USCJ Review - Spring 2007

According to Jewish tradition, we are not supposed to thank those who guard and ritually prepare our loved ones on their final journey. However, I feel compelled to share what they did for Joe and for our family and how empowering others to help can change a community.

Joe, my husband, died August 14, 2006. It was not unexpected, but nevertheless it was a shock. He had been diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma two years earlier and was in hospice at home for his last week. At this time, our entire family gathered together at our home for his last days, taking turns sitting and talking with him, holding his hand, listening to his beloved Broadway musicals.

So when Joe left us, we were simply not prepared to leave him alone. The mitzvah, or commandment, of shmira, of guarding the body, mandates that someone protect a body constantly until burial. It is one aspect of the Jewish concept of kavod hamet – respect for the dead – that prescribes behavior from death through burial. Central to this concept is full respect for the person who has died as well as for the body. Our family began immediately at 2:30 a.m. by sitting beside Joe and reciting psalms 23 and 91, while the hospice nurse was called. When the funeral personnel arrived at 4 a.m., our children accompanied Joe to the funeral home, where they sat with him and began the first shift as shomrim – the body’s guards.

We asked our rabbi if our synagogue chevra kadisha provided shomrim and were told that they would try to gather people but that we should also ask friends. As friends called to ask how they could help, we suggested they sit with Joe for an hour as a shomer or shomeret – a male or female guard. Within a short time, we had shifts scheduled throughout the day and night, extending to the time of the memorial service the next day.

In the end, our plan was only possible because the Christian funeral home, which had partnered with our synagogue and our chevra kadisha for generations, was willing to extend itself in friendship and support. When we asked the funeral director if it would be possible for congregants to come into the building throughout the night, he told us that the building was locked each night, but he generously arranged to provide access so that the shifts of shomrim could replace each other.

As it turned out, our friends were not only willing but also told us later how grateful they were for this opportunity. We left a book of psalms but found that they did what helped them feel close to Joe – reading poetry, reflecting on experiences they had shared, saying goodbye.

Joe’s final journey would take him to another state for burial, the home of our childhood. Coincidently we would be working again with both a synagogue chevra kadisha and a Christian funeral home, which had partnered for generations with the local synagogue of our youth.

When the second chevra kadisha heard that we had shomrim, its members decided to continue this aspect of kavod hamet. They also experienced the same reaction – heartfelt gratitude from Joe’s high school friends whom they asked to be shomrim and generous support from the funeral director.

Joe’s final journey has enabled two cities to return to a more complete fulfillment of kavod hamet. Both communities desired to perform the mitzvah of shmira but had been grappling with how to make it happen.

The generosity and kindness of both funeral directors in permitting the shomrim to enter their buildings throughout the night was only one facet of a long relationship born of great respect and support for Jewish traditions and ongoing friendships with the local chevra kadisha, cemetery committee, and congregants. This, coupled with the simple act of asking others to help, changed and enriched both communities.