There is a wonderful Jewish tradition: the deceased must be laid to rest within 24 hours after the time that they expired. Of course, in California this cannot be accomplished. First, a death certificate must be issued by a physician and then transmitted to the funeral home that in turn transmits it to the burial ground. In addition, death taxes are required to bury the dead. A kind of parking permit for eternal rest. All this takes at least 48 hours, and sometimes longer. So the Jewish requirement for burial within 24 hours can never be successfully completed because of the bureaucracies and their multiple revenue extraction points created by our ever money hungry governmental entities that control all that we do.
Yet Jew or Gentile alike, we strive onward to live our lives with dignity in the absence of the painful, merciless, bureaucracies that rule our lives.
So, my dad died today. At 11:10 AM in Berkeley California. And he will not be laid to rest until Thursday when we get through all of Oakland’s, Alameda County’s and California’s bureaucracy.
Then begins the cost of the burial: the plot, casket, chapel rental and all of the add-on – like the hearse and refrigeration. Now, $20,000 later, my poor daddy can be plopped into the ground. This is a bargain burial possible only because of the nonprofit organization dedicated to allowing a dignified – if not timely – Jewish burial.
There are times like these, and many more, in which the appeal of another country becomes ever greater. The United States, a mere shadow of its original, bold, dignified self, has elected to be a mockery of its origins. How could we tell Jefferson, or Adams, or Washington to what depths we have degraded ourselves in the name of organization and of the common welfare. Lo, how they would turn in their graves and how their long deceased guts would contract were they, our blessed founders, to behold the debacle of our current America.