PLEA FROM THE HEART: DON'T GO TO GRAVE SITES

PLEA FROM THE HEART: 
DON'T GO TO GRAVE SITES

I beg of you, please, do not go to the Rashbi's tomb on Lag B'Omer and please, PLEASE, give up the disgusting practice of going to graves  and tombs altogether.

Torah is very explicit in forbidding the practice of going to graveyards and tomb.  Devarim 34 says:

5 So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD.

6 And he was buried in the valley in the land of Moab over against Beth-peor; and no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.

We learn that we do not know where Moshe is buried so as not to make pilgrimages to his grave.

If anyone has any doubt that this is a precedent and hold for all Tzaddikim, HaShem sent the Prophet Yishayahu to say:

A people that provoke Me to My face continually, that sacrifice in gardens, and burn incense upon bricks;
 That sit among the graves, and lodge in the vaults; that eat swine's flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels; - Yishayahu 65: 3-4

What this means is: Any food eaten in a graveyard or near a tomb is as though it was pig and abominations.

The fact that there is no red heifer  and we all carry the impurity of the dead today does not give us license to revel in the impurity of graveyards.

As to those who say: 'But going to graves is something we have done for generations! Great sages advised doing this', the Talmud teaches:

R. Huna; for R. Huna said: When a man commits a transgression and repeats it, it becomes to him something which is permissible. –  Sota 22a

That is: it seems permissible to him.

There is no Sage greater than Moshe Rabeinu and The Prophet Yishayahu!

Look around you and you will see the true state of the world. If we Jews were practicing Judaism as we should, the world would look differently. The state of the world is not only because of the chiloniim. It is because Orthodox Jews are mixing Kedushah with Avodah Zarah.

Mixing Kedushah with Avodah Zara increases the power of the Avodah Zarah and it's negative effects in the world as all the more negative and intense!

The only kosher, pure way to get close to Tzaddikim who have died is to learn their words, internalize them and do the mitzvoth. That way, we attach ourselves only to that which lives eternally without being defiled by death.

The very fact that we have to do netilat yedayim when we leave a grave yard tells us that being there defiles.

Listen to your hearts and to your Souls. You will know when you are being led astray and doing what HaShem does not want us to do.

With blessings,
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat