A Call About Cremation with a Domino Effect

When shliach to Chicago’s South Loop, Rabbi Mordechai Gershon, got a call from Dave asking about cremation in Judaism, he took the time to answer – as much as 20 hours – hoping that something good would result. But he could not foresee the far-reaching impact on countless other niftarim.

By Shterna Lazaroff for Ami Magazine

Dave searched “rabbi near me” for a number and then made the call.

“Hi, Rabbi Mordechai Gershon speaking,” was the reply. He lived in Chicago’s South Loop and received at least a few random phone calls each day. They were from visitors to the local conference centers who wanted to know about minyanim, tourists who needed to find kosher food, or locals calling to check in with their rabbi.

Without even giving his name, Dave got straight to the point. “How bad is it to be cremated?”

Rabbi Gershon wondered about the context of the question. “Is this for you or a loved one?”

“My mother. She passed away, and my sister, Sally, wants to cremate. I once heard that it might be an issue for Jews, so I wanted to know—how bad is it actually?”

Very bad, Rabbi Gershon thought, but he gave the answer slowly.

“Every Jew has a soul, a piece of G-d that lives inside him. For his entire lifetime, the body houses that soul, so even when the soul leaves, the body itself is still sacred. It was the home for something holy, and we need to respect that by treating the body with dignity.”

“I hear what you’re saying, Rabbi, but what if we’re going to cremate anyway?”

Rabbi Gershon thought about all the reasons, lessons, and values he could offer that might just stir this Jewish soul.

“You know, when you do a proper burial, you’ll always have a place to visit. I think you’ll be surprised by how meaningful you and your sister will find that.”

“I don’t know…” Dave’s voice trailed off.

Rabbi Gershon could sense all the emotions in his voice—the grief, the uncertainty, the guilt, the sadness.

He wondered what was behind the decision. What was pushing the family to cremate? Was it money? Religious beliefs? If he knew that, he could better address the real dilemma—and maybe even save the future life of this one Jewish soul.

“Are you planning to cremate because of financial considerations? If so, we can help you out with that.”

Rabbi Gershon was disappointed when Dave said that it wasn’t money. That left the other option, the family’s belief system—a challenge you couldn’t solve by raising money and writing a check.

Rabbi Gershon stayed on the phone for another few minutes, until Dave had to go. When they hung up, nothing had been resolved; the only thing that had changed was that Dave now knew for certain that cremation was highly problematic for Jews.

They spoke again later that day, then again that evening, and again first thing the next morning. Over three days, Rabbi Gershon spent more than 20 hours counseling the bereaved man. They were getting closer to the moment when a decision would actually have to be made about the meis.

But Rabbi Gershon had patience. He knew these decisions were often as emotional as they were fundamental. They were so strongly linked to a person’s belief system—in this case, Sally’s—that it would take time for them to shift. So he stayed on the phone, shared what he could, and davened for the family every day.

Please, Hashem, he prayed, guide them to make the right decision about their mother’s burial.

* * *

At the end of day two, Dave called with an update. “I’m convinced,” he said, “but we have a problem. My sister is a staunch atheist, and she holds the power of attorney. If it were up to me, I’d do a Jewish burial, but I don’t have high hopes that my sister will come around.”

“What if I call?” Rabbi Gershon offered.

“Absolutely not! There’s no way she’d want to hear from any rabbi,” Dave said. “The most you could expect is that she’d hear who was calling and hang up the phone.”

“Okay, so what if you talk to her about it?”

“Rabbi, I would have no idea what to say.”

“Dave, we’ve been on the phone for hours and hours. If there’s anyone who knows what to say, it’s you.” Rabbi Gershon coached Dave through the talking points and sent him links to a few articles. “Talk to your sister from a place of love, not anger, and she’s more likely to hear your side,” he advised. “Keep me updated.” 

* * *

Sometimes a miracle means the splitting of the sea. Other times it’s the saving of a life. In this case, it was the changing of a mind.

“My sister agreed to a burial,” Dave said. His relief was palpable even over the phone.

Finally, this Jewish soul would be laid to rest properly.

* * *

Another call, and this time, Dave didn’t sound relieved at all. His voice was taut.

“What’s the matter?” Rabbi Gershon asked.

“We opened my mother’s will. Apparently, she requested to be cremated.”

When cremation had been Sally’s choice, Dave had been able to reason with her. But when it was the request of the deceased herself, it was much harder—nearly impossible—to fight. The word of the will was the law, and in this case, the law indicated that a Jewish woman would be cremated.

“What should we do?” Dave asked. He felt they were right back at square one.

“I can’t address the legal aspect, but I can share with you the Torah perspective. This is the one situation where the Torah tells us to ignore the wishes of the deceased,” Rabbi Gershon explained.

When Dave’s mother was alive, he continued, she hadn’t known better. Her decisions were guided by the limited vision of her secular life, so she had chosen cremation. “But now that she’s up in Heaven, she has a different vantage point. She knows the value of a Jewish burial, and we believe that knowing what she knows now, this is what she really would have wanted.”

“What about Sally, though? As long as it was just her opinion against mine, she was willing to compromise. Now that our mother’s will is in the equation, she feels she shouldn’t change her mind and go against it,” Dave said worriedly.

Rabbi Gershon thought back to his initial approach when Dave had first called him. He had immediately tried to figure out the reason this family was choosing cremation. When you know the answer, you’re better equipped to guide the family toward a better decision.

“Can you ask your sister why your mother wanted to be cremated?” Rabbi Gershon asked Dave. Maybe that would give them something to work with.

A short time later, Dave called back. 

“I spoke to Sally. She said she thinks our mother wanted a cremation because she didn’t want to be a burden on us. She knew burial would be expensive and a lot to arrange, so she figured cremation would be easier.”

“If that’s the case, it doesn’t have to be a burden! We can take care of all of it for you.” Rabbi Gershon pointed out that with a slight change of plan, they could still honor his mother’s wishes and meet her goal.

“I know—that’s what I told Sally.”

“And?”

“She agreed.”

“Baruch Hashem!” Rabbi Gershon whispered.

“But…” Dave hesitated, as though unwilling to complete his sentence.

“But what?” Rabbi Gershon probed. After days of phone calls, trying to save a soul without causing any damage along the way, what could hold the burial back now?

“My sister said that she wants to choose the burial home and the cemetery, and she said it can’t be a Jewish ceremony.”

Rabbi Gershon consulted with other rabbanim. Was this scenario okay? It wouldn’t be a cremation, but it wouldn’t be an entirely kosher burial either. It wasn’t ideal, but how much more could they push before the situation fell apart completely and the family went back to their original plan?

“Go ahead with the burial with her conditions,” the rabbanim advised. “It’s not ideal, but it’s better than the alternative.”

The family scheduled the funeral in two days—and Rabbi Gershon held his breath the entire time. It was hard to believe that this kevurah would actually happen until it did.

Rabbi Gershon checked in with Dave a day later. He knew the expense of a proper burial was high, and Dave was paying for it entirely on his own. “Do you need any help with the costs?” Rabbi Gershon offered one more time.

“No, I’m good. Sally chose the funeral home, and now I’m making all the arrangements with them directly.”

“Great. Now let’s work on arranging a taharah. It’s the Jewish way to send the body off with grace, dignity and purity,” he said.

“It sounds beautiful. If Sally’s on board, so am I.” When Dave went back to his sister again and spoke to her about another Jewish practice, she didn’t mind. As long as there was nothing else she had to arrange or pay for, she had no objection to asking the funeral home to go along with Dave’s requests.

And so the local chevrah kaddisha came to the nonsectarian funeral home and prepared the meis for her final journey.

On the day of the levayah, Rabbi Gershon came to the cemetery—as a friend, not as a rabbi—and watched the small crowd. The sun beat down on the group as they gathered around the coffin and spoke about the woman they all missed. Rabbi Gershon met Dave in person for the first time and helped him tear kriah.

“Do you want to say something?” a woman asked.

Rabbi Gershon looked up. It was Sally, the last person he would have expected to invite a rabbi to speak.

He walked to the grave and spoke about the holiness of a body that had housed a soul during its mission and about life after life. “It doesn’t end here,” he said. “Your mother’s soul is living on. It’s sustained by the good deeds you all do on her behalf. Every time you do something good or kind, you’re sending her a package. Her soul gets more strength, more energy, more nachas.”

When he was done talking, Sally thanked him, adding, “Rabbi, I’m glad you came.”

“Can I say Kaddish?” Dave asked, his neshamah gleaming through on this very painful day.

Rabbi Gershon looked around and counted the crowd. Hoshi’a es amecha… They were short a few, and he wasn’t even sure all the men were Jewish. He would have brought a minyan, but the family had made an explicit request that he not officiate or allow Jewish traditions to take over.

“There aren’t enough men for a minyan, Dave. I’m sorry.”

The man’s eyes fell, but he understood. He was sincere and wanted to do things properly.

Just then, Rabbi Gershon got a message on a group chat that he used to help coordinate minyanim for frum visitors: “Minchah at 4:15.” He’d forgotten that there was a large conference in his neighborhood that day, which meant that there were dozens of frum vendors in need of a minyan. It wasn’t often that Rabbi Gershon got a weekday Minchah minyan in South Loop, so whenever there was one, he went.

“Dave, you’re in luck. There’s actually a minyan in town now, so if we hurry, you can say Kaddish there.”

They drove back to the city and rushed into the Sweets and Snacks show at the conference center just as Minchah was about to begin. The kehillah was a unique mix—businessmen, a shliach, and at the center of the group, a mourning son with a torn shirt who had just come from his mother’s levayah.

“Yisgadel!” Dave’s voice rang out as he davened for his mother’s neshamah to have an aliyah.

“Amen,” the crowd in the conference room sang back to him.

It had been tough, but Dave’s sincerity and perseverance had won out. His mother had had a proper taharah and a burial, and he’d had the chance to say Kaddish for her. Her body and soul, intertwined on their journey through this world, were now on their holy journey upward.

But the story didn’t end there.

* * *

Rabbi Gershon was surprised when the chevrah kaddisha called him and told him that they were arranging a taharah that day. They told him the name of the meis. “Do you have any connection to this person?” they asked.

The name didn’t ring any bells. “I don’t think so. Why?”

“A few weeks ago, you called us to do a taharah at that non-Jewish funeral home. We got a call from them today about another Jewish person, so we were wondering if you arranged it.”

“I had nothing to do with it,” Rabbi Gershon said. He, too, wondered how that had come about. Why was the non-Jewish funeral home arranging taharos? He decided to call them directly and find out.

“Oh, it’s simple,” the funeral director explained. “Before you called us to arrange for the Jewish funeral people to come prepare that woman for burial, we had no idea that Jews had their own traditions for this. We watched the women work, and it was beautiful. They acted with such respect and afforded the deceased such dignity that we figured all Jewish families would want this if they knew it was an option. When another Jewish funeral was booked at our place, we told the family about the Jewish Sacred Society and offered to arrange it for them.”

And so, because Dave had listened when his pintele Yid cried out on behalf of his mother, another Jewish meis—and potentially many others—would receive a proper taharah before burial.

* * *

Six months later, Dave’s father passed away. When Dave and Sally opened the will, they found that he’d made a surprising last-minute change. After his wife’s funeral, he no longer wanted a cremation. He wanted what she’d had—a beautiful, pure farewell, carried out with dignity and holiness. And so he was buried, too.

It’s the story of one son and one shliach, both committed to saving a woman from a mistake she would never be able to undo. And it became the story of three souls, all of whom merited a burial and taharah k’halachah.

Because a body is holy even after death. There’s life even after life. There’s a ripple effect, one mitzvah following after another. And because of one determined son and his committed local shliach, three more Jewish souls merited to move on in the holiest, purest way.

The article first appeared in Ami Magazine www.amimagazine.org