[Avodah] Kohanim in Cemeteries

[Jonathan Baker]

RnTK:


> My whole life I have known that kohanim don't go to cemeteries.  I've been
> married to a kohen for 30 years, and that's just how it is -- kohanim don't
> go to lavayos, they don't go to cemeteries, they don't even go to their own
> parents' graves.  In fact, kohanim are buried at the edge of the cemetery so
> their kohen relatives can "visit" them from across the way without having to
> actually enter the cemetery.

Even aside from that, kohanim go to the cemetery for the shiva krovim,
or even for their spouse's shiva krovim, but stay on the concrete
paths.  My grandmother's family was Kohanim.  Uncle Malcolm came to
all the levayas for his sisters, and I think some of my Kahn cousins
came as well, but stayed on the path.  If they go to a funeral in a
funeral parlor, they stay in a side room, or on the street, or in some
places in a separate box outside with a wired sound/video hookup.

Maybe that's your husband's family custom, but other kohanim do differently.

> > Now all of a sudden it turns out that kohanim do go to cemeteries, no big
> deal, and have always done so, and the Gemara talks about it.  All they need
> is a box, a common priestly accouterment, readily attained, I would assume,
> at the funeral home or at your nearest Kohanim-R-Us supply store.

so why not use the box on shabbos to carry stuff?  wear the box on
suspenders, and carry stuff inside.  you're inside a fence.

> > Naturally I have to wonder if this is one of those things we have "always"
> known and "always" done that people really only started doing with the
> passing of the last Lubavitcher rebbe.

No, no, many of my mother's relatives died before the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

--
        name: jon baker              web: http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker
     address: jjbaker at panix.com     blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com