QUESTION: Why do we wash our hands after leaving a funeral or the cemetery?
ANSWER: This is a very old tradition. There are references to this over a thousand years ago in Jewish sources. It is symbolic of “washing away death” and probably symbolic of purification after exposure to death. Louis Memorial Chapel has a washing basin outside their chapel. It is even heated so that it can be used on the coldest days in the winter. One absolutely needs to wash one’s hands after leaving the chapel. Similarly one should try to wash after leaving the cemetery. I realize that is a challenge in winter months. But usually one can go to the nearest bathroom in the facility in the chapels of most of our cemeteries and wash there as well. There is also a similar tradition to have water waiting outside the shiva home upon returning from the cemetery, in which case one does not have to wash their hands on leaving the cemetery if one is going directly to the shiva home. It is also traditional not to dry our hands at that time but to let one’s hands “air dry.”
At one time people would purify themselves after exposure to death through a sacrifice known as the “red heifer.” We have not had access to that type of ceremony for over 2,000 years. The use of the mikvah and washing, etc. is the closest we have to those purification ceremonies.
There are many other symbols that take place at the cemetery. Many people have the tradition of leaving a stone, a rock or a pebble on the grave as a kind of “visiting card” that one has been there to pay respect to the memory of those buried there. Other people have the tradition of plucking a little grass and throwing it over their shoulder upon leaving the cemetery based on the verse talking about the fact that we are as “the grass of the field.” Even placing soil on the grave has to do with verses based in the Bible about “dust to dust” and completing a full burial by shoveling into the grave.
So many of these traditions are just that, they are not law but they are steeped in our Jewish past and should be highly respected.
