Must a Jewish Zombie Eat Kosher Brains? Halachot of the Undead.

Oh, let Your dead revive! Let corpses arise! Awake and shout for joy, You who dwell in the dust!— For Your dew is like the dew on fresh growth; You make the land of the shades come to life.

Rabbi Yoḥanan said: What is the meaning of that which is written: “Set free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom You remember no more” (Psalms 88:6)? When a person dies he then becomes free of Torah and mitzvot.

The Gemara comments: At that time, i.e., a person’s burial, we certainly affix ritual fringes to the shroud, because otherwise it would be a violation of: “Whoever mocks the poor blasphemes his Maker” (Proverbs 17:5). If we did not place them, it would be mocking the deceased, as if to taunt him that now he is no longer obligated in mitzvot.

(1) One is permitted to make the dead person's shrouds from diverse kinds.

(2) One buries the dead only in a Talith that has Ẓizith. Gloss: Some say that Ẓizith are not required; Tur on the authority of ‘some say’ and the accepted practice is to bury him with Ẓizith, only that one first disqualifies the Ẓizith or one twines around one of the corners [of the Talith].

Come and hear a resolution from the incident involving the seven teachings that were first said on Shabbat morning before Rav Ḥisda in Sura and then repeated toward the conclusion of that Shabbat before Rava in Pumbedita, despite the fact that the distance between them is too great for someone to have traversed it on Shabbat. Who said those teachings, and delivered them from one place to the other? Was it not Elijah the Prophet,who traveled from Sura to Pumbedita by way of a miraculous leap through the air above ten handbreadths from the ground, who said them? Apparently, the prohibition of Shabbat limits does not apply above ten handbreadths.

§ The Gemara relates: Rabba bar Avuh found Elijah standing in a graveyard of gentiles. ...

The amora said to him: Is not the Master a priest? What is the reason that the Master is standing in a cemetery? Elijah said to him: Has the Master not studied the mishnaic order of Teharot? As it is taught in a baraita: Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai says that the graves of gentiles do not render one impure,...

Rav says: If the Messiah is among the living in this generation, he is a person such as our saintly Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, who was renowned for his sanctity, piety, and Torah knowledge. If the Messiah is among the dead he is a person such as Daniel, the beloved man.

God burdened the Messiah with mitzvot and afflictions like millstones [reiḥayim].

It is written in Sefer Hasidim siman 1129 that Rabeinu HaKadosh was seen in his clothes and fulfilled the obligations of his household for kiddush because the righteous are called alive and are not like other dead people that are exempt from the mitzvot.

Rabbi Eliezer, son of Rabbi Yosei HaGelili, says: Not only was it not a parable, the dead that Ezekiel revived ascended to Eretz Yisrael and married wives and fathered sons and daughters. Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira stood on his feet and said: I am a descendant of their sons, and these are phylacteries that my father’s father left me from them.

(1) It is a clear and manifest principle concerning the Torah that as a Law it is permanently established forever and evermore; and that it is not subject to mutibility, nor to diminution, nor to amendment;

All Prophetic Books and the Sacred Writings will cease during the messianic era except the Book of Esther. It will continue to exist just as the Five Books of the Torah and the laws of the Oral Torah that will never cease.

The Rabbis taught: An article of clothing in which a thread of kilayim had been sewn and lost cannot be sold to non-Jews or used to make a saddle for donkey. However it can be used to make a burial shroud. Rav Yosef says: This means that mitzvot will be nullified in the coming days. Abaye said to him, (and some say it was Rav Dimi), Rav Mani said in the name of Rav Yanai that this was not taught except regarding eulogies, but is forbidden with respect to burial. He [Rav Yosef] said to him This was only said about the statement of rabbi Yochanan who said that even for burial [could a dead person could be buried in shatnez] And rabbi Yochanan expounded, as rabbi Yochanan said: What does it mean "Freedom among the dead" (Psalms 88:6)? When a man dies, he is free from the commandments.

We can say from this teaching that it only follows that all the time he is dead, he has no obligation to avoid kilayim, but from there we learn that l'chatchila we make a shroud of kilayim, even though when he is revived in the future he will be revived in the clothing he was buried in. We learn from this that mitzvot will be nullified in the future age.

There are those who explain this according to what is written in ketubot that in the future the dead will be resurrected in their clothing. This is difficult for me because the dead that Yehezkel brought back to life were obligated in mitzvot. As it says in perek Challah (Sanhedrin 92b) "My father from them" in "these are the tefillin that my father from them gave me". It appears to me that in the coming age means from the time of death [the dead will be exempt from mitzvot]. We learn that the living cannot cause the dead to violate a mitzvah, just as a parent cannot cause a child to eat something forbidden. The reason is because it says "the dead are free". Since the dead are freed from mitzvot from the time of death, in the time to come, may it come speedily in our time, we do not want to lead the person astray in the time to come.

This was only taught for the eulogy, but for burial it is forbidden. Because shatnez is not forbidden by the Torah, but rather wearing, and rising up [from the grave] is comparable to wearing, but the eulogy is only for an individual's honor, and is comparable to one who sells clothing [with shatnez to non-Jews] in the normal manner. However burial is comparable to wearing and because of this, wearing [shatnez] is forbidden for the one who says mitzvot aren't nullified [in the world to come].