The Final Act of Loving Kindness
…by Rochel U. Berman

Rochel Berman

The three short obituaries in the newspaper spoke about a loving, adoring child who would be missed by her family, her friends and her community. As I read the notices, my heart went out to the family that mourned her. Although I did not know this child in life, I was to encounter her in death.

As a member of my synagogue’s Chevra Kadisha (burial society), I received a phone call at my office early in the day asking me if I was available that evening for a tahara, the ritual purification of a body prior to burial. The person calling was somewhat hesitant. This was an unusual case. The deceased was a nine-year-old girl, a victim of a fatal car accident.

Our Chevra Kadisha is comprised mostly of parents of young children. As the mother of two adult sons, I felt that the emotional trauma of laying this child to rest would be less intense for me than for the others. So, I immediately said, “yes,” deferring the weekly laundry and a trip to the supermarket to another night.

We were greeted by the director when we arrived at the funeral home. As death is an everyday occurrence for him, his usual manner of dealing with us is factual and impersonal. On this occasion, however, the director’s businesslike façade was broken. The death of a child so defies the reasonable order of things that the event, when it occurs, touches all those who come in contact with it. As he handed us the death certificate, he commented on the tragic ending of a young life.

Our route to the preparation room took us through the carefully appointed reception area and the mourners’ lounge. My thoughts focused momentarily on the décor. Do the overstuffed sofas, heavy draperies and thick carpeting help absorb the grief of the mourners? Will the soft lighting serve to comfort the bereaved family of this young child?

The tahara room stood in sharp contrast: stark, cold, harshly lit and disorderly. In the center of the room stood a gurney on which the child lay covered with a fresh white sheet. We spent a few minutes organizing the space, thereby creating a sanctuary in which to perform this time-honored commandment.

Since an important aspect of respect for the dead is to perform the tahara without unnecessary delay, we worked quickly and methodically. We ritually washed our hands, put on gloves and surgical gowns and cut squares from a large sheet to cover the face and the genitals of the deceased. We then opened the child-sized casket, sprinkled earth from Israel on the bottom, laid out the tachrichim, the shrouds, and filled a bucket of water to wash the body. We moved about in silence, communicating only about the tasks at hand. While there are no rules about talking, idle chatter seems inappropriate. We wanted nothing to invade the sanctity of the moment.

Finally, it came time to examine the body. I have done innumerable taharot, yet I find that the act of uncovering the face of the deceased is always accompanied by apprehension. This time, the tension was further heightened because I knew that I would be confronted with the countenance of a child.

In the opening prayer, before the tahara begins, as advocates for the deceased we introduce her by name to the Almighty:

Master of the universe! Have compassion for Rebecca, daughter of Nachum, this deceased, for she is a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, your servants … Through mercy, hide and disregard the transgressions of this departed. May she tread with righteous feet into the Garden of Eden, for that is the place of the upright, and God protects the pious.

She seemed to be at peace. For an instant I fantasized that she was perhaps asleep, not dead. It was late summer, and one could still see the suntan marks left by her bathing suit and a faint scab on a bruised knee. Her lean, sturdy frame was typical of a youngster who spent the summer frolicking with friends. The one startling feature was a large swelling on her forehead. It was obviously created by the impact with the moving vehicle that caused the fatal blow.

Starting with her long auburn hair, we gently washed and dried her entire body, careful to uncover only the area that we were washing. Additionally, we cleaned her fingernails and toenails. In preparation for the final purification, three boards were placed perpendicular to her body at various intervals under her back so that she was suspended from the table and the tahara water could completely envelope her.

With the words of the prophet Ezekiel…I will pour upon you pure water and you will be purified … three buckets of continuously flowing water cascaded over her, and we announced in Hebrew, “She is pure, she is pure, she is pure.” According to a custom dating back to the Middle Ages, we applied a mixture of egg-white and vinegar to her forehead.

Now that the body had been rendered ritually clean, we began dressing her in the white hand-sewn linen tachrichim. The accompanying verses from Isaiah provided us with the courage and strength to proceed with this difficult mission:

My soul shall be joyful in my God, for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness as a bridegroom puts on priestly glory, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

The child-sized shrouds were still too large, so we tucked and folded the excess fabric neatly around her small frame. Our hearts were heavy as we lowered the body into the aron, the plain pine casket. We covered her shrouded eyes and mouth with broken earthenware, a symbolic reminder of the frailty of man. Prior to placing the lid on the casket, we offered the traditional and personal silent prayer of forgiveness:

Rebecca, daughter of Nachum, we ask forgiveness of you if we did not treat you respectfully, but we acted in accordance with our custom. May you be an advocate for all of Israel. Go in peace, rest in peace, and arise in your turn at the End of Days.

As we emerged from the funeral home an hour later, the cool evening air enveloped us. We ritually washed our hands outdoors, as a sign of separation from the dead, and headed home to resume our lives among the living.

The ride home offered us an opportunity to reflect. Sharing this awesome experience created a special bond between us — an undeniable sense of sisterhood. Although deeply saddened, we were comforted by the knowledge that the utmost dignity and respect were accorded this child whose days on earth were so preciously few.

When I arrived home, I found that my family had all gone to bed. Too restless to sleep, I sat quietly in the dark living room and mentally revisited the evening’s activity and its impact. When death comes, when the technology is turned off and the technicians can do no more, what remains is a sense of incompleteness — a need for spiritual closure. It is uplifting to know that at this venerable moment we are able to perform this final act of loving kindness.

DIGNITY BEYOND DEATH: THE JEWISH PREPARATION FOR BURIAL by Rochel U. Berman will be published in March 2005 by Urim Publications.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: We have a moving “Belief and Practice” segment this week on the Jewish tradition of tahara, the washing and purifying of a dead body, which is considered one of the greatest of all good deeds — mitzvot. Those who perform taharas are volunteer members of the burial society, chevra kadisha. Women attend to deceased women, men to men.

In Jewish practice, if possible, a body is buried within 24 hours. There is no embalming. Our producer Susan Goldstein found three women in Westchester County, New York — Rochel Berman, Nancy Klein, and Mina Crasson — who have been doing taharas for more than 20 years. They agreed to describe their work and demonstrate it on a mannequin, in keeping with the tradition of respecting the dead.

ROCHEL BERMAN (Chevra Kadisha, Jewish Burial Society of Westchester, New York): No matter whatever is going on in my life, before I walk into the tahara room, no matter how troubled or obsessed I might be about something, it totally disappears during the time of the tahara.

It is the most profound connection with my Judaism. Both task-oriented and spiritual at the same time, and so intensive that it’s almost a lesson for how to do other commandments.

I think it’s considered the greatest mitzvah because the person that you are serving, the deceased, can’t say, “Thank you.”

The purpose of the tahara is to provide comfort for the soul and care for the body. We talk very little, except about the tasks at hand. When we are working on the deceased, we never pass anything over the body. We always walk around as a sign of respect for the dead. I have a distinct sense that the soul is hovering and is in transition as we do this, and that makes us that much more careful with the body.

NANCY KLEIN (Chevra Kadisha, Jewish Burial Society of Westchester, New York, reading prayer): May it be your will, Lord our God and God of our Fathers, to bring a circle of angels of mercy before the deceased, for she is your servant daughter.

Ms. BERMAN: It’s definitely changed me. For one thing, it’s put my own mortality in a much sharper focus. I don’t think I have a fear of death, and I could kind of imagine what that would be like. I have thought about my own tahara. And I also find it so enormously uplifting and rewarding that if I would get a call to do it, why wouldn’t I do it? It makes me feel so good about myself; it gives a lift to the rest of the day.

I always like to look at a tahara — it is almost analogous to a three-act play. There are three distinct parts: there is cleansing, there’s purification, and there’s dressing. In the cleansing phase of the tahara, we remove all the bandages and anything extraneous on the body.

Ms. KLEIN (reading): And I will pour upon you pure water.

Ms. BERMAN: The purification is a cascade of 24 quarts of water that are poured by the entire team in a continuous flow. And it is analogous to a mikvah, which is a purification that women go through following their menstrual cycle.

And it’s as if we were washing away all the suffering of their last periods of their lives, and it’s as if it is like a veil that you leave behind.

MINA CRASSON, Ms. KLEIN, and Ms. BERMAN (reading prayer in unison): Tahara he, tahara he, tahara he. She is pure. She is pure. She is pure.

Ms. BERMAN: And then the body is dried, and the final stage is dressing in the shrouds.

The shrouds are fashioned after the garments that the high priest wore in the temple on Yom Kippur, and they’re white, usually made of linen, hand-sewn with no knots so that they will disintegrate easily. They also have no hems to signify the impermanence, and no pockets, so that you take no worldly goods with you. And everybody, rich or poor, young or old, religious or nonreligious, are all buried in the same garments.

And then the body finally is placed in the casket and wrapped in a large sheet, which creates almost a cocoonlike image. And there is a sense of protectiveness as the person enters the world to come.

We sprinkle earth from Israel at the bottom of the casket before we place the body in there, and after the deceased is completely shrouded, we place it on the eyes and on the heart, and that is our connection with our homeland.

At the end of the tahara, before we close the lid, the team gathers around the casket to ask forgiveness of the soul for any errors of omission or commission, and assure the soul that we have done everything within our power to do this correctly, in accordance with our customs.

Ms. KLEIN (reading prayer): Dina, daughter of Jacob, we ask forgiveness from you if we did not treat you respectfully, but we did as is our custom. May you be a messenger for all of Israel. Go in peace, rest in peace, and arise in your turn at the end of days.

Ms. BERMAN: We address the deceased by name, and that makes it very specific and personalized. And I usually wish her well.