Re: Made in the Image of G-d: The Jewish Way in Death and Burial

Re: Made in the Image of G-d: The Jewish Way in Death and Burial

Lubavitch International, February 2017

To the editor:

Thank you for including the moving account of Mrs. Gladys Fox’s passing and eventual Jewish burial in your last edition (Made in the Image of G-d, The Jewish Way in Death and Burial, Lubavitch International, February 2017). It was an honor to be a part of this special mitzvah.

Allow me though to point out that when dealing with sensitive issues of this nature, competent rabbinic guidance and counsel needs to be sought out in each case. The very definition of kevuras yisrael (Jewish burial) is that a Jew be laid to rest amidst his fellow Jews and not, heaven forbid, in a non-Jewish cemetery or section of a cemetery.

In this particular situation, we prevented the above-ground entombment of a Jewish body in a mausoleum and by rabbinic guidance, necessitated a temporary burial in a non-Jewish cemetery with plans already in place to transfer to a Jewish cemetery.

Rabbi Berel Wolvovsky

Chabad of Silver Spring