THE MEMORIAL BOOK OF PÁPA JEWRY - JewishGen

clothes ready. But you Dad, on the other hand, cut out with the saw yourself the gepelach and
kneaded the clay for the sharbelach.
Our burial rite includes a simple, rough wooden coffin, white funeral clothes without
pockets, a two-pronged, fork-like piece of wood to place in the hand of the deceased (called
gepelach because it is like a fork), and shards (popularly called sharbelach) for the mouth and the
eyes.
While he was cutting with the saw, drawing and creating, his hand and his vision were
driven by the fever of his illness and his inspiration, his heartbeat was throbbing in the lifeless
wood. He was contemplating death; it was painful for his soul to leave his spouse and four young
children. His piety breathed the letters on the carved, smoothly polished forks:
שובי נפשי למנוחיכי כי ה'‏ גמל עליכי
Return, my soul, to your restfulness, for
Adonay has rewarded you bountifully. (Psalm
116:7)
Only pure belief in God could radiate
towards him the words that he drew on the other
piece of wood:
אני מאמין באמונה שלמה שתהי ה תחיית המתים
I fully believe in the resurrection of the dead!
What self-control, artistic inspiration, holy
feeling came over the man at the zenith of his life,
kneading the clay, shaping it nice and round, and
painting the holiest confession on the clay for
closing the eye:
שמע ישראל ה'‏ אלהנו ה'‏ אחד
So that when the lips cannot move anymore
to praise the glory of God, even then he would have
the crop he had made himself over the lips,
proclaiming: "Blessed is the Name of His glorious
kingdom for all eternity"…
Let us return to funeral rituals. Eulogies were
rarely given in Pápa; there were no burial chants or
wreaths on the coffin. There were eulogies only for
outstanding persons. However, when 90 year-old,
bent uncle Marton toured the town with the
collection box, he was reciting tzedoko tatzil
mimoves in such a harrowing voice that it, in fact,
substituted for the eulogy, because no eye stayed dry
at the sound of the trembling words from the lips of
the old man, tzedoko tatzil mimoves…
“Two wooden forks for the time of the resurrection,
to make it easier to rise to the last trumpet.”
“Clay on the eyes, what he saw, he shouldn’t.
Close his lips – the seal of silence”
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