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Oct. 17th, 2004 11:17 pmApparently its a Jewish tradition that a burial to, when you're putting earth on the grave, use the shovel blade upside down. The Rabbi at the funeral today said one of the reasons why was because it was to show that you weren't using the shovel for an ordinary act.
Other reasons I thought of:
Shoveling it in like that makes it take longer, so you have to stay there and think about the love one longer.
Life and death isn't an easy thing, so why should burying the past be an easy thing.
Three shovels of dirt per person, one for the past, present and the future.
I had more, but I can't think of them.
-=-
Uncle Martin was the last of my mother's father's brothers. There were five of them and a sister.
And then there was their mother. At least here in America. There was a lot of family over in the old country. And then there was a pair that, instead of coming to the States, walked (yes walked) to Palestine.
Everyone that was in the old country perished in the Holocuast. Every last one of them. My grandfather (mom's dad) tried to get them to come over here. But they thought that since one of the fathers or grandfather's was a big who'sit in the German Army during WWI they'd be safe. They got some correspondence from some of them in the Camps. One of my grandfather's cousins was going to be a doctor like him so they wrote to each other alot. The last letter he got from the cousin was from when he was in one of the Camps. The cousin said that he had met this most wonderful girl and they were going to get married when the war was over.
I guess... where I'm going with this is that... I'm a third generation American. And I'm in the third Generation from Holocaust, maybe even second because people my father's age were in the Camps. After my grandparents generation, we have nothing. I have nothing. No family, no nothing. It is as if my family, on both sides, didn't exist until my grandparents were born. And then there they were. We litteraly don't know anything except scraps of what was in the family before hand. Our history or anything. And the people who knew are all dead. Or were killed. There's just this big gap in my family tree.
When I was younger, I never understood the need for a family reunion. The family (what there was) would get together every fourth of July and New Years day. There didn't need to be a big reunion. The idea that there could be huge families with branches and people all over the place just wasn't a reality. It was just me, my parents, my grandparents, and my aunts and uncles and few cousins. That was it.
I don't know... My grandfather's generation is just about gone. And the gap between what was before the Holocaust and what is after grow larger.
Other reasons I thought of:
Shoveling it in like that makes it take longer, so you have to stay there and think about the love one longer.
Life and death isn't an easy thing, so why should burying the past be an easy thing.
Three shovels of dirt per person, one for the past, present and the future.
I had more, but I can't think of them.
-=-
Uncle Martin was the last of my mother's father's brothers. There were five of them and a sister.
And then there was their mother. At least here in America. There was a lot of family over in the old country. And then there was a pair that, instead of coming to the States, walked (yes walked) to Palestine.
Everyone that was in the old country perished in the Holocuast. Every last one of them. My grandfather (mom's dad) tried to get them to come over here. But they thought that since one of the fathers or grandfather's was a big who'sit in the German Army during WWI they'd be safe. They got some correspondence from some of them in the Camps. One of my grandfather's cousins was going to be a doctor like him so they wrote to each other alot. The last letter he got from the cousin was from when he was in one of the Camps. The cousin said that he had met this most wonderful girl and they were going to get married when the war was over.
I guess... where I'm going with this is that... I'm a third generation American. And I'm in the third Generation from Holocaust, maybe even second because people my father's age were in the Camps. After my grandparents generation, we have nothing. I have nothing. No family, no nothing. It is as if my family, on both sides, didn't exist until my grandparents were born. And then there they were. We litteraly don't know anything except scraps of what was in the family before hand. Our history or anything. And the people who knew are all dead. Or were killed. There's just this big gap in my family tree.
When I was younger, I never understood the need for a family reunion. The family (what there was) would get together every fourth of July and New Years day. There didn't need to be a big reunion. The idea that there could be huge families with branches and people all over the place just wasn't a reality. It was just me, my parents, my grandparents, and my aunts and uncles and few cousins. That was it.
I don't know... My grandfather's generation is just about gone. And the gap between what was before the Holocaust and what is after grow larger.
