Sanhedrin 087

נושא: Sanhedrin

Sanhedrin 087

BET MIDRASH VIRTUALI

Today's shiur is dedicated by Andrew Hoffman in memory of his Father, Reuven ben Yaakov, whose Yahrzeit falls tomorrow, Shushan Purim.

נִתְעַכַּל הַבָּשָׂר, מְלַקְּטִין אֶת הָעֲצָמוֹת וְקוֹבְרִין אוֹתָן בִּמְקוֹמָן. וְהַקְּרוֹבִים בָּאִים וְשׁוֹאֲלִין בִּשְׁלוֹם הַדַּיָּנִין וּבִשְׁלוֹם הָעֵדִים, כְּלוֹמַר שֶׁאֵין בְּלִבֵּנוּ עֲלֵיכֶם כְּלוּם, שֶׁדִּין אֱמֶת דַּנְתֶּם. וְלֹא הָיוּ מִתְאַבְּלִין, אֲבָל אוֹנְנִין, שֶׁאֵין אֲנִינוּת אֶלָּא בַלֵּב:

After the flesh has wasted away the bones are to be retrieved and buried in their proper place. The relatives come to wish well of the judges and the witnesses, saying in effect, "We bear you no malice: your judgment was a true one". No mourning is observed, but personal grief is, because personal grief is internal.

1:
Our mishnah is concerned with the disposal of the remains of the executed prisoner. It is clear that the sages are trying to find a middle path. On the one hand, at the very beginning of the trial the witnesses were encouraged to offer their testimony because "There is rejoicing when the wicked perish" [Proverbs 11:10]; see Sanhedrin 070. On the other hand, the family of the deceased have lost someone who may well have been dear to them. The bi-polarity of the solution described in our mishnah can best be understood by prior reference to burial practices in mishnaic times.

2:
First let me quote from a shiur on December 25th 1996 {Berakhot 3:1]:

In Mishnaic times burial plots were situated outside the towns and villages, mostly on the eastern side of town and some way off. The reason for this was the manner of burial. The body of the deceased was laid on ledges or "shelves" hewn into the rocky walls of a handy cave, whose entrance was then carefully blocked until it was next needed to be opened. About a year later the family would enter the cave and retrieve the bones of the deceased, put them in a small receptacle and bury them.

I also explained this custom in our last shiur:

In mishnaic times human remains were buried in caves, each family having its own cave in which the dead were laid out on bed-like niches in the rock. A very well preserved burial cave may be seen to this day, for example, in Bet She'arim, in Israel. (Bet She'arim was the ancestral plot of members of the family of the President of the Sanhedrin.)

Thus, as we learned in the previous mishnah, after the body of the executed criminal was removed from the gallows it was laid out in a special cave reserved by the court for that purpose. At the end of the first year the family were permitted to come and retrieve the skeletal remains and bury them in their own place of burial. We also saw in previous shiurim (including our last shiur) that death and burial are seen as affording atonement for sins committed during one's lifetime. The terrible death of execution and the subsequent shaming of the body (by displaying it hanged even for just a few seconds) was considered an even greater source of atonement. Thus, when the body had wasted away the debt could be deemed to have been paid off, as it were, and the family could come and retrieve the remains for re-burial, as was then the custom, in the family's cave.

3:
Our mishnah now describes a ceremony that is almost incredible. At this distance in time it is impossible to know whether the reconciliation described in our mishnah between the family of the deceased and the judges and witnesses who caused his death was a regular occurrence or a pious figment of the rabbinic imagination. When we first embarked upon this stage of our study I noted [Sanhedrin 079] that

There is every reason to believe that the procedures that will be described in the next four chapters of our tractate were purely the result of academic extrapolation: two preconceived basic premises determined the form of midrash to be used on the Biblical texts. The very few glimpses that our sources give us of actual historical executions present such formidable differences from what is described and developed here by the Mishnah that the Gemara has to declare them to be exceptions or to make excuses for them.

On the other hand, if such a 'graveside' meeting did take place, many months after the execution, it must have contributed enormously towards helping the relatives of the deceased to come to terms with what had happened. They are required to admit to themselves that it was not the judges or the witnesses that encompassed the death of their loved one: it was his own actions, in defiance of the explicit warnings of the witnesses, and despite the weighting of the judicial procedures in his favour, that caused his downfall. The judges gave a truthful judgment according to law and the witnesses (who, we recall, were also the executioners) had also acted in strict conformity with what was required of them by law.

4:
Since "there is rejoicing when the wicked perish", public mourning is obviously inappropriate. Thus after the execution and burial of the deceased the family observed no statutory mourning: the rending of garments and sitting in mourning for seven days ("Shiv'ah"). (I do not mention the recital of "Kaddish" here since that is a much later custom.) Since no statutory mourning was observed at the time of death and burial it should not be observed later, even though it is now presumed that suffering has brought about atonement. However, private grief cannot be legislated and its possibility must be recognized. Indeed, as we learned in the previous mishnah: "God thus regrets the shedding of the blood of the wicked". If that is the case then human relatives must also be allowed their personal grief.

We have now completed our study of the sixth chapter of our tractate.

In our last shiur we discussed whether the purpose of burial is in order not to bring the body into disrespect or to afford atonement. I then mentioned that The discussion in the Gemara leaves the issue unresolved. Tradition has, therefore, given both considerations equal weight.

Albert Ringer asks:

Is it possible that the Gemara stops the argument to exclude preparation of the body. Mumification is a way of showing great respect (I suppose), but will not bring the atonement of the return to dust.

I respond:

Albert does not make clear whether he is referring to mummification only or also to embalming. In order to clarify both processes let me quote from the Encyclopedia Judaica:

The natural drying out of the body by solar heat (mummification) is the oldest method of preserving a corpse. The ancient Egyptians may have simply tried to dry corpses in the hot desert sands, or as in one of the chambers found at Thebes, in rooms which were artificially heated. Embalming is the artificial treatment of a corpse to prevent or delay its putrefaction. In ancient Egypt the technique consisted, according to Herodotus, of using an iron hook to draw out the brain through the nostrils, and then making a cut along the flank to remove the abdominal contents, which were then washed and soaked in palm wine and infusions of spices. The cavity was filled with myrrh, cassia and other spices before being sewn up; the body was then washed and wrapped from head to foot in fine linen. The Bible … mentions it [mummification] only with reference to Jacob and Joseph, who both died in Egypt… The Egyptian belief that embalming ensured a pleasant afterlife was unknown in Israel. Today embalming before burial is widely practiced in the United States by undertakers, who inject a formalin solution into the blood vessels; but in Israel it is rare, being confined entirely to bodies being sent abroad for burial (in conformity with international regulations).

There are many halakhic considerations that mitigate against and preclude both mummification and embalming. I will reference only two of them here. The concept of Kevod ha-Met [the dignity of the deceased] would preclude "using an iron hook to draw out the brain through the nostrils, and then making a cut along the flank to remove the abdominal content"; it would also preclude injection of anything into the body of the deceased. (I specifically remove from these considerations post mortem incisions and dismemberment performed for scientific purposes. I will not elaborate since this is way off our topic, but I will reference a responsum by Rabbi Gilah Dror of the Va'ad Halakhah of the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel that appeared in volume 5 of the collected responsa of that body.)

The other halakhic consideration that precludes either of these processes is the obvious fact – that is emphasized by our present mishnah – that the ultimate aim of burial is to restore man to the dust from which he was originally created: "For you are but dust and to dust shall you return" [Genesis 3:19]. Both mummification and embalming are designed to prevent just that process.

Despite the topic of our shiur I wish everybody a Happy Purim.