This week we were asked to pose a question to ourselves and to our friends. If one day an archaeologist came across your grave and excavated it, what grave goods would they find and why? What things would you want to included in your burial? What would other people choose to bury with you?
I posted this question on Facebook yesterday and the first response I got was a reminder that Jews are buried simply and without anything that would be preserved long enough for an archaeologist to find. That at most one would be buried in a tallit. So I promised to put that little cultural factoid in here to avoid any confusion. One day when it comes time for my burial, I will be wearing a simple white cotton gown and lie for eternity in a simple wooden box with absolutely no embellishments.
However, I found this exercise to be intriguing, so I reworded my post and here are a few answers I received from friends and family. My father said I should be buried with a creme brulee torch. My mother said a magen david (star of David), a book and my first ever stuffed animal, who I so creatively named Pinky. My friends suggested items such as a sweatshirt from the camp I've worked at for the last three summers, a bottled frapuccino, a law book, chocolate and anything related to Hillel. One friend even suggested throwing some weapons in there just to mess with the archaeologists.
If someone were to one day come across a grave with these items in it, I'm not sure at all what they'd think. They'd probably recognize the magen david as a religious symbol, as it's been around for a very long time already. Other than that I think they'd be at a loss to interpret all of these items in a way that would enlighten them as to who I was, especially considering that some of these things would not preserve very well.
If I were to choose what remained with me for eternity, honestly, the only thing I'd want is my magen david, because there is nothing else that describes my identity AND would fit in a wooden box.
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