Dealing with Death: Christian and Jewish Rituals at the Time of Death

Christian Rituals: Revd Olwen Field

Revd Field commenced by saying that she had been in ministry for 18 years, and for seven and a half of those years she was Chaplain at Mount Vernon Hospital, and as a consequence of her hospital chaplaincy work she inevitably came in contact with people who were dying. Her parish of West Drayton takes on 70-80 funerals a year, and she has help with this ministry from a curate and a trainee Lay-Reader. Christians base their hope and lives on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that hope is largely based on the promise of being raised to new life with Christ. From John’s Gospel Chapter 11 - “I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in me will never die, but have eternal life”.

Revd Field split her talk into three parts: the ritual before death, the ritual after death, and the funeral.

The Ritual Before Death
We were given a handout at the start of her talk which contained the ritual before death. The first thing on the sheet was a prayer which she says privately to God, so that she can place herself into his understanding and be his witness. Prayer is vital and underpins everything when she goes to see a bereaved family. When she goes to the dying person the most important thing is that she hears their confession. It does not always happen. It is a particularly strong rite in the Roman Catholic Church, and she agrees with it. People do need to put themselves right with God before they die. We are promised as Christians that if we put ourselves right with God then on Judgement Day our sins will be wiped away. So for some people confession is very important. Confession is followed by the absolution, and we were referred to the words of the absolution on the handout.

Then comes the anointing. In support of the practice of anointing reference was made to a number of Scriptural passages: Psalm 23, “Thou hast anointed my head with oil”; John 19, “Jesus was wrapped in linen and spices”; Luke 24 verse 1, “On the third day the women took spices to anoint the body of Jesus”. When those who are dying are anointed, what happened in Old Testament times and when Jesus was dying is carried on in the Christian tradition. The oil used in the anointing has been blessed for the purpose by the Bishop in the Maundy Thursday liturgy. Traditionally anointing is on the forehead with the sign of the cross, on the palm of each hand with the sign of the cross, and on the soles of the fleet, although for logistical reasons anointing on the soles of the fleet is usually omitted.

Some people who are staunch in the faith may want to receive Holy Communion. If someone is unconscious and not able to swallow the bread and the wine, the wafer can be dipped into the wine and touched on their lips. They have then spiritually received Communion even though they haven't swallowed it. Revd Field’s practice is to then follow with the Lord’s Prayer which is common to all Christians. After the Lord’s Prayer she continues with the “Nunc Dimittis” - the prayer of Simeon, a Jewish attendant in the Synagogue who, when he encountered the Christ Child, said "Now I’ve seen the Christ I can die in peace". Then Psalms 23 and 121, wonderful Psalms to say at the bedside of someone who is dying. After this she reads John’s Gospel Chapter 14 verse 1 to Chapter 3 verse 27 “Let not your hearts be troubled, believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house there are many rooms, if it were not so would I have told you that I go to prepare a placed for you?” This Scripture reading is then followed by prayers for the family and friends.

The Ritual After Death
Moving on to the second part of her talk regarding what happens immediately after death, Revd Field said that theologically there is no need for prayers once a person has died. They are in God’s safe keeping. Nevertheless families may request them. We were referred to a Scripture reading and prayer on the handout that she would use in these circumstances. [Revd Field did not mention that in common with Judaism, a large number of Christians, including Roman Catholics, all the Eastern Orthodox Churches, and factions within her own denomination do believe there are theological grounds which support the practice of praying for the dead]. She may sometimes anoint the deceased person if anointing hasn’t already taken place. She would say a prayer of thanksgiving for the person’s life, the Lord's Prayer, pray for those who mourn and say a blessing. If a child has died the family may ask for the body to be baptised. Theologically, she said, there is no reason to do this - that child is already in God’s keeping. However if it is going to help the family to come to terms with what happened, then she would baptise the dead child. Following any death in the parish the deceased is always remembered and the family prayed for on the Sunday before and the Sunday after the funeral.

The Funeral
In the funeral rite we symbolically commit the body of the person into the safekeeping of God. Funerals can happen at the crematorium and the ashes are scattered at the crematorium, but this does not always happen. You hear of people scattering ashes in favourite places but legally that is not supposed to happen. If they are not scattered at the crematorium they should be interred in the ground. Alternatively, there could be a church service followed by a burial, and all sorts of combinations of the way that can happen. Occasionally there are graveside funerals, but these are not to be recommended on a cold winter’s day!

Because Revd Field is a Church of England Minister she usually ends up taking the funerals of those who are not practising Christians, in fact for anyone who dies within the parish, which is why she ends up doing so many. The difficulty is that these people are completely unchurched. Whereas practising Christians would choose hymns and readings, the unchurched haven’t a clue what they want, and you end up having all sorts of pop music. She doesn’t object to this because she is helping people where they are at, but they don’t even know the Lord’s Prayer!

A Christian funeral traditionally includes 2 or 3 hymns, 1 or 2 readings of Scripture, an address which will include a eulogy to be based on the Christian truth, prayers of thanksgiving for the person who has died, prayers for those who mourn, the Lord’s Prayer, and a prayer to commit the person to God’s safekeeping, followed by a blessing. That is the standard service, and there are lots of variations of it.

After the Funeral
Aftercare differs from parish to parish, but all families that live locally receive at least one visit from the clergy, and then perhaps a member of the visiting team after that. If the relatives don’t live in the parish they are phoned to make sure they are OK, and they may be passed on to a minister in their own parish. All are invited to the annual All Souls service where the deceased persons’ names are read out and a candle is lit for each person. Children are often excluded from funerals because parents are frightened that children may see adults crying. She thinks children should be given the option whether to go to a funeral or not. They need their rite of passage as well.

Although Revd Field wouldn’t like to return to Victorian days she thinks that we could learn a lot of things from them about mourning. They had their periods of mourning, and it wasn’t just 2 or 3 days off work and then to be told to pull themselves together and get on with life. People need their times of mourning and the Victorians certainly did that. Finally, the West Indians, Irish and many travelling families often request open coffins, and in our culture that is not usually considered acceptable. However as it helps them during their grief the request shouldn’t be turned down out of hand.

Jewish Rituals: Mr Martin Broad

Mr Broad commenced by pointing out that he is a Funeral Director, not a Minister, and is not addressing the more religious aspects, but he will look at what happens from the time he is approached to perform a funeral. His function is as Funeral Director to the Liberal and Reform Synagogues throughout Greater London and the Home Counties. However as a Company they do other funerals so he is aware of how other faiths conduct their funerals, and in fact how people with no faith conduct funerals.

Speed
From a Jewish point of view, once the call comes most people think that the funeral has to be take place very quickly, within a 24 or 48 hour period. The reason is that the Jews come from a warm environment and when they wandered through the desert for all those years, if they didn't do things quickly they had real problems. So it becomes a tradition to do things quickly, which is not always the way we do things in Greater London, with English law taking precedence over any other form of law. We have to work with the bureaucracy. The death must be registered, if it is going to be a cremation the correct forms must be filled out, and things have got to take their place. But assuming that we can act quickly most people would prefer that a Jewish funeral takes place sooner rather than later. It is tradition, it is what people feel comfortable with, and for most people the more you hang it out, the more the burden becomes. So if the funeral can take place quite quickly, you can then get on with the mourning that much easier.

Simplicity
They supply a very simple coffin. It doesn't matter who the deceased person is within the congregation, it is a universal standard coffin right across the board, and they don't make any exceptions to it. It is very simple, any handles that are placed on the coffin are there for logistics, not for adornment. Any name plate put on the coffin again would be for a logistical purpose, not for adornment. There are no flowers, simply because it is a reaction to Victorian England. Flowers became so prevalent at so many funerals that the United Synagogue at the time decided that flowers were unnecessary, it was a waste of money. There are flowers at Jewish funerals in Europe, and in Israel flowers are not uncommon. We are seeing a limited return to flowers because we live in a mixed society, but they tend not to be the norm.

Dealing with the Body
Mr Broad explained that Jews do not embalm. Embalming for others is principally as an aid for viewing the deceased, and Jews don’t have open coffins. The other point about embalming is that if you are an Orthodox person you would say that embalming desecrates the body of the deceased. Incisions have to be made in order to carry it out, and therefore it desecrates the body. That is the objection which the Ultra- Orthodox have to post-mortems. Liberal Jews look at things a little more practically, more rationally, and say "Well, if it has got to be done it has to be done". To the question “Do Jews allow organs to be donated?” the answer, if you are Ultra-Orthodox, is probably “No” because they consider it is a desecration. The attitude of a Liberal such as himself is that it is OK to take what is needed if it will do some good, if it will improve and aid someone’s life.

The deceased person is washed and placed in a very simple cotton shroud. All Funeral Directors have a Chapel of Rest, and again, because we live in a mixed society, we are seeing more and more people coming to visit. Obviously the deceased person is not made up, and there is no adornment of the deceased with jewellery - things are kept very simple.

Cremation is usual within Liberal and Reform synagogues. There has been cremation for the Jewish community for around the last 100 years, but it is unacceptable to the Orthodox community. They do not allow cremation under any circumstances. The service used at the crematorium is exactly the same as the service used at the cemetery. There is nothing taken away.

The Funeral
The funeral is called the “Lavoya”, it means you “accompany”. You take the deceased do their final resting place, and the mourners/family accompany the deceased from the Prayer Hall at the cemetery to the grave. It is very rare for a deceased person to be taken into a synagogue, whereas it is very usual to go into a church. It is a privilege normally reserved for Rabbis. The service which takes place at the Prayer Hall in the cemetery will involve the psalms - Psalm 23 “The Lord is my Shepherd”, and Psalm 121 “I lift up mine eyes”. These Psalms are normal and absolutely standard within the service.

With the committal of the deceased to the earth there is the hope, if you are Orthodox, that someday the Messiah will come and on that day all the dead will rise. If the Messiah can raise the dead, the Messiah can blend ashes, one assumes. But the objection from the Orthodox to cremation is not based on the concept of the resurrection, it is to the physical destruction of the body. The body should be returned to the ground from whence it came, and allowed to degrade naturally. The Muslims share this tradition. If it wasn’t for the law of the land that every funeral of must have a coffin, be it burial or cremation, a lot of people would bury without a coffin. Certainly the Muslim community would do so, and the Orthodox Jewish community would do so because it returns the deceased back to the ground that much quicker.

After the Funeral
After the burial or cremation it is customary to return to the house for what is called a shiver, which is a prayer service that takes place in the evening of the funeral, unless the funeral takes place on a Friday when the Sabbath would intervene and it would take place on the Sunday. Often it takes place over one day and one night. That then gives people an opportunity, because the funeral takes place so quickly, to pay their respects, to visit the family, to be with the mourners and assist them in overcoming their loss and to adjust back. However for the strict Orthodox person this can take place over seven nights.

The custom has its pros and cons: on the beneficial side, it is good for the family; on the other hand, and Mr Broad said he knew this from his own family’s experience, when people disappear the let-down and feeling of emptiness can be tremendous. Some families want to observe the custom, and a lot of families don’t. The custom is, again for the Orthodox, to cover mirrors, the idea being that you are not going to look at yourself, you are mourning and not thinking about your own appearance. If you are a man you don’t shave for 30 days, again it is about appearance. If you are Orthodox there is this thing called “Cutting Crea”. It is a renting of the cloth above the heart, and again it is to show that you are in mourning. Your heart has been broken. It is done by a man on a man, and by a woman on a woman, and the cloth is actually cut with a knife or razor blade, and the article of clothing is worn for the full period of mourning – 30 days – which can get a little bit smelly!

Remembrance
If it is a burial the normal thing is to set a memorial stone a year after the death, again giving the opportunity for family, acquaintances, friends and community to gather together to actually remember, to actually look at a memorial marker in place and to remember.

When Mr Broad’s wife’s father passed away she did not go to the funeral. As a woman she was not required to go; she was not wanted at the funeral. Men took care of the funeral, and a year later she had the opportunity to go and visit the cemetery in order to pay her respects and see a physical gravestone in place. In Orthodox Judaism women unfortunately don’t count. Even a widow is not wanted at a funeral. Her place is in the home – she has no place at the cemetery, she cannot pray, she is a woman! Within Liberal and Reform Judaism women count equally.

An Important Prayer
There is one particular prayer which is very important and is part of all Jewish funerals. It is called the Kaddish. The Kaddish is traditionally said by the male mourners, not by the congregation as in a Liberal Synagogue. It is not a prayer about death, it is actually a prayer about life. It is very important and it is said at the funeral, at the shiver service, and at the consecration of the tombstone. Again, as a mourner, if you are Orthodox you will say this prayer every day for the year.

Formalities Before the Funeral
When Mr Broad is contacted following a death he will organise the funeral arrangements in conjunction with the cemetery or the crematorium concerned. He will ensure that the paperwork is in place and organise whatever transport the family require. The ceremony itself is not unlike the Christian one, but there is no Jewish equivalent of “last rites”. The Rabbi might visit and offer prayers, but the visit is to comfort the living as opposed to last rites for the dead

Focus on Family
There is a debate regarding children under 30 days old. Traditionally Orthodox Judaism never regarded life as having taken place. The burial would not be the same as taking care of an older child. That again is now changing. There is room to offer comfort to the parents and families that have lost a child, very often a foetus. Both Liberal and Reform Judaism view this as being very important. Families have become much more important than working within narrow margins of saying we should do this, and we can’t do that. We are developing as a community and one of the things that Liberal Judaism is doing is looking at ways to build and expand the community to bring comfort. For instance, if we are dealing with a mixed marriage can we work out funeral arrangements which are acceptable to both sides? Sometimes, as a Funeral Director, it is something he has to do to help the bereaved cope with their loss and grief.

Questions and Answers

After their talks both speakers answered questions, and it was apparent from the number and range of questions that the audience had found the talks most interesting and informative.

- Bernard Tiley