[Avodah] Kivrey Avos

[Daniel M. Israel]

On Jun 21, 2012, at 1:42 PM, <T613K at aol.com> <T613K at aol.com> wrote:
> [1] What about the idea that those who have passed away come back and
> go to the simchas of their relatives and descendants? They must know
> about the weddings at least! Or do you have to explicitly invite them
> if you want them to come?

I'm curious, this seems to be a widespread notion, but does anyone have
a mekor?


On Jun 21, 2012, at 10:10 AM, Zev Sero wrote:
> On 21/06/2012 2:39 AM, Daniel M. Israel wrote:
>> On Jun 19, 2012, at 12:06 PM, Zev Sero wrote:
>>> And of course the whole concept is not relevant when one is directly
>>> addressing the niftar, asking him or her to intercede for us.

>> Assuming one holds that this is permitted in the first place.

Yes, clearly there are many who hold this is mutar, or even meritorious.
I was just pointing out, since you seemed to take this practice for
granted, that there are also those who are strongly against it.

But this takes us far afield of the original discussion, which when I
looked back at, puzzled me. REG was questioning whether there is any
value of going to a kever althogether (and whether we see any source for
the practice in Tanach), to which RMB responded with the din of lo'eig
larash. I don't see how that addresses the question.

As far as RZS's point that this doesn't apply to something done for the
kavod (I would say zechus) of the niftar, I see no stirah between RMB
and RZS. The reason not to daven is lo'eig larash, but there is an
exception where the niftar would appreciate it. I've never heard of
anyone objecting to saying tehillim l'ilui neshama within daled amos,
for example.


On Jun 20, 2012, at 2:36 PM, Zev Sero wrote:
> On 20/06/2012 3:45 PM, Eliyahu Grossman wrote:
>> I cannot find anywhere in Nach where it says that Yirmiyahu specifically
>> went to between Nebo and Chevron to enlist the aid of the deceased.
> 
> Everything has to be explicit in Nach?!
> 
>> Unless
>> it's a commentary that cites another source and ties them together. Could
>> you cite that source for me? Thanks!
> 
> "Az bahaloch Yirmiyahu al kever Avos".

The original source is a midrash in Eicha Rabba. But this midrash seems
to be more relevant to the question of making requests of meisim then
whether it is good to visit kevarim in the first place.

It seems to me that there are two reasons that one can't learn from
here that it is permissible to ask meisim to intercede for us. First,
the midrash itself is hard to take literally. According to the text in
Eicha Rabba, Yirmiyahu actually went to Machpela, and then to the banks
of the Yarden. In those days, that was a long trip. Given the text of
Tanach, as well as the internal structure of the midrash, it is hard to
support the notion that the incident spanned several weeks of travel.
And once we suggest that the midrash is not historic, it is entirely
reasonable to suggest that it is relating to zechus avos, but not that
we can specifically make requests.

Second (and this is a stronger point, IMHO), HaShem actually commands
Yirmiyahu to go request the Avos to intercede. So this could simply be
a hora'as sha'ah, from which we can learn nothing either way about the
appropriateness of our doing similarly.

--
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1 at cornell.edu