the rending of garments, the metaphor of something broken is clear. In the funeral service, the chief mourner’s main task is to recite the Kaddish. Although the Kaddish is often referred to as the prayer for the dead, it literally means “sanctification,” and its use is not limited to mortuary ritual but is a regular element in daily prayer. It contains no personal reference to the dead person. Rather, it is a public declaration of faith and an affirmation of divine sovereignty now and in the time to come. The text of the prayer, however, is mostly in Aramaic, a language incomprehensible to Israeli Hebrew speakers, and so it has some of the mystic flavor of an incantation. From a dramatic point of view, the recitation of the Kaddish by the eldest son or other male relative is the high point in the funeral service. It is at this moment that great emotion is displayed by both the man reciting and the assembled crowd. Often the chief mourner has difficulty completing the prayer when he is overwhelmed by feeling. It is at this point that he must show publicly that he accepts the divine decree. The structure of the prayer is a sort of ritual dialogue between the individual mourner, who recites the main text, and the assembled quorum, who respond “Amen” or “May His Name be blessed” in the appropriate places. The Kaddish highlights the interdependence of mourners, the community, and the dead. In Jerusalem, the Kaddish is recited three times, once before the funeral, again when the body is placed in the funeral van, and again in a more elaborate version at the graveside after burial. Social Support Social support for the family of the deceased is provided by the Hevra Kadisha and by the community of relatives, friends, and neighbors. The Hevra Kadisha, literally a sacred society or holy fellowship, takes upon itself the work of preparing the dead for burial. Originally, it was a voluntary organization of high status and prestige in the community and only members of highest standing were invited to join in this highest form of loving-kindness (gemilut hesed shel emet). However, with the bureaucratization of mortuary care and the increase in the number of daily funerals, the status of the individuals who work full-time in the Hevra Kadisha has declined, especially in the eyes of secular Israelis. This clash of values in the Jerusalem funeral between secular Israelis and religious Israelis is exacerbated because burial is a monopoly of the ministry of religion, which at the time of my fieldwork did not allow, except in kibbutzim, any secular funeral. Moreover, the black garb of most of the workers of the burial society and the routinization of this sacred activity have contributed to their stigmatized work identity. From a religious point of view, however, the Hevra Kadisha performs a vital function. When a death occurs in a town, according to orthodox law, there must be an organized burial society to see to the needs of the deceased, then work and normal social life for those not immediately involved can continue. In addition, some authorities argue that once the Hevra Kadisha assumes responsibility for the care of the dead, the mourners are released from the constraints of the aninut, that is, the status of onen. The Hevra Kadisha brings the body home from the hospital, undertakes the ritual purification of the body, dresses the body in shrouds that they provide (except as stated above), and makes all the formal funeral arrangements. At the funeral, the leader performs kri’a, the rending of garments, breaks the shards, recites various prayers, and assists the chief mourner in reciting Kaddish, if necessary, while the rest of the members of the society make up a prayer quorum, if there are less than ten adult men. They also help carry the body and accompany it to the cemetery while reciting Psalms. At the grave, one of the members lays the body in the ground and assists in covering it with earth while the leader performs further prayers. As in many communities, in Jerusalem the mourners are given a pamphlet that explains most of the mourning customs and memorial prayers. In addition, a rabbi associated with the burial society visits the family during the shivah period. As we shall see below, most of the activities of the burial society are for the purpose of honoring the dead (kvod hamet), but many of their actions provide practical help for the mourners, who would otherwise be obliged to carry out many of these duties themselves. Despite their loss in status and their stigma, the Hevra Kadisha act as ritual experts guiding the mourners through the funeral drama, coaching them in their roles, and reminding them of the religious commandments. It is the leader of the Hevra Kadisha who informs the children of the ban of Joshua son of Nun. Members of the community provide a display of support at each step of the funeral. Their very presence reassures the mourners that they are not entirely alone. In cases where there are no mourners, the Hevra Kadisha performs the funeral. During the formal prayers, community members surround the mourners and say the responses in Kaddish. Often they will carry the deceased, first to the funeral van and later from the van to the grave. At the grave, they follow the example of the leader of the Hevra Kadisha, shoveling earth into the grave, taking care not to pass the spade directly from hand to hand. Later, they will also place a stone over the covered grave, a custom common in Jerusalem and a number of other communities. The nonmourners assume their ritual roles as comforters in the recessional from the grave. At the end of the graveside service, they form two lines, through which the mourners pass. As the mourners walk by, those present recite the formal words of comfort: “May the Lord comfort you among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.” Concerning this custom, Lamm has written, “The purpose of the recessional is to redirect our sympathies and concerns from the deceased to the mourners. It marks the transition from aninut to avelut, the new state of mourning which now commences. The theme changes from honoring of the dead to comforting the survivors” (1969, 66<N>67). Comforting the survivors is continued through visits to the shivah, bringing food, which serves to nurture the mourners, and participating in a special prayer quorum at the house of mourning. Ushering the Soul of the Dead to the Afterlife Hertz (1960) first discussed the parallels “between the state of the corpse, the fate of the soul and the ritual condition of the mourners.” As we have observed, everything up to the funeral is done to honor the dead, and thereafter in support of the mourners. The fate of the soul, however, is bound up with the actions of the mourners but also with the decomposition of the body. Only at the end of the mourning cycle, when the body has decomposed to the bone, may the soul achieve its ultimate destination and be bound up in the “bundle of life” (tsror hahayim). Death merely initiates the ultimate process of separation of body and soul to their respective fates. This attitude is aptly summed up by the motto, written in large Hebrew letters above the funeral chapel of the Hevra Kadisha in which I did my study, that read, “The body returns to the earth whence it came, while the soul returns to Him who gave it.” Jewish custom forbids touching a dying man unnecessarily lest this hasten the departure of the soul. Ideally a prayer quorum of ten adult males should be present to attend him, to hear his confession, and to help him with his final prayers. If he is reluctant to make his confession (vidui), he is reminded, “Many have confessed and not died; many have died and not confessed.” In one Jerusalem hospital, it was the custom for one God-fearing man to say the confession publicly with all the patients answering “Amen.” If a person cannot speak aloud, he is permitted to say it in his heart. After death, candles are lit, windows are opened, and the body is undressed. Covered by a top sheet, the body is later lowered to the floor so that the back is in contact with the floor. Thus begins the symbolic journey of the body toward the earth. Special care is taken so that the face is covered because one is forbidden to look into the eyes of the deceased. Usually mirrors and pictures are likewise covered. The body should be watched at all times and Psalms recited during this vigil. Eating, drinking, blessings, or study are forbidden in the immediate presence of the corpse. These prohibitions are based on the notion that one must not “mock the poor,” as the dead are called, in their impoverished ability to perform any religious commandments. It further seems to serve as a guard against the envy that the dead would thus feel towards the living. The handling of the corpse is guided by three concepts of Jewish culture: the honor due to the dead (kvod hamet); the uncleanness of the dead, or ritual pollution of the corpse (tum’at hamet); and ritual purification of the dead (taharat hamet). The honor due to the dead, as discussed above, requires that the dead body be treated with appropriate respect. Common American mortuary practices, such as embalming, autopsy, wake, viewing the remains, and cremation are all forbidden because they are not in keeping with the notion of kvod hamet. Rabbinic literature often compares the dead body with an invalid ritual object, such as a defective Torah scroll. Such a scroll is proscribed for ritual use, yet it must be handled with the care and respect of a valid one, in accordance with the holiness it once possessed. Likewise, a dead human body must be treated with respect. Like the dead body, any ritually defective material bearing the Divine Name must be buried or stored in a geniza (repository), and the Hevra Kadisha has set aside a plot of land in which such material is buried. Under certain circumstances, a Torah scroll will be given funeral honors. Honor due to the dead requires that the corpse undergo ritual purification and, in Jerusalem, that it be buried according to the burial custom of the holy city. Alternative forms of disposal are unacceptable to orthodox Jewish law. Even the ashes of one burned to death must be buried. Likewise, a corpse ought not to be left overnight because it is not keeping with the honor due to the dead, the sanctity of Jerusalem, or the danger that an unclean spirit might enter the dead body. At the close of the graveside service, the leader, in the name of the Hevra Kadisha and all those assembled, addresses the spirit of the dead person. He says that if any fault was unintentionally committed, it was performed “in his honor according to the custom of Jerusalem.” He goes on to ask forgiveness from the dead person and absolves him of membership in any association of which he might have been a part. Stripped of his social roles and any grudge toward the living, the soul is free to make his journey toward the world to come. Jewish beliefs concerning purity and pollution are exceedingly complex and intricate. For the purposes of this essay, it is important to note that human corpses are a major source--and, in some senses, are considered the archetypal source--of pollution (avi avot hatumah, literally, “the father of fathers of uncleanness”), that is, the primal category of pollution. Corpse pollution transmits uncleanness not only to anything that comes in direct contact with it but even through the shadow of a building in which the corpse lies. Moreover, any person or object polluted in these ways becomes a carrier of the ritual pollution. For example, a man might become ritually unclean if he touches a vessel that has lain in the shadow of a house in which someone has died. The earth is the only object that does not receive nor transmit corpse pollution, and once the corpse is buried it is no longer subject to the laws of uncleanness. Prior to burial the corpse must undergo ritual purification (taharat hamet). The purification process is divided into two parts: the physical cleansing of the body and the actual ritual of purification. It is a fixed rule that men wash men and women wash women, in keeping with the “honor due to the dead.” My informants did mention one unusual case in which no woman was available in the Hevra Kadisha to perform the cleansing and purification. In this case, a man was blindfolded and participated in the ritual cleansing. It is important that the members of the Hevra Kadisha themselves undergo daily ritual immersion to remove the source of corpse uncleanness and restore themselves to a state of purity and hence be in a ritually pure state during the act of purification of the dead body. Before beginning the purification procedure, the senior member of the company leads a prayer for mercy and forgiveness on behalf of the deceased. The physical cleansing of the body commences following right-left, sacred-profane dichotomies first noted by Hertz (1960). The head, neck, and right side of the body are washed to the accompaniment of special prayers for each body part. The left side is treated without any benediction. The body is then turned over and once again the right side is washed, with prayers, the left silently. Finally the body is placed on its left side and the anal cavity is cleansed by enemas until the water comes out clean without any smell. The anus is then sealed with a wad of cloth. This “internal purification” (tahara pnimit) is peculiar to the burial custom of Jerusalem, but it is not performed in the case of infectious diseases, or upon doctor’s orders, or in the presence of blood, such as after an operation. If at any time the presence of blood is detected, the internal purification procedure is stopped. Indeed, any individual “whose blood is upon him” such as in violent death receives no purification, external or internal. Such individuals are often buried in their bloodied garments because blood in equated with life (compare Gen. 9:5). In many communities, care is taken to trim fingernails. In Jerusalem, however, all the dirt under fingernails and toenails is removed so that no direct barrier can be said to come between the body and the waters of purification. After the physical cleansing is complete, the body is immersed in a ritual bath (mikveh), if available. If no mikveh is available, or when it is used only for the highest-status individuals, the corpse is raised to an upright position and about twenty liters (the so-called 9 kavim) are poured over it. The corpse is then declared pure by the threefold repetition of the Hebrew word tahor (pure). At this point, the corpse is in an inner state of purity, while continuing to radiate corpse pollution. The shrouds are made of plain white material, flax or cotton, and should be hand sewn. In many communities, a man’s kittel, a long white garment used for his wedding, for the Day of Atonement, and for Passover festivities, is used. There are seven standard burial garments. They are put on in the following order: a square head covering, a loincloth, pants without openings for the feet, a tunic, (or kittel), a long thin triangular eye cover, a hood, and the winding sheet. During the dressing, the eldest son is invited in to place earth over the eyes. Three external knots are tied to keep the arms and legs together during transit to the grave and are only untied when the body is placed in the grave, so that the person leaves the world as he entered, “without ties.” A large prayer shawl is placed over a male body; a parochet or Torah curtain is used for females, once again highlighting the equivalence of Torah and human body. The body is then placed on a bier and carried across the hall from the purification chamber to a small chapel where candles are lit and the family may gather for a prayer vigil and a last, intimate farewell. The ban of Joshua son of Nun is announced to the children just prior to the funeral proper. None of my informants could give an explanation for the ban or even whether this Joshua is the same man as the one described in the Bible. It is possible that the name is meant to give the relatively recent practice an aura of antiquity. Scholars (Tuchinski 1948; Scholem 1965) assert that the ban is probably no more than 250 years old. All those who have issued from his loins are informed that according to the “custom of Jerusalem” (minhag yerushalayim) they are prohibited from following their father to the gravesite. The ban applies to both sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, of deceased men, not of deceased women. Formerly, when the body was taken from the home of the deceased, the children would recite the traditional prayers at the doorstep of the house. They would remain behind while the funeral procession continued in stages to the cemetery. Although the language of the injunction forbids actually following, it is permissible to walk in front of the father and arrive at the grave ahead of the rest of the funeral party. Many observant Jerusalemites elect to follow this practice, fulfilling the letter, if not the spirit, of the injunction. In contrast, secular Jews, unfamiliar with this practice, often react with anger and confusion. Many refuse to comply. I have heard reports in which the children were forcibly prevented from following in the procession, although I never witnessed such an altercation. On the contrary, the members of the burial society where I did the bulk of my observations stated that it is not their job to enforce the ban, which in any case was for the honor of the deceased father. As one man put it succinctly, “We are not policemen.” It must be emphasized that this ban on children is not only peculiar to Jerusalem, within Judaism, but apparently anomalous within the anthropological literature on mortuary ritual (Rosenblatt, Walsh, and Jackson 1976; Aries 1977; Huntington and Metcalf 1979; Humphreys and King 1981; Bloch and Parry 1982; Palgi and Abramovitch 1984). Moreover, the custom seems to violate one of the cardinal functions of such rites of passage. Durkheim taught that one of the major functions of funerals is to bring together the survivors in an increased sense of social solidarity. “The foundation of mourning,” he wrote, “is the impression of a loss which the group feels when it loses one of its closer relations with one another in associating all in the same emotional state and therefore in disengaging the sensation of comfort which compensates for the original loss.” He concludes, “Since they weep together they hold to one another and the group is not weakened in spite of the blow which has fallen upon it” (Durkheim 1969, 401). The ban of Joshua son of Nun sets off the children physically not only from their fathers but also from all other nonlineal relatives and the rest of the community, just at the very time when they are most in need of a reassuring sense of solidarity and emotional support. The Flaw in Male Sexuality In religious (halakhic) terms, burial marks the ritual transition from the deeply liminal status of “those whose dead lie before them” (onen), who are absolved of all positive religious commandments, to the social status of avel or mourner, who, sitting low on the ground, have a restricted but clearly defined social standing. For the children who do not follow their dead father, the passage from onen to avel is blurred. They do not actually witness the burial itself and therefore do not know precisely when the change of mourning status is effected. How are we then to understand this ritual separation? One hint comes from the liturgy of the funeral itself. It begins with an extract from the Ethics of the Fathers (3:1). Akavia Ben Mehalalel used to say: Look upon three things and you shall not enter into sin: Whence have you come? Where are you destined to go? And before Whom you must stand in final judgment?</VEXT> The answer to the initial ontological question, “Whence have you come?” is given in an undertone, sotto voce so that none of the assembled can actually hear what is being said. The whispered answer is “from a vile drop,” that is, one’s father’s semen; and the text is not spoken aloud out of respect for the children of the dead man. The great student of Jewish mysticism Gershon Scholem has discussed the background to this peculiar doctrine. To the Kabbalists, the union between man and woman, within its holy limits, was a venerable mystery, as one may judge from the fact that the most classical and widespread widely circulated Kabbalistic definition of mystical meditation is to be found in a treatise about sexual union in marriage. Abuse of man’s generative powers was held to be a destructive act, through which not the holy, but the “other side,” obtains progeny. An extreme cult of purity led to the view that every act of impurity whether conscious or unconscious, engenders demons. Spilling one’s seed even in a nocturnal emission constituted a terrible flaw in the nature of masculine sexuality. Such wasteful ejaculation was considered worse than murder, creating irreparable damage to the “upper spheres” and, moreover, an act not amenable to repentance (Zohar 62a; Green 1981, 56; Benayahu 1983). The flaw in masculine sexuality derives from the fact that a man’s first sexual experience is a wet dream or nocturnal ejaculation. This dream experience was conceptualized by the Kabbalists as a sexual encounter with female demons, usually Lilith, Adam’s first wife. Cohabitation with such demonic female spirits engenders the “semen demons” who are relegated to the spirit world but nevertheless seek to claim paternity from their erring father. It is noteworthy that Lilith, according to well-known Midrash, separated from Adam because she wished to engage in “forbidden” sexual intercourse. Since then Lilith, symbolizing the banished destructive feminine aspects, is conceived of as a threat to infants, newlyweds, and other liminal individuals because she is often in search of semen with which to construct bodies for her wandering spirit children. Ejaculated semen engendered a sort of disembodied demon, ever seeking to incarnate. Unless prevented from doing so, these “spirits of harm that come from man” would appear at their father’s funeral. Their appearance was not only out of keeping with the honor due to the dead, but worse, these “semen demons” might dispute or demand their share of the father’s inheritance or harm the more legitimate heirs. To prevent this, a series of antidemonic rites were devised to guard against these illegitimate demon children. One of these devices was a strange “dance of death” that is still performed by request in Jerusalem for men of high standing. Before the body was lowered into the grave, ten men danced round it in a circle, reciting a Psalm which in Jewish tradition has generally been regarded as a defense against demons (Ps. 91), or another prayer. Then a stone was laid on the bier and the following verse (Gen. 25:6) recited: “But onto the sons of the concubines, which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away.” This strange dance of death was repeated seven times. The rite, which in modern times has been unintelligible to most of the participants, has to do with kabalistic conceptions about sexual life and the sanctity of the human seed. (Scholem 1965, 154). Many diverse cultures express the mysterious connection between sexuality and death in mortuary ritual (Bachofen 1967; Bloch and Parry 1982). In many cases, the victory over death or transformation into rebirth “is symbolically achieved by a victory over female sexuality and the world of women who are made to bear the ultimate responsibility for the negative aspects of death” (Bloch and Parry 1982, 22). The dangers of the female might be implicit in Jerusalem rite because formerly, in many cases, women did not accompany the corpse to the grave or even attend the funeral at all. What is unusual in the custom of Jerusalem is the focus on masculine sexuality as “dangerous and destructive” when separated from the sanctified fertilizing act of procreation. It is precisely this disembodied masculinity that endangers the funeral process. The sixteenth-century Kabbalist Abraham Sabba, according to Scholem, was the first to formulate the funeral link between father and his spirit children. He poignantly describes the final meeting: “For all those spirits that have built their bodies from a drop of his seed regard him as their father. And so, especially on the day of his burial, he must suffer punishment; for while he is being carried to the grave, they swarm around him like bees, crying: “you are our father,” and they complain and lament behind the bier, because they have lost their home and are now being tormented along with other demons which hover (bodiless) in the air” (1965, 155). To prevent such a tormenting a pathetic scene, various antidemonic tactics were contrived. The most potent was a sort of sympathetic magic. The presence of a man’s biological offspring seemingly allows the “semen children” to attend the funeral as well. By banning one set of heirs, the absence of the other is assured. This explanation is the one my informants gave me and continue to give bereaved children just prior to the funeral. As in other cultures (Bloch and Parry 1982), there is a folk explanation that parallels the official esoteric account. I heard this explanation mostly from women. They claimed that all children are prohibited from following a father’s bier because a man is never sure whether his children are truly his own biological offspring. The ban acts to prevent the public disgrace of a bastard being included in the funeral procession, even if the father is not aware that a child is from another’s seed. What is interesting is that the folk explanation and the official explanation deal with the same issue, namely, the exclusion if illegitimate offspring. Whereas the official version focuses on illegitimate beings in the spirit realm, the folk version is concerned with illegitimate children in the flesh. Both versions agree that there is no need for a similar ban in the case of mothers, who are in all cases sure about the maternity of their progeny in a way that no father can be confident about his paternity. There is at least one matrilineal society, the Fante of West Africa, in which the children, who have no share in their father’s inheritance, are set apart during the funeral procession. The children, who provide only the coffin and no other funeral expense, walk in front while the rest of the relatives follow (Chukwukere 1981). Unlike the Jerusalem case, Fante children are obliged to walk in front of the coffin and certainly to attend the funeral rite. Chukwukere convincingly argues that their position within the procession reflects their peculiar status within their father’s family and the more general male-female dichotomy in which a man’s children belong not to his own but to his wife’s lineage. Similarly, Goody (1952, 1976) has shown how peculiar customs might reflect changing conflicts concerning family and inheritance. Separation of Body and Soul Kabbalistic views of death emphasize the separation of the soul from the body. One tradition, for example, described how the soul leaves the body organ by organ and continues to wander from the grave to the home of the deceased in the initial period following death. Moreover, the separation of the body from the soul was said to parallel the original fusion at the moment of conception. My informants stated that the soul could hear everything said in the presence of the corpse at least until burial. Indeed, the graveside service is only complete when forgiveness is asked of the dead man, as well as absolving him from any lingering obligation. The soul in its wanderings from house to grave is said to be “mourning” over its body, and the link is only finally severed with the decomposition of the flesh, whose duration is said to equal the period in which the soul undergoes punishment for his sins. In the rocky soil of Jerusalem, certain plots are favored for their alleged capability to hasten decomposition. In this way, as in many cultures, the fate of the body to a large extent parallels the fate of the soul in the afterlife. Death, however, places both body and soul in a vulnerable position. Some texts (Trachtenberg 1974) pictured the dying man surrounded by evil spirits waiting to pounce. Demon spirits were thought to try to gain possession of the corpse in the period between death and burial. This danger is expressed in the phrase, “The body is like a house and the soul its inhabitant; when the tenant leaves the house there is no one to look after it” (quoted in Trachtenberg 1974, 47). Numerous aspects of Jewish mortuary ritual were designed to guard against such demon attacks. The vigil, the sealing of orifices, rapid burial before nightfall--a time given over to unclean spirits--were all designed to protect the body against such evil influences. In Jerusalem, right-left dichotomies during ritual washing/purification and the recitation of antidemonic chants, for example, Psalm 91, were added for additional protection against the dangers of the liminal phase. Only with burial did the danger of demons cease because it was well-known that demons have no power under the earth (Tuchinski 1948; Benayahu 1983). Funeral ritual everywhere enacts a symbolic victory over death. Often, achieving a collective sense of symbolic immortality (Lifton 1979) requires overcoming the biological material nature of man (Bloch 1982). In Jewish funerals, this physical aspect of man is usually represented by the “stinking corpse,” the archetypal source of ritual pollution. The material aspect of the person, in this case the physical body, must be cast aside in order to release the crucial nonphysical essence, which then begins its journey to Paradise in the afterlife. In Jerusalem, this physicality takes on an additional presence, in the form of the felt presence of a man’s ejaculations that come to haunt him and his children in the cultural entity of spirit or demon offspring. The Kabbalists focused on spilt semen as the epitome of the antireproductive act, which threatened the triumph over the physical nature of man and hence the funeral process itself. In this process, the image of these semen demons became an “image of ultimate horror” (Lifton 1979), that is, a collective image of extinction. This image crystallized the fear that a man will leave behind him not children and children’s children but only a vile drop. This spilling of the seed is considered an expression of the anti-life forces, which work against the symbolic continuity of father and son. The danger represented by these symbols of disembodied masculinity threatens the very principle of biological continuity represented by lineal descendants, and indeed the very symbolic victory over death. Funerals, we have argued, initiate mourning, provide social support, and usher the soul of the deceased into the world to come. In normal circumstances, these three functions go hand in hand, mutually reinforcing each other, as in the Jewish funeral outside Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, the special cult of purity and Kabbalistic concerns over the sacred nature of procreation led to a series of ritual innovations in which the demands of social support were momentarily set aside in favor of the special needs of helping the spirit of the deceased make the dangerous transition to the world to come. Because of the flaw in masculine sexuality, which conceived of a man as inevitably the father of semen demons, the presence of any children would threaten the funeral process, especially the symbolic victory over death, sin, and the biological, material nature of man. The needs of the descendants for social support could thus be sacrificed in favor of ensuring magical protection for the soul of the deceased. This anomalous case highlights how different cultures selectively use diverse aspects of the funeral process to mediate and modulate various dilemmas on its own cultural agenda. Indeed in the Jerusalem case, the usual rhythm of initiating mourning, followed by ushering the soul to the world to come, and then providing social support is maintained. It is precisely at the transition point between ushering the soul and providing social support that the two clash. Once the man is buried, however, as in all Jewish practices, the nonmourners make condolence visits to the house of mourning. The custom emphasizes the latent role of sexuality and fertility in funerals even when it is not overt in the ritual. As Maurice Bloch (1982) has argued, societies with traditional authority based on a timeless ancestral realm have difficulty with temporal, unpredictable events like birth and death, which seem to violate the realm of eternity. Such societies, he claims, tend to bifurcate their relation to the body and soul of the deceased, identifying the corpse with dirty pollution, something to be thrown away, as the spirit ascends to the ancestral realm, which is associated with the eternal values. Bloch gives examples from the Merina society of Madagascar, which has a second funeral in which the bones are removed from the earth and placed in communal ancestral tombs. His argument, however, seems to apply to the Jerusalem material as well, which is likewise a religious system based on a purported timeless ancestral realm of values. The corpse is considered archetypically polluting and, in that sense, needs to be thrown away to allow the soul to rise to Paradise. Unlike the Merina, in which the rotting corpse is identified exclusively with women and female values, Jerusalem Jewish custom adds to that dichotomy the male division between fruitful and barren sexuality, that is, between sacred sexual procreation and intercourse with demons in the form of seminal ejaculations. Just as the spirit must be separated from the body, so too must the demons be kept away from their father. We have examined an anomalous funeral custom of Jerusalem, herem Yehosua bin nun, in which lineal descendants are prohibited from escorting their father to his grave. This practice effectively isolates these sets of mourners, just at the very time when it is expected they would most be in need of social support. The emic explanation concerns the Kabbalistic conception about the flaw in male sexuality. A father’s seminal ejaculations engender disembodied half souls, or demons who would seek to claim paternity at the funeral unless all children were banned. For the Kabbalists, the funeral initiates a process in which the body and soul of the father begin a process that leads to ultimate separation, the body returning to the earth and the soul to its Creator. Just as body and soul need to be separated, so too a man’s biological children need to be distinguished from his unwanted spirit offspring. Whereas the former are vital symbols of continuity, the latter are considered threatening and disruptive. In a symbolic sense, these two sets of creations should not meet at the time when the separation of the father’s body and soul begins. From a functionalist point of view, the prohibition remains problematic. Nevertheless, one can discern in the structural contrast of sacred fertility with barren masturbatory sexuality and the difficulties inherent in the task of the funeral, namely, the symbolic victory of the spiritual over the material. Religious Ceremony/Secular Mourners Until now, I have presented the funeral dynamics from the perspective of the burial society and the religious establishment it represents. I have also tried to make sense, in symbolic anthropological terms, of some of the peculiar customs of the Jerusalem burial tradition. The performance of the funeral, the actual versus the ideal, varies tremendously. I have seen beautifully evocative ceremonies “which not only do the work of burial, but also much of the work of mourning, creating a momentary sense of unity among the mourners, but also uniting all those gathered” (Abramovitch 1986). In particular, one is impressed with the person who enters the open grave to receive the corpse as it is passed down. He lays the corpse in the grave and undoes the last slipknots in the shroud, symbolically undoing the final ties between the dead and the living. Likewise, asking for forgiveness from the deceased is often a beautiful moment, indicating the reality of dialogue between living souls and dead ones. In describing such a funeral ritual American scholar Jacob Neusner has written, “Jerusalem’s Hevra Kadisha is deserving of its name, ‘the holy society.’ Those beautiful Jews showed me more of what it means to be a Jew, of what Torah stands for, than all the books I ever read. They tended the corpse gently and reverently, yet did not pretend it was other than a corpse” (1974). Not all funerals are so successful. I have also witnessed embarrassing, disruptive burials. The initial dilemma concerns the asymmetry between the bereaved and the Hevra Kadisha. As in other professions, the emergency of the former is the routine of the latter. Individuals who participate in funerals on a daily basis do not always display a sense of empathy and concern concomitant with the mourners’ unique feeling of loss. Indeed, for the members of the Hevra Kadisha the emphasis is on finishing the ceremony as quickly as possible, often in order to set the stage for the next funeral. As a result, corpses may even be buried before most of the bereaved are assembled. Even more disturbing, it is not unheard of for the driver of the funeral van to honk noisily just after the conclusion of the graveyard service to call the pallbearers to reassemble. The handling of the corpse in practice does not always attain the ideal of reverence. I have seen corpses get wet in the rain, splattered with mud, and banged as they are placed in the grave. But perhaps the most astonishing thing is the simple fact of the corpse wrapped in shrouds lying on a bier. Coming from a North American background, I found the stark confrontation with the shrouded corpse to be the most striking and disturbing aspect of the funeral, far more disturbing than the collection of alms at the graveside, which many secular informants found exceedingly distasteful. At the end of the graveside service, it is traditional to place a stone on the grave and to do so on the occasion of each visit to the tomb thereafter. The number of stones thus becomes an indication of postmortem popularity as well as an unobtrusive indicator to regular visitors to the grave that others have been there as well. The origin of the custom is obscure but probably derives from the use of rock cairns instead of gravestones in former times. Stone, however, is an appropriate symbol of permanence, highlighting the separation of the decaying body from the eternal soul. In contrast, many secular mourners bring flowers to the grave. To the orthodox, flowers are inappropriate not only as non-Jewish symbols but also because of their impermanence. Flowers that wither cannot symbolize the cultural values of eternity, union with the Creator, or the passage to everlasting life. The clash between the Hevra Kadisha and its secular clients is a conflict of differing basic enduring cultural values to be reaffirmed as part of the ritual process. Many nonreligious Jews in Jerusalem are passively compliant with the guidelines of the Hevra Kadisha. This is not surprising because many disoriented individuals are glad of the structure the ritual provides, even allowing a culturally sanctioned regression to acts and attitudes belonging to their own childhood. Others, however, are deeply disturbed, even enraged, although part of their anger might be displacement of the anger felt concerning their loss. Some of the secular reaction must be seen as part of the resentment at encroaching religious control of social life. Religious monopoly on burial is seen as a case in point. In addition, the physical appearance of the members of the Hevra Kadisha makes them the target of epithets like “crows” or “vultures.” Professional mortuary care, formerly a voluntary activity, is considered by nonreligious as a stigmatized occupation, in contrast to the traditional Jewish view in which it is the highest form of charity (gmilut hesed shel emet). Most of the rituals done in accordance with the custom of Jerusalem are incomprehensible and often offensive to secular Israelis. It is also my feeling that many secular individuals are upset by the lack of any artistic contouring to the funeral proceedings. The absence of a coffin, the ban on lineal descendants, the rapidity of burial, the collection of charity, the frequent lack of solemnity, and even the placing of burial implements on tombstones go against their Westernized sensibilities. Secular mourners do not know their roles in the funeral drama. They need to be coached when to say Kaddish, where to stand, and when to pass through the lines of consolers, as well as on the details of observance of the shivah period in the seven days following burial. On the other hand, I have occasionally seen secular Jews perform a funeral within a funeral: after passing through the lines of consolers, the traditional exit from the cemetery, the individuals return to the grave for further orations, devotions, or tears. It is at this secular funeral, resembling the kibbutz funeral in some ways, that secular mourners and their friends are able to express some of the positive basic values of their culture and special relationship with the deceased, unfettered by halakhic restraints. The basic clash between religious and secular cultures is one of worldview. Within the context of funerals, the orthodox perspective is personal, mystical, otherworldly, and concerned with the unseen. Their task in the funeral is to aid in the transition of the soul from the body to the status of ancestor dwelling with the Eternal in Paradise, reunited with the Creator. The funeral is also the occasion for the demise of the social person, as well as the end of the status of onen for his or her ritual mourners and their transition to the status of avel. The entire ritual is based on a profound belief in an afterlife under a Just Judge; that death can be retribution for sin; and as we have seen, that there is a hidden connection between death and male sexuality. In contrast, most secular Israelis are uncomfortable with such eschatological notions of reward and punishment, afterlife and paradise, eternity and damnation. The soul of the deceased is not usually understood to continue a nonmaterial existence, except perhaps in the memories of loved ones. The burial is thus a marker of the transition from life to “nonlife.” Those who ordinarily engage in such ritual are implicitly stigmatized and tainted by their regular contact with the dead in a way quite different from halakhic concerns with ritual impurity. Moreover, the Jerusalem funeral does not include any spontaneous personal expression of one’s emotional relation to the deceased beyond the standard tears and eulogies. Such a personal relationship is one of the basic life values in secular society, and the development of the funeral within the funeral is therefore one attempt to reaffirm this basic cultural value. If funerals are social occasions for reasserting basic life values, which address questions of ultimate meaning in the face of ultimate loss, then Jerusalem burials are indeed a flash point in the ongoing tensions between orthodox and secular Jews. Each group or ideology struggles to maintain its worldview as paramount. In the funeral, this struggle centers on the question, implicit in alternative worldviews, “Where are the dead?” For the orthodox, the answer is clear, if mystic. The dead, separated from the body, return to the Creator where they may find response in Paradise. The main function of the funeral is to help the soul attain its proper position in the hereafter, a transition that is full of dangers. For secular Israelis, the dead do not function as cultural resources, mediating between man and God. Hence, there is no need for prayer, charity, and good works to ensure that the soul completes his spiritual journey. Secular Jews come to the funeral mostly, I believe, to say good-bye, to mark the parting from life. There is a general concern for the peace of the deceased, but it is not tied to any specific ritual tasks, as it must be for the orthodox. Once the dead are buried they might not be forgotten, but in a metaphorical sense they are, indeed dead. The Mismeeting Martin Buber created the word vergegnung (mismeeting) to designate the failure of a real meeting between men. In his Autobiographical Fragments he discusses how he learned from a playmate, a girl several years older than he, that his mother would never return. He writes, We both leaned on the railing. I cannot remember that I spoke of my mother to my older comrade. But I still hear how the big girl said to me “No, she will never come back.” I know that I remained silent, but also that I cherished no doubt of the truth of the spoken words. It remained fixed in me; from year to year it cleaved ever more to my heart, but after more than ten years I had begun to perceive it as something that concerned not only me, but all men. Later I once made up the word “Vergegnung”--“mismeeting” or “misencounter”--to designate the failure of a real meeting between men. When after another twenty years I again saw my mother, who had come from a distance to visit me, my wife and my children, I could not gaze into her still astonishingly beautiful eyes without hearing from somewhere the word “Vergegnung” as a word spoken to me. I suspect that all I have learned about genuine meeting in the course of my life had its first origin in that hour on the balcony. (1971, 18)</EXT> Although Buber is discussing his parents’ divorce, all experiences of loss and reunion are fraught with the danger of mismeeting. In this essay I use Buber’s notion of “mismeeting” to discuss the failure of a real meeting in Jerusalem funerals, which in turn mirrors the broader social conflict between religious and secular Jews in Israel. The conflict becomes more acute when those in charge of running the funeral, members of the Hevra Kadisha, who are exclusively orthodox, if not ultra-orthodox, religious Jews, serve fully secular Jews who do not share the worldview of the religious community and indeed are actively hostile to it. The service relationship common in American funeral homes in which the mortician seeks to accommodate or ingratiate himself with the client mourners does not exist. The Hevra Kadisha is a charitable, honorary voluntary association, formerly of very high social status. Its allegiance to the precepts and values of its religious community involve religious concepts of the “honor due the dead” (kvod hamet), ritual purification of the deceased (taharat hamet), and the sanctified local burial custom, known as “the tradition of Jerusalem” (minhag Yerushalayim). Everything up to the actual burial is done to honor the dead; afterward it is the mourners who might take precedence. From a dramaturgical point of view, the religious members of the burial society perform the funeral to assist in the final separation of body from soul so that the latter might begin the dangerous and difficult transition to the next world (olam haba, literally, the world to come). Most of the complicated and strange prayers and rituals are designed to further this mystical transition. The secular families of the deceased, who usually reject any notion of an afterlife, misperceive these rituals as an attempt by religious ritual experts/authorities to impose their will on secular outsiders. Far from seeing these actions as part of the honor due the dead, they see in many of the rites indignity and humiliation, which block their own spontaneous expression of grief and secular life values. If many secular Israelis reject the religious text of the Jerusalem funeral, they are hard-pressed to replace it with a ceremony of their own. Secular Jews do not dwell on issues of death, transitoriness of human life, and the reification of transcendent values. In this way, they are at a great disadvantage in relation to the religious communities who have a tradition and ideology that addresses such issues in theory and praxis. In the one instance of the secular funeral, in kibbutzim, no established form of ceremony for funeral and burial has taken hold, in contrast to their success in many aspects of communal ritual life. Indeed, the very first kibbutz funerals were held in silence or inevitably fell back on variations of traditional Jewish custom. For a secular community, constellated only in polarity to the religious communities’ attempt at domination, it is not clear what basic group values should be celebrated. Unlike those who fall in the mid-range of the secular-religious continuum, for those near its secular pole, the funeral does not serve as a holding environment, containing the intense conflicting feeling to which death and loss inevitably give rise. As a result, angry feelings might be inappropriately vented toward the Hevra Kadisha in a way that interferes with the natural mourning process. Most secular Israelis do perform the shivah, at least in part, staying at home to receive condolence visits but not reciting shivah-appropriate prayers or sitting on low seats. Often the bitterness of the mismeeting within the funeral remains, however, leaving a lasting sense of grievance and mistrust. Such a sentiment is poetically expressed in a contemporary Greek funeral lament, which seems to express sadly the potential for mismeeting. Songs are just words. Those who are bitter sing them They sing them to get rid of their bitterness But the bitterness doesn’t go away. (Danforth 1982,146) Within the contexts of such mismeeting and misperception (witness Franz Rosenzweig’s bitter motto: “It is worse to be misperceived than to be mistreated”), there is a further struggle over the priority of the tasks of the funeral. While the members of the Hevra Kadisha formally do the work of initiating mourning, they are unable to provide much social support, especially because their main task is focused on ushering the soul into the afterlife. Secular Israelis, bereft of an afterlife, find much of the funeral ritual absurd. Many seek to avoid the ritual act of rending one’s garment, the formal sign of mourning. Their feeling is, “I refuse to place myself under your moral authority” or, more simply, “You cannot tell me what to do.” This struggle over moral authority and the transcendent group values is at the heart of the mismeeting between religious and secular Israelis. 1123