Travel Agent for the Dead
Someone has to make the arrangements, right?
“In Jewish thought, all souls go to be with God. There’s no hell or purgatory, but for those who were not such good people,” he waved his hand in a comme ci, comme ça motion, “the journey might take a little longer.”
My father had been dead for less than 12 hours at the point that my brother and I found ourselves in the office of the funeral director — I’ll call him Fred. Jews do not embalm or otherwise preserve the bodies of the dead. Therefore, Jewish funerals happen lickety-split. We’d been called to the hospice facility, where Dad spent his final few days, in the middle of the night. By early afternoon, Fred was walking us through the procedures and rituals to come.
I’m not a religious person but in that moment and those that followed I felt immense gratitude for the existence of the rules that guide us. We were overwhelmed, as surely everyone is when they lose a loved one. We didn’t know what to do, but Fred did. He was the travel agent for Dad’s final trip.
First, the tahara. Tahara is a ritual cleansing of the body. To get this done, Fred had to activate the chevra kadisha (which means “holy society”). I have no idea who these people were, but my orthodox uncle told me the chevra kadisha is comprised of volunteers who perform this service as a…
