Cremation, Resurrection and the Journey of Consciousness: Jewish Sources and Contemporary Reflections
July 13, 2025
Is cremation a permissible practice for Jews?
Reb Simcha Paull Raphael, PhD is Founding Director of the DA’AT Institute for Death Awareness, Advocacy and Training. Currently, Simcha works as a psychotherapist and spiritual director in Philadelphia and has served as Adjunct Professor in Religion at LaSalle University and Temple University, and as a Spiritual Director at Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. Ordained as a Rabbinic Pastor by Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, he is author of numerous publications on death and afterlife, including the groundbreaking book Jewish Views of the Afterlife and the recently-published Jewish End-of-Life Care in a Virtual Age: Our Traditions Reimagined. His website is www.daatinstitute.net.
Is cremation a permissible practice for Jews?
Yizkor can be a way of remaining spiritually interwoven with loved (or unloved) ones in the world beyond.
Abram, Sarai and Lot were alone in the wilderness of unknowing, in grief, unable to return to the old familiar ways. And so it is with us today.
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