Religious Ritual

For everyone that you meet you learn something new about the person; so today your all going to learn something about me. For about I year I have been working at a funeral home and I have observed many different funerals. But more recently I’ve seen a Jewish funeral. This was interesting to me because they are so different than other funerals. So I am going to tell you what the funeral is like from the family perspective or a friends perceptive and the funeral home perspective. First is going to be the families perspective.
When a family member passes away, depending where the deceased is the first phone call the family makes is to the funeral home. Shortly after the funeral home will arrive and pick up the body and the family will not see the deceased until the funeral later that day. The rabbi is the next person called because he will normally be the person to schedule the funeral. A Jewish funeral is completed in the same day without a wake or viewing of the body. The family will be contacted by the funeral home so that the funeral home can obtain the necessary information needed, either for the rabbi or paper work. Hours later the family will arrive at the synagogue for the prayer ceremony. This ceremony itself will be conducted by the rabbi. At this ceremony there is a eulogy give normally by the rabbi. However, this will some times be done by a family member but never with an Orthodox family. The family will be the pallbearers during this time. Also a Jewish casket is just a plain pine box with no nails, but wooden pins it is made to be as simple as possible. After the ceremony in the synagogue the funeral procession will proceed to the Jewish Cemetery. It is extremely important for Jewish people to be buried in a Jewish cemetery. When the family and the body are outside, the family will walk behind the hearse for a short distance, showing that they are in no rush to finish this journey.
When they arrive at the cemetery the men will carry the casket to the grave site and lower it by hand into the grave. During this time prayers are being said throughout the entire time. The family and other people that attended the funeral will bury the casket by hand. What I mean by this is they physically cover the casket with a shovel and dirt that is besides the grave. The family may not leave until the top of the casket is completely covered with dirt.
At the end of this part after the final prayers are said there are two parallel lines formed for the family to walk through. The family is urged not to look back or return to this location for at least thirty days. This completes the funeral process, however the family is to return home and sit Shiva. Shiva last for a period of seven days. Usually but not all the time the family will sit on Shiva benches. This is a bench that allows the family to be lower than any one that will join the family in sitting Shiva. The family will also leave a candle burning continuously. They will end Shiva on the Sabbath and continuing it after Sabbath is over.
More often than not the family will wait one full year be for they put a headstone on the grave site. However, when the family is ready for the headstone they will have an unveiling. It will be the first time the see the monument. They will also leave rocks instead of flowers at the headstone.

On the other hand, for the funeral home it’s a little more complicated. When we receive the call that someone of the Jewish faith passed away, we have to kick it in to overdrive. The funeral director will go and remove the body and bring it back to the funeral home. Shortly after the rabbi will be called in order to set up the time of the funeral service that will take place that same day. The funeral home will than call upon there Chevera Kadisha, (Holy Society) to come and perform a Tahara (the religious washing and shrouding of the deceased). When this is needed by the funeral home, men will come for men and women come for women. At the same time when the funeral home calls for the Chevera Kadisha they will also call for a shomal (watcher) he/she will sit with the body and pray until the time of the funeral.
The family will provide the funeral director with all information need for him to complete all paper work. One very important piece of information is the Hebrew name which will differ from there regular name. A Hebrew name is the Yiddish name of the deceased; father and mother combined with their name.
Back to the precession of the deceased, part of this ceremony is placing the deceased into a coffin usually a plain pine wood box made with no nails or other metal it is made to be as simple as possible. The funeral service itself is conducted by the rabbi, it will be prayers and some type of eulogy given by the rabbi, in some cases it will be given by a family member; usually not with an orthodox family. Following the service internment will take place at a orthodox cemetery the family does precipitate at this part in time.
The family will carry the casket out of the hearse and than they will follow the hearse by foot for a short distance (to show that they are in no rush to do this task and go on this journey). At the cemetery the men will carry the coffin to the grave site and where the coffin is lowered by hand into the ground. Some prayers are said and all members are expected to help in the task of filling in the grave. (if there are non Jews at this service they will normally not participate in it).
At the very conclusion a final prayer is recited.Than there are two parallel lines formed for the family to walk through and they are told to not look back or come back to this place for at least 30 days. They are than to go home and sit Shiva for seven days ending on the Sabbath and continuing after.

Now that everyone knows about the funeral process, I going to give you one of my personal experiences. Every time I work or attend a funeral I learn something new. The last Jewish funeral I attended a was about a month ago. I realized awhile ago that Jewish families don’t use prayer cards or any type of programs, which at first was really strange to me but I got used to it. I also noticed that in order for men to walk into a synagogue they have to be wearing a kippah, and some but not all women wear a black sheer cloth over their face. They will also rip a piece of ribbon at one point in time. However when I went to this funeral about a month ago I observed that some headstones were really nice compared to others, and I thought nothing of it at first. But than I realized that the not so nice ones were along fence. My boss had told me that the people buried around the outer lining to the cemetery were people that were never bar mitzvah, or bat mitzvah. I never thought there could be such a difference between religious funerals, but there’s always something new to learn about other religions.

I choose to observe a funeral for various reasons. But for the most part I thought that you guys would find it a little interesting. If you have any questions I would be happy to answer them and if I cant I’ll ask someone that does.