Daf Ditty Shabbes 94 Of Burial and Tikkun Jewish funeral in Vilnius (1824), National Museum in Warsaw רמא יבר י ןנחו םושמ ש"ר ןב י יחו זמר הרובקל ןמ הרותה ןיינמ ל"ת יכי " ןימהוה מהוק זר ח ן " ומ נוי ב מ רבק נרבקת ו ןאכמ זמר הרובקל ןמ הרותה הרותה ןמ הרובקל זמר ןאכמ ו נרבקת There are those who say that Rabbi Yoḥanan says in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yoḥai: From where in the Torah is there a hint to the mitzva of burial? The verse (Deut 21:23) states: “But you shall bury him [kavor tikberennu],” doubling the verb for emphasis. From here there is a hint to the mitzva of burial in the Torah. 1 Sanhedrin 46b One of the burial options is a sarcophagus which is a stone coffin that apparently rich or important people such as high priests were buried in. The second coffin called ossuaries were reserved for common people. An ossuary is a small coffin in which the bones of the dead were inside – that means that after a person died, their body was buried in a burial cave and after a certain period of time the bones were removed and placed in an ossuary. 2 3 The chiddush of the Gemara is that we might have thought that Rabbi Shimon only exempts the .just for the sake of vacating the deceased from his house תמ person who carries out the Yet, we see that Rabbi Shimon defines an act as a Melachah she'Einah Tzerichah l'Gufah .even if there is a direct need for the removal of the body in order to bury it הכאלמ This is also an act from which the person in the house derives no benefit, and for which he has no need. It is still only an act of removing an unwanted situation from his domain. Meiri asks, however, that burying the dead is a mitzvah, so the person in the house certainly גל הפו צש ר י כ ה does benefit from the removal of the dead from his house in this case. It should be a so why does the Gemara tell us that Rabbi Shimon exempts the person even if the dead is, הכאלמ being taken to be buried? Although the Yerushalmi concludes that this case is dealing where the dead person was a gentile, and therefore there is no mitzvah of burying him, Meiri dismisses this approach to answer our question. Rashba explains that even if a mitzvah must be performed, this is not an integral part of the act of removing the dead, and it does not change the nature of the melacha to being on which is purposeful. Sfas Emes explains that the question of the Meiri could hinge upon the discussion in the Gemara in Sanhedrin (46b) concerning the very nature of burial of the dead. איעביא והל רוהבק םושמ זב י ו אנ ה או וא םושמ הרפכ אוה אוה הרפכ םושמ וא או § A dilemma was raised before the Sages: Is burial obligatory on account of disgrace, i.e., so that the deceased should not suffer the disgrace of being left exposed as his body begins to decompose, or is it on account of atonement, i.e., so that the deceased will achieve atonement by being returned to the ground from which he was formed? מלא י אקפנ ימ הנ רמאד אל יעב אנ הורבקילד אוההל ארבג יא תרמא םושמ זב י ו אנ אוה אל לכ ימכ נ הי יאו תרמא םושמ םושמ תרמא יאו הי נ ימכ לכ אל אוה אנ ו י זב םושמ תרמא יא ארבג אוההל הורבקילד אנ יעב אל רמאד הנ ימ אקפנ י מלא הפכר אוה אה רמא אל יעב אנ הפכר אמ הפכר אנ יעב אל רמא אה אוה הפכר One opinion says that the purpose of burial is to serve as an atonement for the person who died. Tosafos there explains that). זב י ו ן שמ ו ם ) The other opinion says that burial is to avoid disgrace the disgrace would be that of the surviving relatives. In other words, it is for the benefit of the living.) then removing the body on Shabbos to, זב וין Explains Sfas Emes, if the reason for burial is due to because the person would still prefer that the entire episode, אש י הכאלמ גל הפו רצ י הכ ה bury it is a not occur, and the task at hand is only to avoid more disgrace. 4 However, if the purpose of burial is to serve as an atonement for the deceased, this melacha as it has positive meaning and significance. Accordingly, our Gemara , גל הפו would be considered 1. זב י ו ן would be of the opinion that Rabbi Shimon holds that the purpose of burial is to avoid Burial as Kavod Habriyos Decent burial was regarded to be of great importance in ancient Israel, as one can measure by the frequency with which the Bible refers to the fear of being left unburied. It was regarded as one of the laws of humanity “not to let anyone lie unburied.” The one thing expressed most clearly by Israelite burial practices was the human desire to maintain some contact with the community even after death, through burial in one's native land, and if possible, with one's ancestors. Jacob's request, “Bury me with my fathers” (Gen. 49:29), was the wish of every ancient Israelite. In harmony with this desire, the tomb most typical of the Israelite period was a natural cave or a chamber cut into soft rock, near the city. Bodies would be laid on rock shelves provided on three sides of the chamber, or on the floor, and as generations of the same family used the tomb, skeletons and grave goods might be heaped up along the sides or put into a side chamber to make room for new burials. This practice of family burial was common enough to give rise to the Hebrew expressions “to sleep with one's fathers” (I Kings 11:23) and “to be gathered to one's kin” (Gen. 25:8) as synonyms for “to die.” There is no explicit biblical evidence as to how soon after death burial took place, but it is likely that it was ordinarily within a day. This was dictated by the climate and by the fact that the Israelites did not embalm the dead. Cremation was not practiced by the ancient Israelites. In Talmudic times, burial took place in caves, hewn tombs, sarcophagi and catacombs; and a secondary burial, a re-interment (likkut aẓamot) of the remains in an ossuary, sometimes took place about one year after the original burial. (An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the skeletal remains are removed and placed in an ossuary.) Jewish custom insists on prompt burial as a matter of respect for the dead. According to one Kabbalistic source, burial refreshes the soul of the deceased, and only after burial will it be admitted to God's presence. The precedents set by the prompt burials of Sarah (Gen. 23) and of Rachel (Gen. 35:19) are reinforced by the Torah's express command that even the body of a man who had been hanged shall not remain upon the tree all night, but “thou shalt surely bury him the same day” (Deut. 21:23). 1 Daf Digest Shabbes 94 5 Some delays in burial are justified: “Honor of the dead” demands that the proper preparation for a coffin and shrouds be made, and that relatives and friends pay their last respects. Funerals may not take place on Shabbat or Yom Kippur; and although the rabbis at one time permitted funerals on the first day of a festival, some modern communities prefer postponement. Where there are two interments at the same time, respect demands that the burial of a scholar precedes that of an am ha-areẓ (“average citizen”), and that of a woman always precedes that of a man. The duty of burial, although primarily an obligation incumbent on the heirs, ultimately rests with the whole community. In Talmudic times, communal fraternal societies for the burial of the dead evolved out of an appreciation of this duty During COVID Pandemic recently the law of burial on Shabbos was relaxed in Bucharest.2 Man in image of God רמולכ נפמ י המ הז ולת י נפמ י ךריבש וכ ' : נת אי רמוא מ"ר ולשמ לשמ המל רבדה המוד נשל י םיחא םימואת םימואת םיחא י נשל המוד רבדה המל לשמ ולשמ מ"ר רמוא אי נת : ' וכ ךריבש י נפמ י ולת הז המ י נפמ רמולכ ריעב תחא דחא ימ נ והו ךלמ דחאו אצי יטסילל ו ת הוצ ךלמה והואלתו לכ האורה ותוא רמוא ךלמה ולת י הוצ הוצ י ולת ךלמה רמוא ותוא האורה : למה ך ו ה ו ר י ד ו ה והודירוהו מ § The Mishna teaches: That is to say: Were the dead man’s corpse to remain hanging, reminding everyone of his transgression, people would ask: For what reason was this one hung? They would be answered: Because he blessed God, a euphemism for blasphemy, and the name of Heaven would be desecrated. It is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Meir says: The Sages told a parable: To what is this matter comparable? It is comparable to two brothers who were twins and lived in the same city.