“The highest act of gemilut chesed is that which is done for the dead, for there can never be any thought of repayment”–Tanhuma Vayehi 107A
by Elliot Zashin (Merrillville, IN)
When I was invited by a longtime friend, a retired doctor and medical maverick, to join a non-orthodox chevra kadisha that was being organized in our area, I had little idea of what it entailed except that the chevra prepared bodies for burial. I felt that I should go to the meeting and find out—should because this was a service to our community and a serious mitzvah; should because I didn’t think I was afraid to see dead bodies close up and perhaps others would shy away.
I’d begun working as a Hillel student center director at this time (c. 1984) and I was more interested in all aspects of Jewish thought and practice than ever before. My work was not likely to involve funerals—my students were all young—but I wanted to be informed. Hillel directors often were rabbis and, not being a rabbi, I didn’t want to seem ignorant. I even considered taking chaplaincy training, and since there was no Jewish chaplain at our university-affiliated hospital, I offered to be available. So Jewish burial practices were not outside my purview. I also was aware that I had relatives whose lives might be ending in the coming years and thought this knowledge might be useful.
Prior to our first taharah (purifying ritual), my friend provided me with a booklet to review, as the procedure is fairly involved. I probably had some qualms after reading it —fear of the unknown, lack of familiarity with the texts—but the gathering was led by one of my friend’s colleagues, also a doctor who was Jewishly pretty knowledgeable, and one of the other “founders” of this group. They both seemed to have studied the rituals and presumably had already participated in several taharot.
Our team of five men was serious and methodical as we began the ritual. The “met” (pronounced “mate”), an elderly man, was naked—he seemed serene. At the outset, we read a number of blessings, then carefully washed his body, very reverentially, and patted it dry. We didn’t ask questions as we did the ritual ablutions and said the prayers, which my friend’s colleague instructed us to repeat, because this might have interfered with the solemnity of the taharah. There was a very specific order to the ablutions— with three whole buckets—and it is not to be interrupted, or the procedure must be repeated. This was the actual purification, or taharah.
Next, using various slipknots, we dressed the met in the ritual garments: a rough white cloth shirt, jacket and trousers, plus a sash, face cover, and kippah. These were supposed to recall the garments of the High Priest when he prepared to enter the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctuary of the Temple, on the Day of Atonement.
I was already impressed with the seriousness of the ritual, but this feature added something more significant. I had no idea who this elderly man was or what kind of life he had led, but here he was being prepared as if he were the High Priest. I thought I was learning the Jewish way of death and I was very moved. In death, we are all equal and precious—even us ordinary Jews—and we can all be intermediaries for our fellow Jews. There was nothing to fear about the transition from life into the unknown; the met had a role to play and we had our assigned tasks. We were a team working together, helping each other perform the taharah correctly. After the dressing, we read a few more brief excerpts from Numbers, Psalms, and Exodus, then placed the met in the aron (casket), along with a tallit.
I don’t remember how long the whole procedure took, but it seemed far more than an hour, perhaps because three of us were novices. I had felt some tension – it was important that we do the ritual correctly. Yet at the same time, I felt a camaraderie with the other participants as we prepared a fellow Jew to make the final transition from life to death. As l relaxed at the end, I realized that Jewish death rituals are (or can be) communal and reflective, even ennobling.
Another aspect of the taharah appealed to me: we were informed that this was perhaps the only mitzvah for which one could not receive thanks from the recipient. Presumably the only motivation could be the satisfaction of helping a fellow Jew, any Jew—not because of who he was or any personal connection. Perhaps therein lies another bit of Jewish wisdom: Who are we to judge the worth of another human being on this most solemn occasions?
Elliot Zashin was a Hillel director for 13 years at 2 different campuses, after being an academic (political science) for almost 13 years (without tenure). While working for Hillel, he took an MA at the Jewish Theological Seminary during summer breaks. (That is where he learned about the title Rabbi Ploni, and much else.) He comes by his sense of Jewishness through his father, who was a self-taught Bible interpreter, leading sessions at the Jewish Home for the Aged in Tucson after he retired from a business in NYC, and who wrote a lot about current events, political issues, and essays usually imbued with Mosaic ethics.
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