Shabbat Gathering: What's with those rocks on graves?

Gud Shabbos Khaveyrim, as is our custom, we will gather tonight at 5.45p ct to welcome Shabbat. These are the coordinates:

Zoom
Meeting ID: 883 8469 4181
Password: 822665
Phone: +1 312 626 6799

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Here we go.

One of the many things I really love about being Jewish is encountering traditions that have survived longer than our understanding of them. For example, our tradition of putting a rock on the grave we’re visiting. Just a little bit of research yields the fact that this tradition persists long after our cultural memory for the tradition’s origin has faded and forgotten. And that’s what I think has happened with this tradition of stones on graves.

I did my usual research for this newsletter: My Jewish Learning and Chabad and Wikipedia (cough). I couldn’t find anything else to source but that was ok because that’s all the research it typically takes for this newsletter. (I don’t go in much for depth. The interesting anecdote generally suffices.) All three articles were light on the origins and heavy on the myth.

To begin with, there’s the question of contrasts. Gentile funerals have been entwined flowers and using flowers to honor the dead for millennia. It’s a custom that dates back to prehistoric times. And it has something to do with covering up the odor of the dead.

According to My Jewish Learning, the rocks might be used hold down the souls of the departed. Some Jews believe souls hang around after death. The rocks keep the souls weighed down and in their graves and out of mischief. Now, how this fits in with the idea that souls transmigrate to heaven or some sort of other afterlife is a mystery.

Visitation stones.

Wikipedia calls them “visitation stones” and writes that there may be the possibility that, long ago, the stones were used to hold down notes to the deceased that friends would write and then leave behind. I really like the idea of people leaving me notes after I'm gone. Please do.

What ever the reasons for the stones, I support the speculation. I like belonging to a group whose traditions are lost in the midst of time and it's ok to re-invent them.

And may it be for all of us a blessing.

See you tonight!
Mit vareme grusn,
(With warm regards,)

All my love,
brian.