Jewish burial society in Pittsburgh makes amends after COVID-19 pandemic

• Published date: 06 October 2021
• Author: ADAM REINHERZ/JTA
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Given fears of COVID-19 transmission, members of the New Community Chevra Kadisha stopped traveling to funeral homes and performing the sacred act of tahara in oerson. Instead of physically washing and purifying a body prior to burial, members gathered on Zoom for what they called a "spiritual tahara," a virtual service of readings, song and prayer, with men tending to men and women to women.

Between March 15, 2020, and June 21, 2021 — when the group resumed in-person practices — chevra kadisha members completed more than 100 spiritual taharas. During this time, many other Jewish burial societies across the country were similarly figuring out how to perform their sacred rituals safely.

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But while the group was satisfied by its approximation of the traditional ritual during a time of crisis, something nagged at its members. Jewish burial is often called chessed shel emet, a true kindness: Washing a body, purifying it and placing shrouds on the deceased is performed by the living with no ability for repayment.

When those acts of kindness are completed "in some diminished way, it feels like you're cheating somebody out of something," said Dr. Jonathan Weinkle, a Pittsburgh physician and longtime chevra kadisha member.

So on Oct. 3, 21 members of the burial society traveled to Beth Shalom Cemetery, located just outside Pittsburgh, to make amends. Standing side by side, the group recited biblical and Talmudic passages, chanted Hebrew phrases, recited names of the deceased and poured water for each person who at the time of their death was unable to be washed according to Jewish tradition, in a 40-minute ceremony organized by Weinkle.

Along with publicly stating their burial society's rationale for adopting spiritual tahara, or tahara ruchanit, the group offered an apology: "While the decisions we made were taken with every consideration of pikuach nefesh, saving lives from danger, they nonetheless had consequences that made many of us feel we, and the meitim (deceased) we cared for, had lost something precious. It is to acknowledge this loss that we gather here today."

Burial society members explicitly asked for forgiveness.

"We, the Chevra Kadisha, ask your forgiveness for each departure we had to make from traditional practices in preparing your body for burial," they read. "On the road, up from Egypt, and through the...