[Avodah] May Kohanim visit the Rebbe's Ohel by means of a "box"?

[Zev Sero]

T613K at aol.com wrote:
 
> 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.

You lived for a while in Melbourne, where none of the above was the
case.  Cohanim *do* go to levayos, and sit in the chapel at the
cemetery, in a special "cohanim room" which doesn't share a roof
with the rest of the building, but from which they can see and hear
just like everyone else.  And they *do* visit kevarim that are in
the front row, standing in the road; no burials are done within 4 amot
of the roads, specifically for this purpose.


> 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.

If they're outside the cemetery they don't need to be across the way,
they can come right up to the 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.

Cohanim have been going to the L ohel since 1950, using a human mechitza
to separate them from the graves along the path on the way.  And I'm
sure this wasn't a chidush then either.


> And is it OK for kohanim to visit other kevarim or only those of their 
> rebbe?

The same box should work to go anywhere in a cemetery, so long as the
kohen is sure that there's nobody buried underneath him.


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas