Shortly after Shabbat was over last week, I received a call from Jennifer* whom I do not know, asking me to help her with a pressing matter. For several days she had been trying to contact her brother who lived in Manhattan, with no luck. Eventually she became nervous and asked the police to check in on him. Unfortunately, they discovered that he had passed away in his apartment.
Jennifer explained that she had received my number from her local Chabad rabbi in Toronto, Rabbi Yisrael Landau, and she needed immediate assistance since she could not fly in herself to personally attend to the matter.
I assured her that I was there for her, happy to take charge of the burial. “Burial?” She replied, shocked. “I was planning on doing a cremation." And when I asked her why she responded that she cannot afford a burial and since her brother had never gotten married and had no children nobody would be there anyway to visit his grave.
At this point I felt a rush of excitement. I was absolutely thrilled! You see the issue at stake involved one of the most beautiful and rare mitzvot that I felt so eager to fulfill. The fact that she was a stranger only inspired me further.
Mitzvah number 231 in the Torah requires us to bury the dead. The Torah teaches that the Beth Din has an obligation to bury a criminal sentenced to death on the same day that his execution was carried out. We extend the principle to every Jewish corpse: burial is vital. It is the duty of the closest relative to carry out this mitzvah. And in a situation like this when the deceased is going to be cremated, this mitzvah becomes the responsibility of every single Jew. It is considered such an important Mitzvah that it takes precedence over many Mitzvot. It's called a Met Mitzvah.
This is because come what may, the Jewish people share an intrinsic, subconscious bond. So when one Jew dies with no one to take care of his burial, the onus falls on the rest of us, his brothers, to take care of him.
With this in mind, I informed Jennifer that I would gladly take care of the burial and any costs involved.
I got straight onto it, but soon reached a hurdle; the authorities needed a few more days in order to perform the autopsy. I called Jennifer back to inform her, to which she replied that she wanted to discover the cause of death.
I got Rabbi Landau back on the case and together we were able to gently explain Judaism’s view of autopsy to her. The body is considered sacred, and thus must be treated with the utmost respect after death. An autopsy is a desecration of the body, and causes tremendous pain to the soul. With slight persistence, we convinced her to cancel the autopsy and proceed immediately with the funeral.
And as for the financial arrangements, that was arranged within minutes. One post on social media requesting assistance from our community was all that was required to raise the necessary funds. People keen to participate in this holy mitzvah donated generously. Rabbi Landau and his community magnanimously committed to reciting kaddish for the entire year.
As for myself, there could be no greater reward than the pure joy of performing this incredible Mitzvah. Thank you Jennifer for your call – you made my day!
Have a wonderful Shabbat
Rabbi Uriel Vigler