Kethav Yosher VeDivrei Emeth. Moses Reinthal [polemic regarding the practice of speedy burial in Jewish Tradition].

(HASKALAH).

Hevrath Hinuch Ne’arim, circa

Berlin

1795

Vinograd, Berlin 783.

One of the early battles between radical Haskalah and Orthodox Judaism concerned the traditional practice of burying the dead without delay. According to medical opinion of the time, it took no less than three days to ascertain death, consequently Maskilim argued that Jewish burial be delayed. Notable among the written polemics that abounded, is one authored by Marcus Herz, who gave a vivid description of a man suffocating to death in his own subterranean coffin. In Breslau, Maskilim visited the local rabbi’s home on Purim disguised as those “dead,” while in fact those supposedly prematurely buried - and who had now escaped their graves! The rabbinic response was uncompromising. Rabbis such as R. Ya’akov Emden and the Noda B’Yehudah firmly rejected any change to tradition. The matter was ultimately decided by the secular authorities who decreed that Jewish burial could only be carried out with the approval of the local police. For more on the controversy, see Moshe Samet, Early Burial: The History of the Controversy on Determining Time of Death, Asuoft 3 (1988) pp. 433-49.