Met Mitvah in Moishe Moment - Parashat Emor

In our bi-weekly chevruta, Rabbi Brad and I studied the tragic end of Rabbi Akiva that appears in the Talmud (Berachot 61b). Rabbi Akiva had been teaching Torah against the orders of the Roman government. Caught by the authorities, he was subsequently sentenced to a painful death. At this very moment, it was the time of day to say Shema; he didn't let the Roman government affect his religious practice in the past, and he wasn't going to let them now. When his students expressed surprise that Rabbi Akvia was still praying, he told them:

Rabbi Akiva understood that the line "With all your soul" from the Ve-ahavta means that one is to love God even when God takes your soul, i.e. you die. Without wishing death upon himself or valorizing death itself, he felt grateful to be able to fulfill a mitzvah that literally happens once in a lifetime, if we're lucky.

During my first year of rabbinical school, I had a similar opportunity to fulfill a mitzvah that I never thought I would be able to, indeed, most pious Jews haven't even chanced upon it. This mitzvah, the case of the Met Mitzvah, appears in Parashat Emor:

In general, priests are not supposed to be in contact with corpses, which is why many people who are Cohens today will not go into a cemetery (there's an interesting discussion about Cohens as doctors as well!). There is an exception to this rule, however, which is brought in a powerful Midrash cited by the medieval Torah commentator par excellence, Rashi in his commentary to the first verse:

In other words, when a person's corpse is "among" their fellows, the priests cannot engage with the body because of the laws of impurity. However, if the body is not "among" their fellows, that is, there is nobody else around to bury them, then the attending priest not only can - but must - see that this person has a dignified burial.

It was only the second or third month of my first year of school when I was told that my great-uncle died in New York. I had completely forgotten about him, to be honest. He had been institutionalized in rural New York since the Korean War, and already in the 60's, my family had moved from the east coast to Los Angeles, leaving him alone in various homes. A month before he died, his brother (my grandfather) died, too. Quite frankly, I hadn't thought about him in many, many years; I am not sure if anyone did.

My great-uncle was a Met Mitzvah, a person who died and had nobody to bury him. Literally. No one. And when bodies aren't "claimed," they are not treated well (an understatement). Now, I am not a Cohen, so I am able to be in the presence of the dead, but the obligation of Met Mitzvah applies to each and every Jew. So, I figured out where his own father - my great-grandfather - bought a burial plot for him many years ago (and learned about my family history throughout the process). With the help of friends and strangers - including a Moishe House resident and several community members - we got a minyan together to accompany him, to offer whatever words we had to celebrate him, to bury him, and to say kaddish for him.

How beautiful is our community! People miss work and school to attend to a funeral of a complete stranger. Jewish organizations whose mission is to help with burial costs. A tradition that takes care of us from cradle to grave. "All of Israel is responsible for one another."

We may have fallen short with my great-uncle in his life, but I thank God that I had the opportunity and obligation to fulfill this mitzvah in his death. In the words of Maimonides, the Rambam: