Transcription:
The same G-d that gave us a soul gave us a body. That body was gifted to be born into a specific family and given a specific journey. It doesn’t belong to us. It’s gifted as a loan to us. And when we use that loan accordingly, with proper intent, with respect, with sanctity, that means we’re confirming that we have a duty to be the holders of G-d’s loan to us and we use it wisely. So in our lifetime, we respect the body. We have to take care of our body. We have to make sure it’s healthy and we have to make sure that we do with it what’s appropriate and not do with it what’s not appropriate. But when the soul leaves the body, we have to return it to where it came from, to its rightful owner. And as the book of Genesis in the Torah tells us, we’ve come from earth. That’s where Adam and Eve were created from. Adam came from earth. We do the same by returning it back to where it comes from. Hence the reason that we’re so respectful of the body after the soul leaves the body. From the moment the body is void of a soul, there are myriads of laws and customs that take place, both for the immediate family and for the Chevra Kadisha, those that care for the body. They’re entrusted to care for the body and prepare it for funerals. What they’re allowed to do, what they’re not allowed to do. So unrelated to how one lives their life and what degree of Jewish practice they do, the soul is always on fire. Sometimes it doesn’t make it out always to the foreground. Sometimes it’s there internally. But when one passes away, it’s all soul. And we want to do what’s best for the soul. And because the soul was married to a body that was gifted to it to impact the world down here by G-d on loan to us, we want to give it back exactly the way G-d asks us to do that. And that is, as the verse says, we have come from earth, we go to earth. It actually is environmentally harmful to cremate somebody. The amount of time and the amount of, see I’m awful with this stuff, but the emissions, what is it? It’s called emissions. The amount of time and the amount of emissions and impact in a negative way on our society, on our world, on our climate is actually worse off for our world by cremation versus the traditional burial practice. There is enough room in this world to bury people. That’s a misconception. There is urban living and people want to have their loved ones buried as close as possible to downtown. But the truth is that if you look at studies, there is enough place in our earth and there are actually positive elements that are spoken about and studies done for the traditional burial practice. From a spiritual perspective, it’s imperative to engage in a traditional burial practice. It is actually harmful for the soul. It’s harmful for what our tradition teaches us about the future of the resurrection of the dead to go through that process of cremation. Best practice is to follow what has worked for thousands of years. Some of cremation processes and other things like that are actually harmful to our environment. One of the critical things about Jewish burial is that a loved one has a place to come to to connect soul to soul. And when one, Heaven forbid, goes through a process of cremation and the like, it leaves family members void of a sacred place that they could go to connect, to be uplifted, and to be empowered to be a better person of themselves. And that’s the tradition of Jewish burial, which really is critical not just for us to decide if and how we feel and what the process should be, but that the loved ones should be considered as well in this process to understand that one day, a grandchild, a great grandchild, will want to come and learn about this person and pray near this person’s soul. And when they’re in a Jewish cemetery, they’ll be able to be gifted that capability. If, Heaven forbid, it’s not there for generations to come, the mental and emotional effect is unknown.