5786.1

Alternatives to Traditional Burial^[1]

Sh’eilah

Many people are interested in alternatives to in-ground burial, and a variety of new methods are now available for those who want them: green burial, fungal burial suits, natural organic reduction, and chemical “cremation” (alkaline hydrolysis). Are any of them acceptable for liberal Jews?

T’shuvah

1. 1. Contemporary concerns about inground burial
      

Ideally, we are taught, a Jewish burial is a simple affair—a corpse gently washed and wrapped in simple cloth by members of the community, placed in a simple wooden box, buried in the earth among the other dead of their family and community, and allowed to decay naturally back into the earth. It appears that much of the current interest in alternatives to our traditional practice stems from the gap between this ideal and the North American Jewish reality.

A primary motivation behind the search for alternatives to in-ground burial is concern for the environment. The environmental impact of non-Jewish practices—embalming, metal caskets that do not decay, concrete vaults—is far worse than that of traditional Jewish burial, but our community is not innocent in this respect. Conventional cemetery landscaping employs the destructive practices popularized by the so-called lawn care industry: Planting varieties of grass with no ecological benefit and then over-mowing it, thus requiring more and more toxic fertilizers and weed killers to maintain the grassy lawn appearance that has become the conventional standard, resulting in great swaths of land that cannot sustain insect, bird, or animal life. Due either to local laws or just to make it easier and less expensive to maintain an even flat lawn, virtually all cemeteries, including Jewish ones, require concrete burial vaults whose presence destroys the underground ecosystem below the grass. Concrete, metal, and synthetics over time release toxins into the soil. Additionally, cemeteries take up valuable open space on an increasingly crowded and overbuilt planet, especially in densely populated metropolitan areas.

A second concern, as the cost of living continues to rise and younger people feel a lack of financial security, is that even a basic Jewish burial has become quite expensive. In the urban areas where most North American Jews live, a cemetery plot sells for $5,000 to $10,000, with costs for even a simple funeral running about the same.^[2]

Finally, North American Jews tend to be highly mobile. People move often. Families are so scattered that there is no location that feels like “home.” Or perhaps there is, but an individual feels no need or desire to be buried there as opposed to anywhere else. Mobility also attenuates the connection between the individual Jew and any particular synagogue, and often between the individual Jew and any synagogue, much less a synagogue cemetery that they may never have seen. Without a strong prior commitment to Jewish burial, it is not surprising that many Jews find other alternatives more attractive.

This committee shares the dismay of many Jews over these gaps between the Jewish ideal and the Jewish reality. Our communities should provide affordable funerals and burials for every Jew. Our Jewish cemeteries could mitigate much of the environmental harm they do by changing their approach to maintenance. But these matters are beyond the scope of this responsum, which asks specifically whether there are acceptable Jewish alternatives to burying a body in the ground and/or ways to make in-ground burial less expensive or less damaging to the environment.

Of course, the fact that Jews have drifted away from a traditional practice is not ipso facto justification for abandoning it. However, as liberal Jews, we have for nearly two centuries engaged in an ongoing process of discernment: When is that drift a sign that we rabbis need to draw our people back to Torah as it stands, and when is it a sign that some inessential element of the past is being sloughed off, and our duty as rabbis is to help our people live a life faithful to Torah in a new way?

2. Ancient Israelite and postbiblical Jewish burial: halachah and historical context
   

The Torah (Deuteronomy 21:22–23) commands that the body of an executed criminal should not remain exposed after the day of execution. “If someone is guilty of a capital offense and is put to death, and you impale the body on a stake, you must not let the corpse remain on the stake overnight, but must bury it [ki kavor tikb’renu] the same day. For an impaled body is an affront to God: You shall not defile the land that the Eternal your God is giving you to possess.”^[3] Other biblical passages refer to the dead either literally or figuratively decomposing back into earth. God tells the first man, “By the sweat of your brow /Shall you get bread to eat, /Until you return to the ground—/For from it you were taken. /For dust you are, /And to dust you shall return (Genesis 3:19).” The author of Ecclesiastes contemplates the end of life in this fashion: “And the dust returns to the ground as it was, /And the lifebreath returns to God who gave it (Ecclesiastes 12:7).”

The combined weight of all these passages led the rabbis to regard speedy burial as a commandment.

R. Yohanan said in the name of R. Shimon bar Yohai: Where [in the Torah] does it imply that [any]one who leaves their dead [unburied] overnight transgresses a prohibition? This is the meaning of ki kavor tikb’renu, “You shall surely bury him.” From here [i.e., the doubled verb] it is implied that [any]one who leaves their dead overnight [i.e., not only the bodies of executed criminals, but all the dead] transgresses a prohibition.

There are those who say that R. Yohanan said in the name of R. Shimon bar Yohai: Where [in the Torah] does it imply that [everyone requires] burial? This is the meaning of ki kavor tikb’renu, “You shall surely bury him.” From here it is implied that everyone requires burial.^[4]

Nevertheless, it is crucial to realize that “returning to the earth” and “burial” did not mean, in ancient Israel and among the early rabbis, digging a hole in the ground for a body and covering it up again. We are all familiar with the Torah’s account (Genesis 23) of Abraham purchasing the Cave of Machpelah from Efron the Hittite to bury his wife, Sarah. What many contemporary Jews do not realize is that cave burial in ancient Israel, whether in a natural cave or one dug by hand from the soft stone of the Land of Israel, was very different from what we are now accustomed to think of as “burial.” From ancient times through the fifth or sixth century CE, our classic rabbinic texts bear witness to the reality that our ancestors did not place their dead in holes in the ground that were then filled with soil. “[T]he tomb most typical of the Israelite period is a natural cave or a chamber cut into soft rock near the city. Bodies would be laid on rock shelves provided on three sides of the chamber, or on the floor, and as generations of the same family used the tomb, skeletons and grave goods might be heaped up along the sides or put into a side chamber to make room for new burials.”^[5] Of course, not all Israelites could afford tombs; the Tanach tells us that when King Josiah purged the Temple of its idolatrous practices, he burned the image of Asherah that had been there and scattered its ashes “over the burial ground of the common people [kever b’nei haam]” in the Kidron Valley (II Kings 23:5).

Numerous references in the Mishnah and other Tannaitic sources confirm that the early rabbis regarded this as standard practice, going so far as to stipulate proper sizes for burial vaults.

One who sells a place to his fellow to make himself a tomb [kever], and so too one who receives a contract from his fellow to make him a tomb—he makes the interior of the cave four cubits by six and opens into it eight niches: three to this side, three to this side, and two opposite them. And the niches are four cubits in length, and their height seven [handbreadths] and their width six [handbreadths].

R. Simeon says: He makes the interior of the cave six cubits by six cubits and opens into it thirteen niches: four to this side, and four to this side, and three opposite them, and one to the right of the opening and one to the left. And he makes a courtyard in front of the cave, six by six, corresponding to the space occupied by the bier and its buriers, and he opens to it two caves, one to this side and one to this side.

R. Simeon says: Four, for each of its four sides.

Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel says: It all follows the rock.^[6]

The bodies placed in these caves or cave-like spaces decomposed naturally until only the skeleton remained. At that point, the children of the deceased, or some designated individual, would go into the burial place and collect the bones in order to place them permanently in another locale.^[7] The permanent place appears to have been a charnel pit within the family burial cave or, in the first century CE and later, an ossuary. This practice is called “secondary burial.” An individual who died away from home might be entombed and then their bones collected and transported home later for permanent placement in a family tomb.^[8] The day on which the bones were gathered was to be observed as a day of mourning with rituals almost identical to the week of mourning immediately following the original burial.^[9]

In addition to the written evidence of the Mishnah and other early rabbinic sources, we have the physical evidence of the Jewish necropolis at Bet She’arim in the Galilee, a large network of catacombs used by Jews over a period of centuries beginning in the late second century CE. No less a personage than Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi, the head of the Sanhedrin and redactor of the Mishnah, was laid to rest in the Bet She’arim catacombs.

Rock-cut catacombs…prepared to provide burial places to sell to people from outside Bet She’arim were found in all these areas. Some were family vaults, but the majority were for the general public. Each catacomb contained an open court and a number of tomb halls that were connected by a series of chambers to some of the branch burial compartments containing graves. The openings between the chambers are arched. The usual form of a grave is the arcosolium—an arched niche cut into the wall with trough-like graves hewn at the bottom. Kuchim (loculi—”burial recesses”) are also found frequently. Some of the catacombs lack all decoration, but many possess chambers that display a variegated ornamentation. The soft rock easily lent itself to carving and incision. The many reliefs, graffiti, and drawings adorning the walls are generally executed in the primitive style of the Jewish folk art popular in the Roman period. Jewish symbols and ritual objects are very common motifs, particularly the seven-branched candelabrum and the Ark of the Law, complete with columns and steps. The shofar, lulav, etrog, and incense shovel are also represented. But secular motifs also occur: human figures, animals, ships, geometric patterns, etc., as well as architectural ornaments that were carved in the rock (columns, capitals, arches, and niches).^[10]

However, there is also ample evidence in the Mishnah that people were buried in open fields, either with no grave marker or with a temporary marker. To cite only one example:

One who initially encounters a [single] corpse put to rest in the usual way may remove it, together with whatever is mixed together with it. If one found two, one may remove them, together with whatever is mixed together with them. If one found three—if there are between four and eight cubits between them, which is the space for the bier and those burying it—then it is a graveyard.^[11]

Ohalot 17:1 deals with the case of a farmer plowing a field who inadvertently plows up an unmarked grave, possibly churning up bits of bone and spreading them around the field on the plow blade. There is, apparently, no indication that anyone was buried there and enough time has passed so that only bones remain.

All this evidence should lay to rest the notion, retrojected onto the past by modern Jews fighting over the permissibility of change in our customs, that only “assimilated” Jews used mausoleums, ossuaries, and catacombs, while “faithful” Jews dug huge holes in the stony soil to place bodies in the earth. Wealth and poverty, not piety and impiety, were the determinants for burial in the Land of Israel.

There was never any sort of official rabbinic pronouncement mandating a change from caves and catacombs to in-ground burial as we understand it. Our ancestors simply adapted their practices to different conditions. Cave/catacomb burial requires suitable natural stone, which predominated in the Land of Israel but was not present in most of the places Jews resided in the Diaspora. As a result, however, halachic pronouncements in the Mishnah, the Tosefta, the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds, and by the Geonim present a confusing and contradictory picture, reflecting different local practices, as well as awareness that Jewish communities elsewhere and in the past had different burial practices.

3. Core Principles and Values in Burial Practices
   

A review of historical and halachic sources makes it clear that Jewish burial practices changed over time in response to real conditions, including geography, urbanization, and governmental policies regarding the disposal of bodies. What was constant was the rabbis’ commitment to the principles that they associated with burial practices: (1) the dignity of the deceased, (2) return to the earth, (3) avoiding ostentation, and (4) comforting the mourners.

K’vod HaMeit—The dignity of the deceased

In accordance with Jewish law and tradition, we care for the body of the deceased with great care and reverence. The body should be buried whole or as whole as possible.^[12] Jewish traditions such as taharah (ritual purification of the body), tachrichim (wrapping the body in plain linen shrouds), and prioritizing the funeral and burial of the deceased within a few days, should be included whenever possible.^[13] This respect for the deceased continues beyond burial. A grave should not be disturbed, because the deceased “has acquired their space,” and should not be dispossessed.^[14] We do not move a body after burial, unless the shift honors the deceased by allowing them to be reburied in a family plot.^[15] It is customary to put a marker on the grave to honor the deceased and to prevent people from walking on the grave.^[16]

Return to the earth

“For dust you are, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). Jewish tradition has maintained that burial should be in the earth to allow for a natural decomposition.^[17] Traditional Jewish burial has emphasized this with the traditions of shrouded burial (without a casket) in Israel, and where legal statutes require (as in the case in most jurisdictions in North America), in simple pine boxes. In addition, traditional pine caskets are often drilled with holes in the bottom of the casket to facilitate decomposition of the body back to the earth as speedily as is naturally possible. The rejection of embalming practices is also reflective of this value.

Avoiding Ostentation

Traditional Jewish burial customs also strive to honor the equality of all human beings before God in death as in life by emphasizing simplicity in burial. The Talmud reports that several practices associated with burial were standardized due to concern “for the honor of the poor.” BT Moeid Katan 27b states, “In an earlier time, burying the dead was more of a strain on the family than the death itself, to the point where the family would leave the body and flee. Then Rabban Gamaliel humbled himself, ordering that he be buried in linen; after that, people were buried in linen.” Simple shrouds and plain pine boxes, as mentioned above, as well as simplicity of headstones, are some of the actualized traditions of this value. Funerals are not meant to be ostentatious spectacles but rather, somber reflections on the life that has ended, without focus on the individual’s economic standing in life.

Nichum Aveilim—Comforting the Mourners

In addition to the consideration of dignity to the deceased with a quick burial, such speed also facilitates the important value of giving comfort to mourners. Minimizing their period of aninut, ,the time between death and burial, is an act of great chesed, which allows them to begin the period of mourning with all its accompanying rituals (shivah, Kaddish, sh’loshim, etc.).

For Jewish mourners, having a burial place to visit is an important piece of mourning, as well as emphasizing the value of zikaron, memory. Traditions such as unveiling ceremonies, kever avot v’imahot visitations around the High Holy Days, in addition to opportunities to visit at any time, give solace to mourners.

4. Modern alternatives
   

We have been asked to speak to four alternatives to traditional in-ground burial that are now available in the United States. Not all these methods have been approved in all states.

1. Green Burial

According to the Green Burial Council,^[18] Green burial is a method of caring for the dead “with minimal environmental impact that aids in the conservation of natural resources.” This includes the prohibition of embalming, vaults and non-biodegradable caskets and shrouds, and may use alternative methods for marking graves, including GPS markers.

2. Fungal Burial Suits^[19]

This is a biodegradable shroud impregnated with (invisible) mushroom spores that consume the toxins a body produces as it decomposes naturally, so that they do not leach out into the earth. It is intended to be used as an element of green burial.

3. Natural Organic Reduction

A company involved in this process has produced a video explaining their process, which they call “terramation.”^[20] As one of the project managers says, it is “designed to accelerate what nature already does so well.” It works in this way: The company uses a metal container large enough to hold a body and the amount of filler, a mixture of organic straw, sawdust, and alfalfa, they have determined to be sufficient. The filler is placed in the container until it is about one-third full. The body is then placed in the container, and more filler is added to fill the remaining space. The sealed container then sits for a month in a warehouse-like facility with a controlled temperature. During this month, the microbes in the body become “hyperactive” and transform all but the bones into soil. After a month the container is opened; the bones are removed, cremated, and replaced; and the container is closed up for another month. At the end of the second month everything in the container is soil that is either given back to the families or deposited in an eight-acre site where the company is turning into a natural area suitable for that region.^[21]

4. Alkaline Hydrolysis (“resomation”)

Alkaline hydrolysis uses water, alkaline chemicals, heat, and sometimes pressure and agitation, to accelerate natural decomposition, leaving bone fragments and a neutral liquid called effluent. The decomposition that occurs in alkaline hydrolysis is the same as that which occurs during burial, just sped up dramatically by the chemicals. The effluent is sterile and contains salts, sugars, amino acids, and peptides. There is no tissue and no DNA left after the process is completed. This effluent is discharged with all other wastewater and is a welcome addition to the water systems. ^[22]

Analysis

1. Green Burial

In essence, green burial bears a very strong resemblance to traditional Jewish burial. The latter, while not framing practices as specifically environmental, can result in an environmentally sensitive outcome. Green burial, while focusing on an environmentally sensitive outcome, may support the ideals we have identified above.

One concern about green burial, and in particular burial in designated green cemeteries, centers on questions around grave markers. Green cemeteries that allow grave markers may require that the markers blend into the natural environment or be flat to the ground; in some cases, a small plaque may be used. Some suggest “natural” grave markers, a biodegradable wooden marker, or a plant. Jewish tradition calls for marking a grave, in part to prevent people from stepping on a space where someone is buried. Markers also preserve a family or community’s history. The Responsa Committee plans to take up the question of what constitutes an appropriate grave marker in a separate responsum.

2. Fungal Burial Uuits

The use of a biodegradable shroud impregnated with (invisible) mushroom spores that consume the toxins a body produces as it decomposes is not at all a significant departure from ours. In theory, a Jew could be buried in one of these instead of traditional shrouds. If a Jewish funeral home and/or chevrah kadishah was preparing the body for burial, the family could request the use of this type of shroud, which costs approximately $1,500.

3. Natural Organic Reduction

Natural organic reduction shares with Jewish tradition a desire to have the human body return to the earth. There is already halachic precedent for spreading quicklime on a body to hasten its decay if it is necessary to transport it to its place of permanent burial. The process is even more natural than that. Because natural organic reduction involves wrapping a body in a biodegradable shroud or simple covering, and it is likely that the remains would be placed in a simple container when given to the family, it also avoids ostentation.

Because natural organic reduction involves placing the body into a temporary container, some will say that this is an outright transgression of the Torah, that it is halanat hameit, placing a body in a coffin and then not interring the coffin. However, one could also argue that this is the functional equivalent of cave/catacomb burial, as practiced in the Land of Israel at least through the fifth century CE, in that the body is placed in a burial chamber to decompose, and then the bones are collected and placed permanently in an ossuary in a designated spot within the chamber. One might also argue that it is similar to temporary interment when it is known ahead of time that the deceased is to be laid to rest permanently somewhere else.^[23]

Natural organic reduction as described on one site involves burning the bones at the one-month interval. We are already on record permitting the burial of cremains in our cemeteries, so the burning of the bones is not in itself problematic. It should be noted, however, that the purpose of burning the bones is so that the final product is fine soil that can be used, and deriving benefit from the dead is prohibited in our tradition. Another company offers a process they call soil transformation that appears to achieve the same results without burning.^[24]

Another question that arises is what to do with the final remains, the soil produced through the natural organic reduction process. Here is where natural organic reduction diverges most starkly from our traditional ideas of honoring our dead. First, the goal of natural organic reduction is to produce soil that can be used, but we are forbidden to make use of the dead. Using that soil as, say, the base for one’s tomato plants or one’s butterfly garden would be without any precedent in our tradition and contrary to the sensibilities of the vast majority of Jews. From the point of view of halachah, there is no difference between this and any other procedure that would turn all or part of a human body into a useful resource.

An additional concern is that from earliest times we have tried to place our dead in an identifiable location. This is not only due to concerns for tum’ah. It has also been part and parcel of our way of showing honor and respect to our forebears. Finally, if the goal of natural organic reduction is to produce soil unidentifiable in any way as human remains, to what extent must we treat it as such? As Reform Jews, we are not concerned with kohanim stepping on it, but is there something inherent in the physical soil itself that compels us to treat it as if it still contains human remains? Or is its significance merely a symbolic one?

It would be possible to align natural organic reduction with traditional Jewish values related to k’vod hameit by interring the soil (as if it were a body or cremains) in a green cemetery and placing a simple marker to indicate the presence of a grave.

Finally, natural organic reduction requires time, creating a two-month delay between death and the possibility of burial. Jewish tradition recognizes that the loss of a close family member disrupts the lives of the deceased’s relatives. From the time of death to the moment when the grave has been covered (s’timat hagolel), the mourners are said to be in a state of aninut, a state where they cannot be expected to fulfill certain mitzvot or focus on anything beyond their loss. Timely burial not only honors the dead; it allows the family to move into the period of mourning (shivah) where they can be cared for by their community.

In Jewish tradition, the period between death, funeral, burial, and the commencement of shivah can be a matter of a few days. The timeline in a case where an individual chooses natural organic reduction would be much longer.

If we regard natural organic reduction as equivalent to cave/catacomb burial or as a permitted temporary interment, then the entire process needs to cohere with our values and practices. We need clarification: Does the funeral take place as usual and then the body is taken to the facility that processes the remains? Do the mourners accompany it? Are they present when the container is sealed? Do they recite Kaddish at that point?

There are several timelines that could be considered:

1. 1. 1. Death, Funeral, Shivah, Natural Organic Reduction, Burial (burial delayed 30 to 45 days)
      2. Death, Funeral, Natural Organic Reduction, Delayed Burial, Delayed Shivah (burial and shivah delayed 30 to 45 days)
      3. Death, Natural Organic Reduction, Funeral, Burial, Shivah (funeral, burial, and shivah delayed 30 to 45 days)
      4. Death, Funeral, Natural Organic Reduction, AND shivah begin simultaneously, burial of final remains, AND placing of grave marker (unveiling)

The second and third timelines are problematic. There are cases when shivah is delayed, specifically when a death occurs during a festival, and shivah cannot begin until after the festival.^[25] The delay required to complete the reduction process so that the family receives remains that could be buried would comprise not a week, but several months. One only has to think of the emotional strain on families who are forced to wait for bodies to be released for burial or for the recovery of bodies in the event of a natural disaster or accident to realize that such delays should be avoided whenever possible.

Using the first timeline, a family could hold a funeral soon after death. The situation could be treated like one in which a body is being sent elsewhere for burial. In such a case, “as soon as the mourners turn their faces away from escorting the body, they begin to count seven days and thirty days (that is, shivah begins, to be followed by sh’loshim) and they begin to mourn.”^[26] When the family receives the remains, they may arrange for burial. The fourth timeline moves the setting of a grave marker or tombstone from twelve months after death to the point in time when the process of reduction is complete and the remains may be buried, approximately one to two months after death. This allows for a formal ceremony that is distinct from the funeral.

4. Alkaline Hydrolysis (“resomation”)

Companies that provide alkaline hydrolysis offer multiple options for the disposal of the remains. The option that best matches the Jewish values outlined in this responsum would be burial in a Jewish cemetery. While the result of alkaline hydrolysis is a completely decomposed body, the introduction of chemicals into the process makes it more like the old practice of using quicklime, and less like an accelerated but completely organic decomposition. As with natural organic reduction, solid remains can be interred. One cannot, by definition, inter water. In cave/catacomb burial it evaporated; in in-ground burial it simply flows out into the ground. Perhaps as a symbolic gesture the sterile effluent resulting from this process should be poured out where the solid remains are placed.

One of the challenges of natural organic reduction—delayed burial—is avoided with alkaline hydrolysis. Alkaline hydrolysis takes place in a matter of hours, allowing a funeral and burial to occur soon after death. This in turn allows shivah to begin, offering the mourners the support and comfort of the community.

A previous CCAR responsum regarding resomation dealt with the question of treatment of the remains produced by the process. “Our response is the same we would give to a question concerning cremation: Whatever remains survive the chemical decomposition process should be buried, in (partial) fulfillment of the traditional mitzvah to bury the dead. Since, in theory, the liquefied remains can be preserved (unlike cremation, where the incinerated remains are emitted into the atmosphere), every effort should be made to bury them along with the bones of the deceased.^[27]

Conclusions

Each of the methods discussed in this responsum has aspects that are consonant with the values and concerns reflected in traditional Jewish burial practices.

Green Burial

Green burial, particularly when available in a Jewish cemetery, is essentially indistinguishable from a funeral in Israel; the main departures from standard funerals in the United States are the absence of a coffin and minimalist grave markers. Some Jewish cemeteries have made green burial available as an option. In a community that lacks a Jewish cemetery that can accommodate green burial, burial in a non-Jewish cemetery could be an option.^[28] This would be no different than being buried in a VA or municipal cemetery. If a Jew purchases a cemetery plot, it becomes their property, and they are thus buried b’toch shelo.

Green burial would be consonant with all the values mentioned above when:

1. 1. • Burials are preceded by taharah and shmirah.
      • The body is wrapped in a biodegradable shroud.
      • A simple marker is used to indicate the presence of a grave.^[29]

Fungal Burial Suit

The fungal burial suit would be used in place of a traditional shroud and would not be noticeable in a closed casket funeral. The funeral and burial would then proceed as any other Jewish funeral.

Natural Organic Reduction

This method poses the greatest challenge to timely burial, and with it, the journey of mourners from aninut to shivah. As noted above, the process currently available takes 45 to 60 days. This requires a delay in burial and shivah or requires the family to hold a funeral without burial. If a person chooses natural organic reduction with the understanding that the remains will be used as soil, there would be no burial.

Should someone prefer natural organic reduction to traditional burial, we would draw on Jewish traditions surrounding an older practice—“secondary burial.” As described above, this practice involved the corpse decomposing in one place after which the bones would be interred in another place. We could treat the process, which does involve placing the body in a closed container, as an initial interment, with the expectation that the remains would be “reburied.”

Natural organic reduction would be most consonant with the values that we have identified if:

1. 1. • The process was preceded by taharah and shmirah.
      • A funeral was held soon after death, followed by shivah.
      • When the process was completed, the remains were buried in a cemetery and a marker was placed to indicate the presence of a grave. There are Jewish rituals and liturgy associated with reburial that could be used when the remains are buried.^[30]

Alkaline Hydrolysis

Alkaline hydrolysis would not impact the funeral or burial process differently than does cremation; there are remains that can be buried and burial can occur within days of death. The process would be most consonant with the values identified earlier in this responsum when:

1. 1. • Alkaline hydrolysis is preceded by taharah and shmirah.
      • When the alkaline hydrolysis process is completed, the remains are buried in a cemetery, and a marker is placed to indicate the presence of a grave.

We recognize that someone opting for natural organic reduction or alkaline hydrolysis out of concern for the environment or for financial reasons might eschew burial of the remains in a cemetery and decide to have the remains used as soil or otherwise disposed of. This should be treated no differently than situations when a family decides to retain or scatter cremains rather than inter them.

We also recognize that Jewish cemeteries, like their non-Jewish counterparts, must comply with state and local laws regulating burial. In some locations, green burial may not be possible due to laws requiring vaults or grave liners composed of non-biodegradable materials. Laws regarding the disposal of remains might also impact the burial of remains produced by natural organic reduction or alkaline hydrolysis.

Through practices related to death, Judaism demonstrates the honor due to a human being, made in the image of God, in death as well as in life. Human beings are not disposable when alive and should not be seen as disposable after death. The custom of interring a body, whether in the ground or in a cave or catacomb, reflects the respect we have for the body after death. Similarly, decisions should be made with sensitivity to the family of the deceased. Planning for death involves many factors; our hope is that Jewish tradition is one of them. We know that liberal Jews seek to live in accordance with our tradition and with the best values of the larger society, including concern for the environment. We are confident that this responsum demonstrates that it is not necessary to choose between Jewish tradition and these other values when arranging a burial.

Although not required by Jewish law, our tradition does encourage Jews to be buried in Jewish cemeteries. We are aware that at present, some of the methods for handling remains discussed in this responsum are not common practice in the Jewish community and may not be on the radar of Jewish cemeteries. We hope that this responsum will encourage conversations about both traditional and newer burial practices within families, between families and rabbis, and with Jewish cemeteries and funeral homes.

The CCAR Responsa Committee

Rabbi Dvora E. Weisberg, Chair
Rabbi Carey Brown, Rabbi Phil Cohen, Rabbi Joan S. Friedman, Rabbi Ben Gurin, Rabbi Suzie Jacobson, Rabbi Audrey R. Korotkin, Rabbi Rachel Sabath Beit-Halachmi, Rabbi Amy Scheinerman, Rabbi Micah Streiffer, Rabbi David Z. Vaisberg, Rabbi Michael Walden, Rabbi Jeremy Weisblatt

1. 1. 1. This responsum was written by Rabbis Carey Brown, Joan S. Friedman, and Dvora E Weisberg. ↑
      2. Here are some examples of costs associated with Jewish burial: $5,000 for Urn Garden, $10,000 for a single inground plot (https://www.hebrewrest.org/prices). Congregation Beth Israel, Dallas: inground $4,750, columbarium niche $3,500 (https://www.beth-israel.org/cemetery-pricing/). Temple Beth Zion (Boston area) offers a funeral package that includes taharah, tachrichim, shmirah, plain casket, and transportation of the deceased for $6,855; this price does NOT include the cemetery plot. (https://www.tbzbrookline.org/care/hesed-tbz/death-mourning/). Resale of plots market, $23,000 (https://www.buriallink.com/cemeteries/mount-sinai-hollywood-hills-ca). ↑
      3. The later authorities concluded from this that it is a mitzvah to bury on the day of death not only executed criminals, but all Jews. However, they note, it is permissible to delay burial if the delay is to do honor to the deceased by providing the burial needs and allowing the family to assemble. (Mishneh Hilchot Avel 4:8; Tur YD 357; SA YD 371:1.) For a list of cases in which delayed burial is permitted, see Maurice Lamm, Jewish Way in Death and Mourning, 19–20. ↑
      4. BT Sanhedrin 46b. ↑
      5. Delbert Roy Hillers and Reuben Kashani, “Burial.” In Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed., edited by Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007) 4:291. Gale eBooks (accessed February 15, 2026). https://link-gale-com.wooster.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/CX2587503747/GVRL?u=ohlnk162&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=d8df5012. See also Steven Fine, “Death, Burial, and Afterlife,” in Catherine Hezser, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Daily Life in Roman Palestine (NY: Oxford University Press, 2015), 440–462. ↑
      6. Mishnah Bava Batra 6:8. Translation from Shaye JD Cohen, Robert Goldenberg, and Hayim Lapin, eds., The Oxford Annotated Mishnah: A New Translation of the Mishnah with Introductions and Notes, Vol. II (NY: Oxford University Press, 2022), 470. ↑
      7. Mishnah Moeid Katan 1:5–6; S’machot 12:4, 6, 7, 8, 9. ↑
      8. S’machot 13:1, 2. ↑
      9. S’machot 12:1, 3, 4; 13:1 ↑
      10. “Bet She’arim,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed., edited by Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, Vol. 3 (Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007), 547–548. Gale eBooks (accessed February 5, 2026). https://link-gale-com.wooster.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/CX2587502881/GVRL?u=ohlnk162&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=1aeee5be. ↑
      11. Mi Ohalot 16:3, translation from Cohen et al. ↑
      12. For discussions of the permissibility of autopsy, see https://www.ccarnet.org/ccar-responsa/arr-278-283/ and https://www.ccarnet.org/ccar-responsa/carr-140-142/. For discussions of organ retrieval, see https://www.ccarnet.org/ccar-responsa/arr-291-296/. A recent CCAR responsum permitted the removal of a pacemaker from a corpse for reuse. https://www.ccarnet.org/ccar-responsa/5785-1-removing-a-pacemaker-from-a-corpse-for-reuse/. ↑
      13. Regarding taharah and shrouds, see SA, YD 352. The requirement to bury as soon as possible after death is discussed in SA, YD 357. ↑
      14. SA, YD 364:3. ↑
      15. SA, YD 363:4 also permits reburial after a process intended to allow for decomposition. ↑
      16. The marking of graves is mentioned in the Mishnah and the Babylonian Talmud. Although a major factor in the early sources, preventing contact with the ritual impurity that results from contact with a corpse, is longer relevant for us, avoiding walking over a grave continues to be way to show respect for the deceased. ↑
      17. SA, YD 362:1. ↑
      18. https://www.greenburialcouncil.org/greenburialdefined.html. ↑
      19. https://deathcareindustry.com/the-coeio-infinity-mushroom-burial-suit/; https://fellowsblog.ted.com/how-the-mushroom-death-suit-will-change-the-way-we-die-a52f486dc816. ↑
      20. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5-CLcl8B2g. ↑
      21. Another company refers to a similar process of decomposing the body rapidly as “soil transformation.” The company’s website describes a four-step process. The first step mirrors the traditional Jewish practice of taharah; according to the website, “the body is gently washed and wrapped in a biodegradable shroud.” The body is then placed in a container filled with natural material and in forty-five days is reduced to soil that can then be given to the deceased’s relatives. https://earthfuneral.com/. ↑
      22. https://www.cremationassociation.org/alkalinehydrolysis.html. ↑
      23. SA, YD 363:4. ↑
      24. https://earthfuneral.com/what-is-soil-transformation ↑
      25. SA, YD 399:2. ↑
      26. SA, YD 375:2. ↑
      27. https://www.ccarnet.org/ccar-responsa/5774-6/ The same can be said of remains after terramation. ↑
      28. A CCAR responsum from 1985 permits members of a Jewish family in a small community without a Jewish cemetery to be buried in the local community cemetery. That responsum states that it would be preferable for a section of the cemetery, however small, be designated as a Jewish section. https://www.ccarnet.org/ccar-responsa/carr-166-167/ A few years later, a responsum offered a congregation recommendations for establishing a Jewish section in a municipal non-sectarian cemetery. https://www.ccarnet.org/ccar-responsa/narr-315-317/ ↑
      29. In all these situations, the marker could be placed at the time when it is customary to have an unveiling. ↑
      30. Kol Bo al Aveilut, 241–242; Maurice Lamm, Jewish Way in Death and Mourning, 73–74. ↑