K'vod Hamet

I just returned from a funeral. So many beautiful things were said about the deceased by her three daughters, husband and sisters, beautiful things we can all really only aspire to have said of us when we, too, are gone.

There are many things I enjoy and appreciate about Jewishness and Judaism, and our funerals are one of those things. There is something so solid and so authentic to me about the simplicity of a Jewish funeral with our plain coffins, our customs, our ways. But perhaps the most solid and comforting of our customs takes place at the graveside.

To begin, we do not greet the mourners when they arrive, we simply let them arrive, take their seats and face the reality of the situation. After the very brief graveside service, burial begins and it is, to be sure, a community effort. By taking it upon ourselves to each shovel three shovels of dirt into the grave, we do a lot in this simple act. We see that the earth in which the deceased is laid to rest isn't daily-work dirt placed by paid workers, but that each shovel is filled and emptied with a heavy heart as a community. Dirt hitting a coffin makes a very particular noise, too. It is haunting, to be sure, undeniably a terrible sound and undeniably accompanied a feeling of finality. Though we generally avoid things that are uncomfortable and upsetting in our lives, this act of shoveling dirt brings us to the undeniability and reality of death; the place one must reach before any healing can ever begin.

It is a task that shows our responsibility to the community, each other, to honor the deceased one last time, and to care for the grieving family and (and this is key, I think) it is, in a sense, a gift the deceased has given to the people they leave behind. Because when shoveling dirt atop a coffin, let me tell you, there is no denying the situation, even the deepest denial cannot continue in light of what the eyes are seeing and what the hands are holding.

Usually three or four shovels are available. We place three shovels of dirt because it is said that once can be accidental, but doing anything three times is definitely an intentional act. You really mean it when you do something three times, so we see repetition like this often in Judaism. And, we shovel using the back of the shovel, not in the customary cup-up way one shovels, say, a garden. Some say this is to express both our reluctance and show we are not eager for the task. Some say that to use a shovel so oddly is to show things are different today than on other days.

After the three shovelfulls, we lay the shovel back down, still facing down, instead of handing it to the next person waiting. To pick up the shovel from the ground is to show we are acting as our hearts have prompted, and doing this gesture because we feel compelled to do so, not because someone handed us a shovel and we didn't want to appear rude by not taking it. We really tend to intention in Judaism, and making sure to do things with the right intention, but also to making sure we appear to be doing things with the right intention--this is a place where we really seem to have covered everything. So, we step forward, pick up the shovel from the ground, place the three shovelfulls of dirt in the grave and place it back down on the ground.

But, and this is important, the family goes first with the shoveling. Well, often the rabbi or cantor or officiant is do the first bit of dirt, but then the family, then the others in attendance. Then, once everyone inclined has shoveled, people step forward and begin shoveling differently, with a certain greater intensity, some with the shovel still upside-down, some with the first one to three shovelfulls upside-down and then switching to shoveling right-side up and the remainder of dirt is replaced. All shovels are in motion digging and placing dirt into the grave, and people take turns shoveling, and the feeling there at graveside with everyone shoveling and crying is like none I have ever seen anyplace else in my life. I say that because usually family members step back up to do a lot of this intense and differnet shoveling. You can watch their faces and see how much they need this action, to know they saw to every detail, to know they left nothing up to strangers and to know they left nothing undone in the mitzvah of k'vod hamet.

And then, the family makes to leave, surely the hardest part, and we make two rows with ourselves, spanning from graveside to car on each side, as if we all both escort them home, and all stay behind to stand watch over the grave a moment longer.