On One Foot
IS IT WRONG FOR A JEW TO BE CREMATED?
Just like Hillel’s student, we all have complex questions that we want answered as simply as possible. Here, we consider a question of contemporary relevance and explore how sources both classical and modern address it. by AVI FINEGOLD
ACROSS NORTH AMERICA, cremation has become by far the most popular option for caring for the dead. In Canada, the rate is now over 75%. Rates within the Jewish community are significantly lower — about 5% to 10%, according to the funeral directors in Canada I spoke to. But numbers are ris- ing, especially in the US, where funeral directors estimate somewhere between 40 and 80% of Jewish funerals involve cremation. The historical Jewish aversion to cremation is on
the wane. People who opt for cremation cite environmen- tal concerns, the skyrocketing cost of traditional burial, or the simplicity of the cremation process. At the same time, many Jews are either unaware of or unmoved by the value of traditional burial. Is cremation completely forbidden by all branches of Judaism? Are rabbis prohibited from officiat- ing at these funerals? How do we honour the wishes of those who left instructions for cremation in their wills?
GENESIS 3:19 By the sweat of your brow shall you get bread to eat, until you return to the ground — for from it you were taken. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return. DEUTERONOMY 21:23 You must not let the corpse remain on the stake overnight, but must bury it the same day. For an impaled body is an af- front to God: you shall not defile the land that your God is giving you to possess. 1 THESE TWO VERSES ARE OFTEN cited as the legal and phil- osophical basis for requiring burial in Judaism. The verse in Genesis is from God’s punishment to Cain for murdering his broth- er. The verse in Deuteronomy is the instruction to bury the body of one who was guilty of a capital offence and was subsequently executed by the court. Even though the body is to remain in pub- lic as a warning to others, the dignity accorded to the body dic- tates that it be buried by the end of the day. If someone guilty of such serious sins gets a swift and proper burial, how much more so should anyone else within the community? Notable as well are the many instances of burial that are part of Biblical narrative: Abraham burying Sarah, Jacob requesting that his children carry his bones out of Egypt to be buried in the family plot, and Moses being buried by God in a secret location.
2 TACITUS, one of the great Ro- man historians, gives his im- pression of Jewish practice at the time of writing in the first century CE. Burial, among other practices listed here, is seen as emblematic of Jewish identity. This must make the practice old enough to have been firmly entrenched by this point. In fact, it seems to have survived de- spite the rabbinic injunction against adopting Egyptian customs. The Jews … bury the body rath- er than burn it, thus following the Egyptians’ custom; they like- wise bestow the same care on the dead, and hold the same be- lief about the world below; but their ideas of heavenly things are quite the opposite. TACITUS: HISTORIES 5:5 (C. 100-110)
18 SUMMER 2026
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