23 May 2012 – The Good Funeral Guide

Down to Earth wants volunteers

Down to Earth Mentoring Programme

Down to Earth is now recruiting volunteer mentors to support people on a low income as they deal with the funeral planning process.

What will mentoring for Down to Earth be like?

Challenging but rewarding! You will work closely with individuals and families on low incomes who are organising a funeral—sometimes their own. You will be providing them with the information and support they need to make the best possible decisions at this difficult time. This may involve working from our base in Bethnal Green, a community venue or a person’s home. Types of support may include:
• Telephone signposting to appropriate services
• 1:1 planning sessions with our funeral planning pack
• Support in filling out Social Fund claim forms or making loan applications
• Support in meeting funeral directors and other official appointments
• Providing a neutral viewpoint and unbiased feedback on decisions
• Gently guiding someone through the whole funeral process

What skills and qualities are we looking for?

We need people with empathy, patience and good communication skills. You will be a good organiser, confident in problem solving and happy working with challenging and delicate situations. Some experience of death and funerals is ideal, but not essential. Above all, we are looking for people with the desire, time, skills and compassion to commit to working with people who are making hard decisions around death.

Due to the sensitive nature of the volunteering we suggest that mentors be aged 21 or over. Volunteers would be asked to commit to the project for a minimum of six months.

Why mentor for Down to Earth?

As a volunteer mentor for Down to Earth you will have the privilege of supporting vulnerable people at the most difficult time in their lives. It’s a powerful experience that is sure to challenge your world view.
Our mentoring provides a unique opportunity to develop a broad range of transferable skills in communication, support and event planning. We provide full support from a team of end-of-life care professionals. Our mentors also benefit from full training over four days, covering such modules as:
• Death and bereavement
• The mentoring process
• The funeral process and action planning
• Financial planning and the Social Fund
• Faith and cultural awareness
• Communication and listening skills
• Dealing with difficult questions
• Recognising risk

When?

Initial interviews: Thursday 7th June 18:00 to 20:30
Training 10:00 to 16:00 on 13th, 14th, 20th and 21st June

Interested? Telephone Lawrence on 020 8983 5057 or write to LawrenceKilshaw@qsa.org.uk for an application pack or just to find out more.

Lawrence Kilshaw
Down to Earth

Quaker Social Action
17 Old Ford Road, Bethnal Green, E2 9PJ
Tel: 020 8983 5057
Fax: 020 8983 5069
Web: www.quakersocialaction.com

QSA: 140 years of social action in east London; winners of a Centre for Social Justice award and a CAF Charity award, winners of the Bank of America Neighbourhoods Excellence Initiative and a New Philanthropy Capital recommended charity

Religious funerals: why Jews bury their dead

Posted by our religious correspondent, Richard Rawlinson

The first crematorium to be opened in London, in 1902, is directly opposite Golders Green Jewish Cemetery, opened in 1895. Apart from their Hoop Lane location, they share little in common. Traditional Jews, like traditional Christians and Muslims, believe in burial: and burial only in a Jewish cemetery, with a funeral at which only fellow Jews handle the body, carry the coffin and fill the grave. While Jews, like Christians, are free to lapse and go with the relativist secular flow, orthodox Jewish teaching is absolutely clear on this, whether or not it seems counter-cultural in modern liberal society.

‘Earth you are, and to earth you will return,’ were God’s words to Adam in Genesis. Jews believe the body’s natural decomposition in the earth, the source of all life, is directly commensurate with the soul’s ability to return to its divine root. They hold that the soul does not depart the body immediately, meaning incineration in a furnace would be spiritually traumatic: the soul is in an in-between state when it has no body with which to relate to the world, and is not yet free of its tenuous bonds.

This belief contrasts with the more pragmatic view, held by Buddhists and atheists alike, that upon death what is left is only matter and how remains are treated is of no consequence to the well being of the departed.

As a deterrent to cremation, ashes should not be interred in a Jewish cemetery, and the bereaved are even encouraged to go against the wishes of the deceased if contrary to tradition. Scholarly Rabbi Naftali Silberberg says: ‘While ordinarily Jewish law requires the deceased’s children to go to great lengths to respect the departed’s wishes, if someone requests to be cremated or buried in a manner which is not in accordance with Jewish tradition, we nevertheless provide him/her with a Jewish burial’.

By way of justification, he explains: ‘It is believed that since the soul has now arrived to the World of Truth it surely sees the value of a proper Jewish burial, and thus administering a traditional Jewish burial is actually granting what the person truly wishes at the moment.

‘Furthermore, if anyone, all the more so your father and mother, asks you to damage or hurt their body, you are not allowed to do so. For our bodies do not belong to us, they belong to God’.

The belief that the body is a sacred vessel for the soul, and simply on loan from God, is complemented by the belief that Man was created in God’s image, further strengthening the case against bodily mutilation. These two reasons combine to explain why religious Jews oppose tattoos and piercings, and autopsies and embalming which violate the body’s completeness, defacing it so it cannot be returned in its entirety, as it was given.

As with most laws, there are, however, exceptions. ‘After the Holocaust, many conscientious Jews gathered ashes from the extermination camp crematoria and respectfully buried them in Jewish cemeteries,’ says Silberberg.

He adds: ‘An individual who was raised in a non-religious atmosphere and was never accorded a proper Jewish education cannot be held responsible for his or her lack of observance. This general rule applies to individuals who opt to be cremated because their education and upbringing did not equip them with the knowledge necessary to make an informed choice in this area. This assumption impacts some of the legal results presented’.

While no one would deny the victims of the Nazi death camps the funeral of their faith, some might find the latter clause perhaps offers ‘wriggle room’ too far. Religious doctrine is full of such dilemmas which, on the one hand, demonstrate compassion but, on the other hand, dilute and contradict the absolutes of orthodoxy. If an unschooled Jew is, as a consequence, lapsed, should he/she have a Jewish funeral anyway? And would he/she, and the bereaved family, expect or demand one? When posed with such a question, people invariably ask, ‘What would God say?’

Footnote: The death last year of tattooed Jewish-lite pop star Amy Winehouse illustrates the reality of religious compromise. She was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium after a Jewish funeral service, and her remains are buried at Edgewarebury Jewish Cemetery.

Next week: Hindu funerals