A Grave Lesson
In Guadeloupe, a country off the coast of Venezuela, a great mitzvah came my way. A Jewish body was found in a mass grave. Burial among gentiles causes indescribable anguish to a Jewish neshamah. It was therefore decided to exhume this body and bring it to proper Jewish burial. I was asked to join in the search for the Jewish coffin among all the gentile ones. We had one sign to go by – the tallit in which the body was wrapped. We opened coffin after coffin in search of the elusive tallit.
To our great sorrow, we did not succeed in unearthing the Jewish remains. But we did glean a monumental message. Seeing dead bodies decayed with snakes and scorpions feasting on them taught us of the futility of this world.
Chazal exhort us to always bear in mind that we are going “to a place of dust, worms, and maggots”(Avot 3:1).
