The Movement for Reform Judaism

Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Romain, Chairman of the Assembly of Rabbis and Rabbi of Maidenhead Synagogue is a respected writer and broadcaster, frequently asked to comment on news issues on radio and television. In this fortnightly feature he addresses your concerns, giving responses to modern issues and queries.

This week's question: When is the right time for a stone-setting to take place ?

The short answer is that it varies, so there is no 'right time' but different options. In Israel, for instance, the stone-setting is often done at the end of the first month, which coincides with the end of the sheloshim (literally: thirty days), the second mourning period, less intense than the first week/shivah, but in those first thirty days certain customs are still observed (such as not wearing new clothes and not cutting one's hair). In Britain, by contrast, it is more usual to have the stonesetting at the end of the year and to coincide with the first anniversary, or that week. In this case, the ceremony acts as a marker, putting an end to the year of mourning and with the strong suggestion that there is a limit to active grief and a time to re-engage with the stream of life. A third option - because there are no set rules - is to have it at a significant time relating to that person e.g. a birthday or wedding anniversary. This might be particularly the case if the funeral occurred during the winter months, and it was freezing or raining at the time and the family do not want to repeat that experience, so they choose a spring or summer date. I should also add that another option is not to have a stone setting, for - while there should be a stone - a formal ceremony is not obligatory and some families prefer to visit it privately in their own time.

There are several reasons for having a stone, especially as individual graves preceded cemeteries - originally the stone was a way of protecting the grave from being disturbed by wild animals; it was partly a marker for the bereaved to locate the place; also a way of recording the person's life and honouring their memory; and it served as a warning to priests/cohanim who might be passing by and who were forbidden to be near to a corpse as that affected their ritual purity when they were responsible for performing the sacrifices. The custom goes back to biblical times, the first recorded stone being that of Rachel when Jacob "set a pillar upon her grave" (Genesis 35. 20). What also originates in early times is that some people regarded funeral monuments as a form of self-promotion after death, with sepulchres of large proportions being erected with lavish designs and made from polished stone (I Maccabees 13. 27-29). By contrast, the rabbinic tradition is that we are all equal in death and so stones should be modest in both size and format, while one should not be able to tell a rich person's stone from that of a poor person. Expensive stones are considered ostentatious and wasteful; a better memorial would be to use the money to fund some charitable project in the person's name. Incidentally, you can always tell what type of Jews are in a particular cemetery - the Ashkenazi tradition is for the stones to be upright at the head of the grave, whereas Sephardim lay them horizontally on the grave. Moreover, there is no reason why one has to use a stonemason; if you have the time or energy, you could hew your own stone, and carve the shape yourself or leave it in a natural shape.

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