QUESTION #24 : How should Noahides be buried? Since the verse Genesis 3:19 (about returning to the dust) is a statement made to Adam, wouldn't that then apply to Jews and Gentiles alike, thus obliging also Gentiles to be buried intact? > K. and E. J. ANSWER : It says in Genesis 3:19: "... until you return to the ground; for out of it were you taken; for you are dust and unto dust you shall return." As a Divine directive, this is a Torah commandment for Jews, who have many positive ("to do") commandments in addition to many negative ("don't do") commandments. On the other hand, Gentiles do not transgress the Noahide Code if they utilize another process such as cremation or cryogenic preservation. But a meritorious soul will lack the mode of cleansing from unrepentant sins that burial in the earth can provide. In other words, for a Gentile, cremation is not sinful, and it does not alter the general destiny of the soul in its afterlife. However, burial is preferred and encouraged, and it is the most honorable way to treat the specialness of the deceased human body, which was a host to a human soul which is created "in the image of G-d." So it is not a sin for Gentiles if they don't bury their dead intact, but as a part of Torah, they can accept it upon themselves in order to gain these advantages.

NEW QUESTION : How should Noahides mourn for deceased relatives or friends? > K. and P. R. ANSWER : It is important to set limits in intensity and length of time for mourning. Even before the Flood, there was a tradition of observing seven days of mourning. In Gen. 7:4, G-d told Noah, "For in another seven days' time I will send rain upon the earth..." On this verse, Rashi comments, based on the Midrash, "These are the seven days of mourning for the righteous Methuselah, for the Holy One, Blessed is He, spared his dignity and delayed the punishments [of the Flood, so that the generation's mourning for Methuselah could be properly expressed]. Go and calculate the years of Methuselah, and you will find that they end in the six hundredth year of the life of Noah" [when the Flood came]. The following suggestions for funeral and memorial services were provided to Ask Noah International by Rabbi Immanuel Schochet:: Specific Memorial Prayer: May G-d remember the soul of [my father, mother, husband, wife, friend, etc.; name of the deceased with names of parents, and if desired one can add the family-name] who has gone on to [his/her] world. By virtue of my praying on his/her behalf, and, without making a vow, my intent to donate to charity on his/her behalf, may [his/her] soul be bound in the Bond of Eternal Life together with with the souls of the righteous, and let us respond: Amen. Psalm 49 and/or Psalm 139 should be recited as meditations on earthly life. All the above - or part thereof - can be recited, but not more that once per day by each person who is mourning. This can be at the funeral, memorial meetings, anniversary of death or other special occasions that they feel appropriate. For the burial service: The Rock - His working is perfect, for all His paths are justice; a G-d of faithfulness and without iniquity, He is righteous and fair! (Deuteronomy 32:4) We know, G-d, that Your judgment is righteous; You are righteous when You speak and pure when You judge. There is naught to murmur about the way of Your judgment. You are righteous, G-d, and Your judgemnts are fair. G-d gave, and G-d took; blessed be the Name of G-d! As a principle for life, it is important to always have faith in G-d's active Divine Providence over all details and occurences in the creation. (The Torah views pagan-based practices such as self-mutilation or tearing out patches of one's hair during mourning as evil.) One should also keep in mind Psalm 100:2, which encourages us to serve G-d with gladness and joy.

QUESTION : This subject brings up questions on real-life situations that we Noahides must face (hopefully later than sooner) - maybe even tomorrow since we have no guarantees. So this IS A PRESSING MATTER. Unfortunately, there is a scarcity of information on this subject, but it has been voiced to me by concerned Noahides on several occasions. So can you please answer the following questions. I thank you for your time and consideration of this perplexing matter. > J. S. ANSWERS : Rabbi Friedman in Kansas has been teaching a group of Noahides for many years. In working with his group he has indeed taken the time to research this subject. He answered us very briefly on the points below regarding death and burial: (a) What can a Noachide expect - may or can a Rabbi perform a burial ceremony for a Noahide? Yes, it is fine for a Rabbi or a judge to officiate at a Noahide's burial ceremony. (b) Since a gentile may not be buried in a Jewish cemetery--what is a Noahide to do in theory and in reality? There are no other restrictions on where a Noahide can be buried, so the choice and arrangements are up to him or her. (c) Noahide body preparation - what must be done? What should be done? By whom? Noahides do not require special preparation of their body before burial. Rabbi Friedman suggests that it is most appropriate for Noahides to follow G-d's decree upon Adam in Genesis: "By the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread until you return to the ground, from which you were taken: For you are dust, and to dust you shall return." (Gen. 3:19) Thus it would be most appropriate to not embalm the body. A note from the Director of AskNoah.org: From the Mishnah, "Ethics of the Fathers" (Avos) 3:14 - "[Rabbi Akiva] used to say: Beloved is Man, for he was created in the Divine image. It is an even greater [act of] love that it was made known to him that he was created in the Divine image, as it states, "In the image of G-d was man created" (Gen. 1:27). This refers to all mankind, since the quoted verse in Genesis refers to all the descendants of Noah. A practical lesson that results from this is that the human body should not be treated disrespectfully, even in death. We learn from Tenach that the most respectful treatment for a human corpse is burial. The Tenach teaches that even in the case of a convicted transgressor who is executed by decree of a court, the corpse should be buried on the same day. How much more so does this respect apply for the body of any other person. However, a body may be allowed to remain unburied overnight if this is required for obtaining a coffin or a shroud, for the sake of providing proper respect for the deceased.

QUESTION : Recently, since my parents have been deceased, I have noticed a lot of gravestones. Since then, I have wondered about the crosses and stars of David on the tombstones and have, since I became Torah observant as a Noahide, is there any symbol to use for Noahides for putting on a tombstone? > K. J. ANSWER : I forwarded your question to one of our consulting Rabbis. Here is the unresearched, spontaneous response he sent back. Obviously this is his personal opinion on a non-binding issue: Most headstones of the graves of deceased persons in our community have no religious symbols at all. I don't see a requirement for them. Certainly I would, however, avoid symbols associated with other religions (not that we are going to say that these are all forbidden), but since the questioner has advanced in his or her Noahidism, it would in my view be appropriate to use none of these symbols, since in their raw form they do not have the purity of connotation which is suitable for a Noahide who has studied and knows exactly what Torah requires of him or her. As for using the symbol of an ark or something like that, it might be fine, though that symbol has not yet been established as the symbol of Noahidism. So perhaps the best thing might be to use words, such as "so and so, devoted to the ideals of the righteous of the nations..." A note from the Director: There are many cemetaries, especially the more modern ones, that make it a policy to have only simple headstones, without statues, etc., which may be an important preference for many Noahides.

QUESTION #43(a) : What does the Torah teach about organ donation? Is there are any difference between Jews and Noahides? I was asked to sign an organ donation card, and I don't know if I should do that. > N. P. ANSWER : Since Noahides do not have a commandment that they must be buried in the earth, the option is open to them for organ donation. Given that they have this option, it is in fact a meritorious thing for them to give this great gift of improved physical life, and even life itself, to another person. However, note that the Torah defines life by the beating of the heart. Therefore a person who wants to be an organ donor should make a clear and legal stipulation (a Torah-acceptable Living Will) that none of his organs (especially the heart!) may be removed before the heart is permanently stopped. For Jews, on the other, it is commanded in Deuteronomy 21:23 (which applies to all Jews) that their entire body should be buried in the earth, on the day of death or as soon afterwards as possible. The burial can be delayed beyond the first day only for certain specific circumstances.

QUESTION : Someone told me that we get what we deserve. Although we may be totally unaware of the reason, there is some reason. I just can't think of any reason why my student would deserve go in such a tragic way, or why his family would deserve this. What is the rationale for this? > D. G. ANSWER : I'm very sorry about the tragedy of your student, and about the sorrow and hardship which his family now faces. Of course you and they have very deep questions about how G-d could have allowed, and how much more could He have caused, this thing to happen. These essential questions have been addressed by great tzaddikim (righteous Sages) over the generations, who bring us the perspective of their inner vision which comes from their Ruach HaKodesh, Divine inspiration. These questions have also been responded to by less reliable authors, scholars in their own limited estimation. So it remains to sort out what is true from what is fanciful when we look into these basic questions. The Torah of Truth testifies that in some respects, a single individual is equivalent to the whole world. So I don't mean for a moment to minimize in any way the significance and the tragedy of what occurred. But let me please first apply some lessons that are learned from another tradgedy which nearly everyone is familiar with. These same questions have been asked, for example, about the many millions of civilians - men, women and children - who were systematically and horrifically exterminated by the Germans in World War II. The majority of these people were Jews. Many Jews lost their faith in G-d as a result of the Holocaust, or lived out their lives with anger toward G-d. Others tried to "defend" G-d's actions by claiming that in some way the Jews of Europe in that generation "deserved" the Holocaust as a result of some shortcomings in their religious observance (G-d forbid to consider such an absurd idea!). Just before the Gulf War, a prominent non-chassidic Rabbi stated that the Jews in Israel were "deserving" of the threat of mass fatalities from Saddam Hussein's missile attacks, just as (he said) the Jews of Europe were "deserving" of the Holocaust (G-d forbid to consider such ideas!). The Lubavitcher Rebbe responded to that suggestion with righteous anger and indignation, and expounded on the inner dimension of the Holocaust which G-d brought about. From the Rebbe's words about the Jewish national Holocaust, you can apply his insights to the case of an individual's "holocaust," G-d forbid. Here are some excerpts from that sicha (talk) by the Rebbe, as translated by Sichos In English (of course this does not do justice to the Rebbe's emotions which those present witnessed): Can any mortal presume to be capable of assessing a colleague's ultimate spiritual worth "according to the wisdom of the All-Knowing G-d"? This is particularly true in the present generation... Accordingly, to say that those very people were deserving of what transpired, that it was a punishment for their sins, heaven forbid, is unthinkable. We cannot explain the Holocaust, for we are limited by the earthbound perspective of mortal understanding. As G-d says, in a prophecy of Isaiah, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts."[Isaiah 55:8] No scales of judgment could ever condemn a people to such horrors.[15] On the contrary, G-d is "the Master of mercy." It is blasphemous to picture Him as a cruel king who punishes His people for their disobedience and then waits until it mounts again to the point at which it is fitting to punish them again. Footnote: [15] In general, when we confront undesirable events, we must realize that "the Holy One, blessed be He, does not render judgment without a reason" (Berachos 5b); i.e., these events result from faults in our conduct. Nevertheless, there are exceptions to this rule... Thus, our Sages relate (Menachos 29b) that when Moshe Rabbeinu [Moses our Teacher] protested the cruel death which he saw (with prophetic foresight) was to be inflicted upon Rabbi Akiva, G-d told him, "Be silent. This is what has arisen in My thought." In the classic instance of such suffering, G-d told Avraham that his descendants would be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years. Far from being a result of their sins, this exile had already been ordained when G-d first initiated His covenant with Avraham, as an unfathomable Divine decree (cf. Shmos Rabbah 5:22). The same applies to the Holocaust. So awesome was the cruelty to which our people were subjected that Satan himself could not find sins to justify such suffering. The only explanation is, "This is what arose in My thought." On a more general level, as much as some modernist authors would have us believe to the contrary, from a correct Torah perspective there is no way to deny G-d's individual Divine providence (hashgachah pratis) over everything that happens in the world. This inner truth was brought to the forefront of Jewish popular knowledge by the Baal Shem Tov. After all that, a few points remain to be noted. One is that we humans do not have G-d's advantage of seeing into the future, for all generations, to see how an apparent good today can lead to a great evil in the future, G-d forbid, or how an apparent evil today can lead to a great good in the future. In hindsight, we can easily identify past events which went in either of these categories. Since G-d's attributes of kindness and mercy override His attributes of strict judgment and punishment (may G-d have mercy!), it is axiomatic that many possible evils and horrors of great scope, G-d forbid, have been cancelled by G-d's mercy through individual events in individual lives. For example, the entire Jewish nation was redeemed from cruel slavery and the covenant of Torah was able to be given to them by G-d in open revelation at Mt. Sinai, paving the way for the ultimate Messianic Era, the Resurrection of the Dead and the eternal future World to Come, because a pharaoh executed his chief baker and left the body hanging for the birds, because a pebble was found in a loaf a Pharaoh's bread. That started a chain of events which brought about the fullfillment of G-d's purpose for the creation. What an undeserved (in our eyes) tragedy for the baker and his family. What a boundless good for all mankind! Of course spiritual giants, to whom we do not compare at all, have also questioned G-d's ways. For example in Egypt, Moses protested to G-d on behalf of the Israelite children who were being killed by the Egyptians so their bodies could be used to fill cracks in the buildings which their parents were forced to build. G-d said to Moses, "Are you questioning My ways? You may save one of the children, and you will see what his destiny would have been." So Moses was allowed to miraculously pull one of the children, Micha, out alive. Later it was that same Micha who, through sorcery, brought the enlivened form of the Golden Calf out from the pot of gold. From these examples, which are just a few of many we know of (which in turn is only a small fraction), you can have insight into G-d's providence over every individual soul and its atonement throughout the generations in which it is reincarnated. But again, that only touches upon the realm which is accessible to the limited understanding of the human mind, and it is axiomatic that there is infinitely more G-dly purpose beyond that, as the Rebbe explained in his talk that is quoted above. I hope that this message has gone at least a little way toward giving you some authentic Torah perspectives as you grapple with the sad event that touched you personally. My condolences are extended to your student's family, even though we have not met. At an appropriate time in the future, maybe you could tell them about the AskNoah.org web site.

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