Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Halacha: Body Parts of Jewish Victims

B"H


The other day I received the following e - mail question:

How do you call the custom of collecting Jewish body parts after, for instance, a terror attack ?

I asked a chassidic Rabbi for the answer yesterday and he told me what I had expected: "There is no particular name for collecting all the body parts after a terror attack. According to Halacha, all body parts should undergo a DNA test in order to be buried with the person himself. However, there are cases in Jerusalem where not all body parts undergo such a test and, instead, are being buried together in one grave. This grave is called "Kever Achim" and in Jerusalem you can find such a grave on Har Hazeitim (Mount of Olives).

2 comments:

  1. We should never know about such things. I wondered when at mass graves in Poland how Tchias Hameisim would occur for people who rachmana litzlan were not buried anywhere near the rest of their bodies...

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  2. B"H

    I can just let you know what the Talmud says in Masechet Sanhedrin:

    If a dead body is missing a body part, the sun in messianic times will be either healing or destructive. The righteous will be healed (including their missing body parts) and the wicked will burn.

    May I am sounding too naive but I am sure that G - d will let happen a Techiah in Poland as well.

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