In Death and After
Death
Part 3
The abodes
of the dead were usually 6 feet long, 9 feet wide, and 10 feet
high. There were niches for eight bodies, with the larger tombs
holding 13 bodies. The entrance to them was guarded by a large
stone or a very heavy door. There is more detail given about the
tombs in Part 2 of this chapter.
The
details given about the tombs will explain some of the particulars that
were connected with the burial of Jesus, how the women came early to the
grave and were astonished to find the "very great stone"
rolled away from the door of the sepulchre. Then when they entered
the outer cave, they were afraid to see "a young man sitting
on the right side, clothed in a long white
garment".
It also
explains the events in John 20: 1 - 12 how Mary Magdalene had come to
the sepulchre while it was still dark and groped to find the opening and
found that the stone was rolled away. She then fled to tell the
disciples that the door was open and someone had taken Jesus out of the
tomb.
If she
knew of the sealing of that stone and of the Roman guard, she must have
felt as if their hatred of Jesus compelled them to steal the
body. Even though she knew the body was gone, though, there must
have been a glimmer of hope in her because Jesus had said that He would
rise again on the third day. Even though her fleshly senses said
that he had been stolen, her spiritual senses must have treasured hopes
that He was alive. Jesus granted her deepest longing when He met
her on the road and told her to tell everybody that He was
alive.
It must
have been a very long night while the followers of Jesus were waiting
for daybreak to come on the third morning. Peter and John ran to
the site of the tomb as soon as they could see. They saw the linen
clothes lying about and went inside the tomb. The empty tomb was
not a place to look into, but to go into and believe. That morning
was one that must have been talked about over and over by the believers
of Jesus.
Tradition
had it that there was a special gate by which mourners entered, so that
all who met them could discharge the proper duty of love. It was
the custom of the day that mourners were not to be tormented by talk,
but that everybody around them would be silent until they were spoken
to. The Jews had regular formulas that they used for a person in
mourning. These were to be followed to the letter so that a person
was treated properly who was in mourning.
The Rabbis
distinguished between the Onen and the Avel - the
sorrowing or suffering one, and the bowed down, fading one, or
mourner. The Onen applied only to the day of the funeral,
while the Avel applied to the period which followed. It was
held that the law of God only prescribed mourning for the first day,
which was that of death and burial. The other period was a longer
one.
So long as
the dead body was actually in the house, it was forbidden to eat meat or
drink wine, to put on the phylacteries, or to engage in study. All
necessary food had to be prepared outside the house and, if possible,
was not to be eaten in the presence of the dead. That's why a
distinction had to be made as to the type of mourning a person was
in. They had to set a time limit so their daily lives could go on.
The first thing they were to do was to rend (tear apart) the inner
clothes of the person into a strip that was about a hand-breadth in
length. In the case of a parent, it was never closed up again; but
in any others it was mended after the thirtieth day.
Immediately after the body was carried out of the house all chairs and
couches were reversed toward the wall, and the mourners would sit on the
ground or on a low stool, except on the Sabbath. There was a
three-fold distinction that was made for mourning:
-
Deep mourning was to last
for 7 days, of which the first three were those of
"weeping". During these seven days it was forbidden
to wash, to anoint oneself, to put on shoes, to study, or to engage
in any business, to name a few things.
-
After that a lighter mourning
followed of 30 days.
-
Children were to mourn for
their parents a whole year, with the anniversary of the day of death
to be observed.
Any person
who had departed from the Jewish faith was not to be mourned. In
fact it was to be just the opposite: white dress was to be worn on
the occasion of the person's death, and other demonstrations of joy were
to be made. It is told in the Bible under what circumstances
priests and the high-priest were allowed to mourn for the dead.
On the
return from the burial, friends and neighbors prepared a meal for the
mourners that consisted of bread, hard-boiled eggs, and lentils.
This was called round and course fare - round like life, which is
rolling on unto death. This course was brought in and served up in
earthenware. On the other hand, the mourners' friends partook of a
funeral meal, at which no more than ten cups were to be emptied - two
before the meal, five at it, and three afterwards.
In modern
times the religious duty of attending to the dying, dead, and mourners,
is performed by a special "holy brotherhood", which many of
the most religious Jews join for the sake of the pious work in which it
engages them.
Another
item of interest, was that it was expressly allowed on Sabbaths and
Feast Days to walk beyond the Sabbath limits, and do anything that was
needful for the dead. This throws light on the account of what was
done to the body of Jesus on the eve of the Passover. In one of
the earliest Hebrew non-Biblical records, it mentions a number of other
days on which mourning was prohibited - the anniversaries of joyous
occasions. The Mishnah also contains a number of regulations and
limitations of mourning observances at some of the feasts, and also the
loss of slaves was not to be mourned.
The Rabbis
seem to have believed in a multitude of heavens, with most of them
holding to 7. They also believed there were 7 departments in
paradise, and 7 in hell. They also believed that Paradise and Hell
were contiguous, or that they were connected or neighboring and were
only separated by a handbreadth. That could be why the story of
the rich man and Lazarus is portrayed in that certain light.
There had
come to be inconsistencies among the Rabbis by this time concerning sin
and salvation and how one entered into Paradise. They thought that
the departed saints were in Scripture called "living".
It was also held among them that "in the world to come there is
neither eating nor drinking, neither fruitfulness nor increase, neither
trade nor business, neither envy, hatred, nor strife; but the righteous
sit with their crowns on their heads, and feast themselves on the
splendor of the Shechinah". In essence, they thought that
when they got to Paradise they would just sit and feast at the Table of
God.
This marks
the end of the In Death and After Death series.
For more
information from this book, go to the archives page at my
site www.cathydeaton.com
There are other articles of interest there also.
This
text is taken from the book Sketches of Jewish Social Life written by
Alfred Edersheim. This book has been used by permission.