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This happened to me
Nothing’s Worse Than a Dead Fart — The Dead Body Washing Committee — Horrors Included in Honors
Traumatic memories locked in an olfactory nightmare.
My teenage years were filled with many thrills and new experiences. But, nothing prepared me for my first experience with the dead. Grandmother recently sold her old home, now on a busy commercial avenue, to a mortician. The mortician erected a Jewish funeral home.
We were a conservative Jewish family, and I attended religious services every Shabat. The Saturday morning congregations consisted of chanting, singing, and sweet snacks after the closing prayers. Close to two hours of traditional meditation didn’t prepare me for the Jewish practice concerning the ceremonial washing of bodies.
In fact, I never heard of the Chevra Kadisha( sounds like — Kevrah Kaheeshah) before my grandmother sold the old house on Kaley Avenue to the mortician. My dad asked me if I wanted to be on the committee. The mitzvah, good deed or honor, of participating in the Chevra Kadisha(Jewish burial society or holy society in Aramaic) intrigued and excited me.
I wondered what qualifications I needed. Do you need a certificate to be a body washer? Do you need a license? Do you get a trophy or a plaque signifying your contribution?
Dad told me, “Just show up.”
Showing up, being there, and helping out is the ‘BIG’ qualification for Chevra Kadisha’s membership. ‘Showing up’ is probably the biggest qualification and determination for every kind of success.
We met every other Wednesday. There were always bodies to wash. My training began, but it was no more than a few simple tasks. The Hebrew I learned and practiced at Shabat services paid off because the other men of the dead-body-washing-committee chose me to read all of the prayers preceding and following a body washing.
Each step of my first day was at once terrifying and then anticlimactic. We removed the body from the funeral home’s huge walk-in freezer. The hydraulic lift on the stretcher and moving shelves assisted in retrieving each corpse. Each movement required little effort on our part until we slid the man on to the steel washboard.
