DEATH AND BURIAL IN ISRAEL OR CONTEMPT OF EGYPT

"ZEH" AS CONTEMPT (see also below for comment in Selected Shorts)

In 1935 he published his will and testament, where among the clauses he asked his remains be buried in the land of Israel (should he die outside of it) and that it would be done by order of the Jewish government that would be in power there.
Jabotinsky's will in the Hebrew paper Ma'ariv on July 28, 1957, descrining the clauses and requsts
Jabotinsky died in 1940, and in the tumultuous first years of the State of Israel the idea of bringing Jabotinsky's remains back did not even occur to then Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, despite Herut's public campaign during the 1950s. It was only after Ben-Gurion left office in 1964 that the new Prime Minister, Levi Eshkol, heeded the campaigners demand to bring Jabotinsky's remains to the State of Israel and be buried on Mt. Herzel, where he and his wife were laid to rest.
Israeli Cabinet approves the return of Jabotinsky's remains as reported in "The Sentinal," on March 19th, 1964.
The leader of the Herut in 1964 was Menachem Begin and he sent a message to Levi Eshkol in which expressed the party's "gratitude for this historic decision."
Menachem Begin would become Israel's Prime Minister in 1977.

For Israel’s early leaders, burials were all about location
A new book by historian Doron Bar examines the tradition of reinterring bodies in the Zionist homeland
By JESSICA STEINBERG 16 October 2015, 1:52 pm8
Former US president Barack Obama, right, with then Israeli president Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at the grave of Theodor Herzl during Obama's visit to Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem, Friday, March 22, 2013. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, and Moses had much in common, even in death — both Jewish leaders didn’t die in Israel, the land they both planned and pined for at different times in history. Herzl, however, was eventually buried in the Jewish state, while Moses’s remains are said to be in biblical Moab, in what is today Jordan.
It wasn’t that people’s bodies didn’t get reburied in biblical times; they did. The Israelites carried Joseph’s bones in a coffin stored in an ark brought from Egypt, through 40 years of living in the desert. But the ritual of reburying someone in Israel was a practice honed and perfected in the fledgling years of the state, said Doron Bar, a historical geographer at Jerusalem’s Schechter Institute who recently wrote a book on the subject.
“There was a huge motivation to rebury people in Israel,” said Bar on a recent morning visit to Mount Herzl, the Jerusalem hilltop cemetery named for the Zionist leader. “They died, and never ‘got’ to the place where they wanted to be buried. Over here in the Jewish state, we said, ‘Okay, we’ll fix it.’ It’s important to have them with us.”
Bar’s book, “Ideology and Landscape” (Hebrew University Magnes Press, in Hebrew), examines the rituals and history of reburying people in Israel, taking readers on a virtual tour of Israel’s well-known cemeteries.
Doron Bar on the grounds of Mount Herzl, the national cemetery where he has spent much time researching his book, “Ideology and Landscape” (Jessica Steinberg/Times of Israel)
As Bar strolled around the quiet, manicured grounds of Mt. Herzl cemetery, for the most part empty on a Monday morning in September, he lamented the lack of visitors.
“It’s always busier next door,” he said, gesturing to the Mount Herzl military cemetery just below. “Here, things are usually quiet.”
It wasn’t intended to be that way. When the body of Herzl, the founding father of the Jewish state, was first brought to this Jerusalem hilltop in 1949, Israelis used to come to visit his grave, which represented the Zionist dream. It was the ultimate day trip.
“Herzl was the glue of Israel,” said Bar.
Herzl, the Viennese native, was the first in a long series of Zionists who wanted their final resting place to be in the Jewish land.
Herzl never gave any instructions about where he wanted to be buried, beyond writing in his will that he wanted a simple funeral and to be buried beside his father until “the Jewish people shall take my remains to Israel.”
He wrote in “Altneuland,” his novel about Zionism, about being buried in Haifa, on Mount Carmel. But when he died in 1904 of cardiac disease at the early age of 44, the country was still 44 years away from independence. It wasn’t until Israel’s statehood in 1948 that the country’s leaders began discussing Herzl’s reburial in Jerusalem, the capital, with Herzl becoming the symbol of the new land, said Dor.
In 1949, his remains were moved from Vienna to be reburied on the top of Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, named in his memory.
“This was the highest mountain in Jerusalem and it was symbolic,” said Bar, pointing to the view still mostly visible from the flat, squared gravesite. “He could see all of the city’s residents and they could see him.”
A bird’s eye view of Theodor Herzl’s grave (Nati Shochat/Flash 90)
It was the World Zionist Organization, the institution founded by Herzl, that was in charge of the burial site, and still is the caretaker of it, along with the government. They planned a grand plaza with a roof supported by 44 columns, referring to the age at which Herzl was when he died. Typically, however, a combination of finances, bureaucracy and arguments ended up detaining that part of the plan forever, said Dor.
Today, Herzl’s grave sits in the middle of a wide open plaza near the front of the cemetery, a square of black marble with his name emblazoned on the front creating a quiet, stately square of contemplation.
In 1949, Herzl’s body was flown to Israel, first over Haifa, and then to Tel Aviv, where he laid in state in Opera Square, in the city’s center. Thousands came to pay their respects, before his body was taken to Jerusalem, where a siren was blared on the radio. Representatives of 400 communities brought bags of soil from their land to put into the ground with him.
Once Herzl was buried on the Jerusalem hilltop, the arguments continued about who else would get buried on there, which was intended as the national cemetery for the country’s leaders and fallen soldiers.
As of today, four of the country’s leaders are buried there, including Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin, whose wife, Leah Rabin, is buried alongside him. Their graves form an arc of names from the nation’s history, and that semicircle of tombstones includes Zalman Shazar, Chaim Herzog, Yosef Sprinzak and Eliezer Kaplan.
A stroll along a side path brings visitors to the graves associated with Herzl, which ended up including members of his family, as well as other presidents of the WZO, pointed out Bar.
Once the WZO leaders were included on the hillside, the decision about other Zionist leaders became more convoluted, said Bar. Right-wing Zionist leader Zeev Jabotinsky died suddenly in New York in 1940 and was buried in Long Island, but his will stated that he wanted to be buried in Zion once there was a Jewish government in place.
“Of course, Ben Gurion didn’t want him,” said Bar.
The two Zionist leaders had always been rivals, given the vast differences in their beliefs about how to carry out the establishment of the Jewish state.
It took until 1964 and the decision of Levi Eshkol, then the prime minister, for the reburial of Jabotinsky’s remains, and it was a “mega event like Herzl,” said Bar, with a refueling in Paris that also included a ceremony. His remains were buried on Mount Herzl, and his wife was later buried alongside him, in an area separated from the other heads of state.
The original site of Avshalom Feinberg’s body in northern Sinai (Courtesy: Doron Bar)
There are the lesser known reburials as well, as the Herzl side of the national cemetery gives way to the orderly rows and never-ending graves of Israel’s fallen soldiers. Bar pointed out the flat, in-ground graves of Avshalom Feinberg and Yoseph Lishansky, both of whom died during World War I, while on an operation outside pre-state Palestine.
Feinberg was one of the leaders of Nili, a Jewish spy network in Ottoman Palestine that helped the British during the war. Born in Palestine, Feinberg traveled to Egypt on foot in 1917, and was killed on his way back, reportedly by a group of Bedouins near the British front in Sinai, close to Rafah. His fate remained unknown until after the 1967 Six-Day War when his remains were found under a palm tree that had grown from date seeds in his pocket to mark the spot where he lay.
Lishansky, whose Mount Herzl grave lays next to Feinberg, was also a member of Nili and was on the same, ill-fated trip to Egypt. He was shot and made it to Egypt, but was later caught and sentenced to death in Damascus, where he was hanged. He was reburied in 1967 on Mount Herzl.
Nearby is Hannah Senesh, the pre-state paratrooper who fell in Budapest, alongside other Czech-born paratroopers who were also reburied in the military cemetery in the 1950s.
As Bar made his way around the gravestones, a teenager sat next to Senesh’s grave, placing a stone painted with words from one of her famed poems on the face of the grave. Senesh, known as much for her poetry as her bravery, has long been a symbol for the nation’s teens, even today, said Bar, adding that kids often congregate around her simple grave.
Lowering Hannah Senesh’s coffin from the ship which carried her remains back to Israel (Courtesy: Doron Bar)
“The cemetery has become a religious and national symbol,” Bar said. “Graves are a proven and comfortable way to turn Israel into a place that’s holy.”
The country’s first cemetery was on the Mount of Olives, the most important Jewish cemetery in the world, he said.
“Everyone was buried there until 1948, even the Zionists, because there were no other cemeteries,” he said of the hillside that was under Jordanian control from 1948 to 1967. “Itamar Ben Ami (who lived in New Jersey), Eliezer Ben Yehuda [considered the father of the modern Hebrew language] they’re both there.”
Higher up the hill, on Mount Scopus, was another cemetery, created by Nikanor, a Greek from Cairo who was buried in a sarcophagus and later discovered by archaeologists. Zionist leader Menachem Ussishkin was buried there, and planned for the cave to become a pantheon of figures, but was only joined by Zionist activist Leon Pinsker, whose remains were reburied in the cave.
Once Mount Scopus became an enclave in Jordanian-occupied territory after the 1948 war, the idea of that cemetery was scrapped in favor of Mount Herzl.
The cemeteries that Bar visited, in search of the graves of those whose remains were re-interred, are all over the country. He looks at the graves of Ramat Hanadiv, the formal Baron de Rothschild gardens in Zichron Yaakov where Edmond de Rothschild and his wife were re-interred in a crypt; in Trumpeldor Cemetery in Tel Aviv, where everyone from national poet Hayim Nachman Bialik, first Tel Aviv mayor Meir Dizengoff and singer Arik Einstein are buried in an urban stack of graves; the seaside Kinneret cemetery in the north, a magical, palm tree-shaded space; and, of course, Mount Herzl, named for the occupant of its very first grave.

בראשית מ״ז:כ״ט
(כט) אַל־נָ֥א תִקְבְּרֵ֖נִי בְּמִצְרָֽיִם׃
Genesis 47:29
(29) …please do not bury me in Egypt.
Why doesn’t Jacob want to be buried in Egypt? He says he wants to be with his ancestors, but obviously there’s more to this. To this day, a family tomb exerts a strong pull on us. By insisting on being buried with his ancestors, he intensifies the emotional pull of the land upon his descendants. Returning his bones to the promised land will diminish the geographical breach between the living and the dead.
בראשית מ״ז:ל״א
(לא) וַיֹּ֗אמֶר הִשָּֽׁבְעָה֙ לִ֔י וַיִּשָּׁבַ֖ע ל֑וֹ …
Genesis 47:31
(31) And he said, “Swear to me.” And he swore to him…
This is so characteristic of Jacob. He made Esau swear when he forsook his claim to the birthright for a bowl of red stew. There, he wanted a firm, incontrovertible, unassailable transaction. Here as well. Making his son swear means that he does not fully trust Joseph and locks him into an iron-clad agreement. Does Jacob have reason not to trust Joseph? Absolutely. He sees that Joseph is beholden to Pharaoh and that Joseph is conflicted in his personal and political interests. By making Joseph swear, Jacob places the personal above the political, and boxes Joseph in a corner when the time comes to repatriate his body to Canaan.
בראשית מ״ח:ב׳
(ב) … וַיִּתְחַזֵּק֙ יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וַיֵּ֖שֶׁב עַל־הַמִּטָּֽה׃
Genesis 48:2
(2)… Israel summoned his strength and sat up in bed.
You have to admire a 147 year-old man who can get himself to sit up in his bed! But the Torah is also subtly reminding us that this was not a feeble man. This is a textual flashback to his journey to Haran, his incredible feats of strength unplugging wells, setting up stone monuments, raising flocks, fathering 13 children with 4 women, wrestling with assailants, and continuing to survive despite the heavy emotional toll of loss and intra-family conflict. He knows how to summon strength!
בראשית מ״ח:ט׳
(ט) וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יוֹסֵף֙ אֶל־אָבִ֔יו בָּנַ֣י הֵ֔ם אֲשֶׁר־נָֽתַן־לִ֥י אֱלֹקִ֖ים בָּזֶ֑ה…
Genesis 48:9
(9) And Joseph said to his father, “They are my sons, whom God has given me in this…
Note how Joseph refers to Egypt in private. Do we detect some disdain or contempt? The land of Egypt has given Joseph wealth and power. But it has also taken away his freedom, and Joseph knows it. And he knows that Jacob knows it too.
בראשית מ״ח:י׳
(י) וְעֵינֵ֤י יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ כָּבְד֣וּ מִזֹּ֔קֶן לֹ֥א יוּכַ֖ל לִרְא֑וֹת וַיַּגֵּ֤שׁ אֹתָם֙ אֵלָ֔יו וַיִּשַּׁ֥ק לָהֶ֖ם וַיְחַבֵּ֥ק לָהֶֽם׃
Genesis 48:10
(10) Now Israel’s eyes were dim with age; he could not see. So [Joseph] brought them close to him, and he kissed them and embraced them.
God bless the biblical narrator! In one sentence we have the memory of Isaac’s blindness, the theft of the blessing, Jacob’s original encounter with Rachel, Jacob’s encounter with Esau, Joseph’s encounter with his brothers all encoded in the word vayaggesh or its various forms. And he kisses his grandchildren, and then he hugs them. This is Ephraim and Manasseh’s first encounter with their grandfather. We are there with them all in this wonderfully complicated moment. It can make you all faklempt!
בראשית מ״ח:ט״ו-ט״ז
(טו) וַיְבָ֥רֶךְ אֶת־יוֹסֵ֖ף וַיֹּאמַ֑ר הָֽאֱלֹקִ֡ים אֲשֶׁר֩ הִתְהַלְּכ֨וּ אֲבֹתַ֤י … הָֽאֱלֹקִים֙ הָרֹעֶ֣ה אֹתִ֔י מֵעוֹדִ֖י עַד־הַיּ֥וֹם הַזֶּֽה׃ (טז) הַמַּלְאָךְ֩ הַגֹּאֵ֨ל אֹתִ֜י מִכָּל־רָ֗ע יְבָרֵךְ֮ אֶת־הַנְּעָרִים֒ …
Genesis 48:15-16
(15) And he blessed Joseph, saying, “The God in whose ways my fathers…walked, The God who has been my shepherd (16) The Angel who has redeemed me from all harm— Bless the lads…
My fathers walked with God; God lead me. God’s angel redeemed me. This is Jacob’s theology. He understands that God’s relationship is different with each of them. This is a very Jewish idea.
בראשית מ״ט:ל״ג
(לג) וַיְכַ֤ל יַעֲקֹב֙ לְצַוֺּ֣ת אֶת־בָּנָ֔יו וַיֶּאֱסֹ֥ף רַגְלָ֖יו אֶל־הַמִּטָּ֑ה וַיִּגְוַ֖ע וַיֵּאָ֥סֶף אֶל־עַמָּֽיו׃
Genesis 49:33
(33) When Jacob finished his instructions to his sons, he drew his feet into the bed and, breathing his last, he was gathered to his people.
The word vayechal takes us back to Creation. When God completes Creation – as we recall in kiddush every Friday night. Here not only is Jacob’s life reaching its end, but the foundational story of Jewish peoplehood is also coming to its conclusion.
בראשית נ׳:ה׳
(ה) אָבִ֞י הִשְׁבִּיעַ֣נִי לֵאמֹ֗ר הִנֵּ֣ה אָנֹכִי֮ מֵת֒ בְּקִבְרִ֗י אֲשֶׁ֨ר כָּרִ֤יתִי לִי֙ בְּאֶ֣רֶץ כְּנַ֔עַן שָׁ֖מָּה תִּקְבְּרֵ֑נִי וְעַתָּ֗ה אֶֽעֱלֶה־נָּ֛א וְאֶקְבְּרָ֥ה אֶת־אָבִ֖י וְאָשֽׁוּבָה׃
Genesis 50:5
(5) ‘My father made me swear, saying, “I am about to die. Be sure to bury me in the grave which I made ready for myself in the land of Canaan.” Now, therefore, let me go up and bury my father; then I shall return.’”
Put this statement under a magnifying glass. Jacob’s verbatim request was “please don’t bury me in Egypt.” Joseph changes the quote. Why? Because Joseph does not want to insult Pharaoh. Jacob’s request is derogatory toward Egypt. But again, we see that Joseph remains continually subservient and servile to Pharaoh. He has no autonomy. He just can’t come and go as he pleases. Even for a family funeral! Joseph respects Pharaoh, but he fears him as well.
בראשית נ׳:ו׳-ז׳
(ו) וַיֹּ֖אמֶר פַּרְעֹ֑ה עֲלֵ֛ה וּקְבֹ֥ר אֶת־אָבִ֖יךָ כַּאֲשֶׁ֥ר הִשְׁבִּיעֶֽךָ׃ (ז) וַיַּ֥עַל יוֹסֵ֖ף לִקְבֹּ֣ר אֶת־אָבִ֑יו וַיַּֽעֲל֨וּ אִתּ֜וֹ כָּל־עַבְדֵ֤י פַרְעֹה֙ זִקְנֵ֣י בֵית֔וֹ וְכֹ֖ל זִקְנֵ֥י אֶֽרֶץ־מִצְרָֽיִם׃
Genesis 50:6-7
(6) And Pharaoh said, “Go up and bury your father, as he made you promise on oath.” (7) So Joseph went up to bury his father; and with him went up all the officials of Pharaoh, the senior members of his court, and all of Egypt’s dignitaries…
No, “I’m sorry for your loss,” here. Not even a card or a donation to Joseph’s shul! With Pharaoh it’s all business. Pharaoh notes that Joseph actually had to make an oath to his father about this! Conclusion: Jacob didn’t trust Pharaoh either. And so, why the entourage of notable Egyptians, the equivalent of the entire cabinet, congress, and the Supreme Court? (Why doesn’t he himself go with him?) This is to make sure that Joseph will come back to Egypt. Oh, and the fact that the women and children have also stayed behind is another guaranty. Is Pharaoh benevolent? On the contrary. He’s been cold, calculating and very shrewd throughout the entire story. And Joseph is locked. He has no freedom.
בראשית נ׳:כ״ה-כ״ו
(כה) וַיַּשְׁבַּ֣ע יוֹסֵ֔ף אֶת־בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל לֵאמֹ֑ר פָּקֹ֨ד יִפְקֹ֤ד אֱלֹקִים֙ אֶתְכֶ֔ם וְהַעֲלִתֶ֥ם אֶת־עַצְמֹתַ֖י מִזֶּֽה׃
Genesis 50:25-26
(25) So Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “When God has taken notice of you, you shall carry up my bones from this.”
Pardon the punctiliousness here but why is it that whenever Joseph is in private he refers to Egypt as “this”? (see above) Because this place is complicated. This place is messy. This place has provided sustenance but has also caused dislocation. This place ruptures connectedness to the land and to the shepherding tradition of our ancestors. This place is organized around agriculture and the power of the state not tribal interdependence. This place venerates an all-powerful Pharaoh and not an all-powerful God. This place monumentalizes death and an afterlife and can’t even come close to imagining a covenantal relationship with the living God.
(כו) וַיָּ֣מָת יוֹסֵ֔ף בֶּן־מֵאָ֥ה וָעֶ֖שֶׂר שָׁנִ֑ים וַיַּחַנְט֣וּ אֹת֔וֹ וַיִּ֥ישֶׂם בָּאָר֖וֹן בְּמִצְרָֽיִם׃
(26) Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten years; and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt. And thus the book ends. HAZAK! We start with the universe and end in a box. We start out with endless human potential, and end with the precursor to enslavement. Genesis begins with a life-giving breath and ends with a life-ending exhalation. Why 110 years for Joseph? To ancient Egyptians that’s the ideal lifespan. For us, it’s 120. The rabbis explained that Joseph’s life was reduced 10 years because of his haughtiness. When Judah begged Joseph to spare Benjamin, he kept referring to Jacob as “my father, your servant.” Joseph didn’t admonish him with a “don’t talk about your father that way. He is your father.” Another explanation: if 110 was indeed a recognizably symbolic ideal age for Egyptians then the subtext is clear: Joseph may have been born a Hebrew, but he died as an Egyptian. Publicly he served Egypt; privately he had con-tempt for it. Publicly he had wealth, power and prestige. Privately, he had bewilderment, sorrow, and self-doubt. Publicly, he was Pharaoh’s right-hand man; privately he couldn’t move without Pharaoh’s permission. Publicly he was an Egyptian prince; privately he was the first He-brew slave. The oath to repatriate his bones is in the end a repudiation of his life. Shabbat Shalom!