Is visiting graves idol worship?
Photo: AP
Chukat: Rite of the dead
Torah tells us to choose life, says Avraham Burg
Our reading begins with Torah’s instruction to take a totally red cow, that has never been forced to work, and burn it - “its hide, and its flesh, and its blood and its excrement you should burn.” (Numbers 19:5).
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The cow’s ashes may then be used to purify those who have become ritually impure through contact with the dead.
The procedure is incomprehensible to mankind - even to the wisest of men, King Solomon.
A few words are in order about the Torah’s system of purity and impurity: the rules are much more than simple hygiene for the ancient world, but in times gone by, many Jews survived periods of plague and sickness - such as the black plague that decimated Europe - by their strict adherence to washing hands before and after eating, and a religious requirement to maintain basic cleanliness.
Still, it seems to me that the main intention of these weighty, complicated commandments are hidden elsewhere.
Obsession with the dead
There is something deep and unique about Jews’ obsession with the dead.
Corpses, and everything emanating from them, represent the highest level of impurity. It is a mitzvah to remove a dead body, close it off, and a dead body defiles more than anything else: “Whoever touches the corpse of any human being shall be impure for seven days” (Numbers 19:14).
The impure person must not only be removed from other people, but requires a special procedure to become pure. Why?
It would seem the reason is because ancient Judaism didn’t want death to pervade our lives. Judiasm understood that the world is for living, and that there is nothing after death.
Careful analysis can prove the Torah has absolutely no faith in a world to come, resurrection of the dead, or the idea that the soul remains after the body expires. All these ideas developed later in Jewish history - from the prophets, the later writings, and from the later writings of the second temple period and later.
The Torah, in the original, is the sum total of our faith. Not only is there no place in it for the dead, but rather it is a Torah of life, intended for the living.
With all its strength, the Torah lashes out against a culture of the dead and gravesites. There is a reason we are not told where Moses is buried. The person who buried him went out of his way to make sure the grave of the prince of faith did not turn into a shrine, a focus point for barbecues and insipid incantations.
What about Jacob?
Jacob, one of the patriarchs of our nation, forces an oath on his son Joseph not to bury him in Egypt, in order to ensure the Egyptians, themselves preoccupied with an extensive death cult and the permanence of the soul, wouldn’t turn his gravesite into a cult site.
The list of proofs from the Torah goes on and on.
Today, we openly trample on these ideas. Were Moses to rise from the his hidden grave to see the Jewish idolatry surrounding the graves of ancient sheikhs and burial plots of various other holy people - the fire-cult, the barbecues, the holy water and wooden gods, all in the name of grassroots Jewish faith – he would return immediately to the grave and start spinning.
More than one element of today’s grassroots Judaism is completely opposed to the main substance of Judaism, as expressed in this weeks Torah portion.
Choose life
The red cow is a red light, saying, “STOP!!” to the death-and-grave cult so popular in Israel today. The ritual impurity that goes along with death is a strong message in favor of life and living.
People who deal with death, touch corpses, come into contaminated tents – are impure, and transmit their impurity to others.
People who would have us remain buried in the past must also attach us to graves and place headstones above us.
But the truth must be heard: King David is not buried on Mount Zion, Rachel is not buried in Bethlehem, and most of the “graves” in the Galilee have no Jewish holy people in them.
And even if they were, it is forbidden - FORBIDDEN! - to dedicate our lives to serving them.
There is no special quality or healing power. Don’t look back, let them go. Cut the ridiculous red cords, forget about the dead, and sanctify life. Because this is Judaism, and nothing else.
