The act of placing visitation stones is significant in Jewish bereavement practices. Small stones are placed by people who visit Jewish graves in an act of remembrance or respect for the deceased. The practice is a way of participating in the mitzvah (commandment) of burial. It is customary to place the stone with the left hand. [1]
Marking a grave with stones was customary in Biblical times before the adoption of gravestones. [2] [1] The oldest graves in the Old Cemetery in Safed are piles of rocks with a more prominent rock bearing an inscription. [1]
It is not customary in Judaism to leave flowers at a grave after visiting. It is believed to be more appropriate to give money to charity that could otherwise be spent on flowers. [3] In addition, cut flowers eventually die, but stones are enduring and do not die. [4]
Formerly the tradition might have been to insert notes into crevices in the grave marker. This tradition may be related to the practice of placing notes in the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Letters may have been formerly written to the deceased and held down by a stone; the stone would have been left after the paper blew away. [3]
The tradition has also been noted outside of Jewish mourning practices; Robert MacFarlane notes the presence of stones placed by mourners in the alcoves of the recesses of resting stones in ancient Ireland. [2]
Various explanations have been given for the origin of the practice: [1]
A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect the dead, from interment, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honour. Customs vary between cultures and religious groups. Funerals have both normative and legal components. Common secular motivations for funerals include mourning the deceased, celebrating their life, and offering support and sympathy to the bereaved; additionally, funerals may have religious aspects that are intended to help the soul of the deceased reach the afterlife, resurrection or reincarnation.
Sukkot, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles or Feast of Booths, is a Torah-commanded holiday celebrated for seven days, beginning on the 15th day of the month of Tishrei. It is one of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals on which Israelites were commanded to make a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. Biblically an autumn harvest festival and a commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt, Sukkot’s modern observance is characterized by festive meals in a sukkah, a temporary wood-covered hut.
Shiva is the week-long mourning period in Judaism for first-degree relatives. The ritual is referred to as "sitting shiva" in English. The shiva period lasts for seven days following the burial. Following the initial period of despair and lamentation immediately after the death, shiva embraces a time when individuals discuss their loss and accept the comfort of others.
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A gravestone or tombstone is a marker, usually stone, that is placed over a grave. A marker set at the head of the grave may be called a headstone. An especially old or elaborate stone slab may be called a funeral stele, stela, or slab. The use of such markers is traditional for Chinese, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic burials, as well as other traditions. In East Asia, the tomb's spirit tablet is the focus for ancestral veneration and may be removable for greater protection between rituals. Ancient grave markers typically incorporated funerary art, especially details in stone relief. With greater literacy, more markers began to include inscriptions of the deceased's name, date of birth, and date of death, often along with a personal message or prayer. The presence of a frame for photographs of the deceased is also increasingly common.
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Media related to Pebbles on Jewish gravestones at Wikimedia Commons