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Burying Books
U-M Hillel students have a new experience with a
discomforting, yet respectful tradition.
By Daniel Chudnow and Jessica Curhan } jewish@edu Staff Writers
he day before we returned to our
classes after winter break, more
than a dozen University of Michigan
students and Hillel's Rabbi Seth Winberg
gathered at a large open pit on the far edge
of a snowy cemetery in Mount Clemens. We
unpacked a truck full of hundreds, maybe
thousands, of worn-out religious books and
buried them.
We all shared a particular feeling of dis-
comfort. This wasn't the usual somber ceme-
tery environment. Instead, we were enjoying
ourselves a little, and at first that made us
uncomfortable. (Remember, we are students
and discarding books is a fantasy of ours!)
As a group, we are different ages, from
different areas and brought up in different
denominations of Judaism, but we were all
raised with this same idea: Books should
be treated with respect — especially books
with God's name in them. We were taught
that religious texts should not be placed on
the ground, let alone tossed into a pit. The
meaning behind burying old books is that
we treat books with the same respect we do
deceased human beings.
And yet, the actual burial set us on edge.
Seeing a large pit in a snowy field filled with
hundreds of disheveled books reminded us
of mass graves of people, which confused
our sense of doing something respectful and
dignified.
We also were raised to expect liturgy for
almost every aspect of life, so the lack of
liturgy was resounding. When we started, we
just started; and when we were done, we
just left. No blessing, no Kaddish.
However, after more thought, the ele-
ments that troubled us were exactly what
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they should have been. After the soul
departs the body, the body has lost its pur-
pose and so it is buried. Like a body, a book
is buried when it has lost its utility. Putting
a book in the ground may make us uncom-
fortable, and it may seem more respectful
to keep a book forever; but once it can no
longer be studied, only burial shows proper
respect.
For someone raised without the stigma
attached to putting books on the ground,
burying a book might not produce that same
discomfort. But the discomfort of the act
expresses the very respect that is the goal
of the act. The discomfort of burying the
books can remind us that we wish to keep
books useable for as long as we can — to
avoid the loss as long as possible. The fact
that we are going out of our way to a place
both physically and emotionally far from our
routine to perform this ritual is the act of
respect.
Burying books sparked our interest in
a topic we otherwise probably would not
care to study (and we did study more about
book burial last Shabbat). It is experiential
Judaism like this that gives us, no matter
how old or educated, new insight into our
religion. @
U-M Hillel thanks Detroit's Council of
Orthodox Rabbis and Rabbi Boruch Levin
of Hebrew Memorial Chapel in Oak Park
for helping to arrange this book burial.
Daniel Chudnow of West Bloomfield is in
University of Michigan's nuclear engineer-
ing master's program. Jessica Curhan
West Bloomfield is a U-M senior.
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1
Left of truck: Sophomore Channa Schramm, Columbus,
Ohio; Daniel Chudnow; sophomore Sarah Garibova, Ann
Arbor. Center in green jacket: graduate student Ronit
Greenberg, Suwanee, Ga. Right: junior Avielle Movsas;
Southfield; sophomore Atara Lakritz, West Bloomfield;
and Jessica Curhan.
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