The Tower of Silence
A bit of realia from a recent daf (that I taught this past Shabbos), Sanhedrin 46b:
אֲמַר לֵיהּ שַׁבּוּר מַלְכָּא לְרַב חָמָא: קְבוּרָה מִן הַתּוֹרָה מִנַּיִין? אִישְׁתִּיק וְלָא אֲמַר לֵיהּ וְלָא מִידֵּי. אֲמַר רַב אַחָא בַּר יַעֲקֹב: אִימְּסַר עָלְמָא בִּידָא דְּטַפְשָׁאֵי, דְּאִיבְּעִי לֵיהּ לְמֵימַר ״כִּי קָבוֹר״.
The Gemara relates: King Shapur, the monarch of Persia, once said to Rav Ḥama: From where in the Torah is there a hint to the mitzva of burial? What proof is there that the dead must be buried and not treated in some other manner? Rav Ḥama was silent and said nothing to him, as he could not find a suitable source. Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov said: The world has been handed over to the foolish, as Rav Ḥama should have said to King Shapur that the mitzva of burial is derived from the verse: “But you shall bury him” (Deuteronomy 21:23).
The people:
King Shapur. Artscroll says he was a Sasanian king, who was knowledgeable of Torah. There were actually two Sasanian kings in the Talmud named King Shapur. The earlier one was in Shmuel’s day. This is Shapur II, in Rava’s day. We know this because of the biographies of the other people in the sugya, who interact with him or with each other.
Rav Chama was a fifth-generation Babylonian Amora, in Nehardea. So, he would be the generation after Rava, and a youthful rabbi interacting with King Shapur II.
Rav Acha bar Yaakov was a third and fourth-generation Amora, in charge of Papunia. So he’s an elder Amora reacting to this young whippersnapper rabbi, and the failure to respond well to King Shapur.
What do we know about King Shapur II? He was a Zoroastrian. This is relevant, because of the Zoroastrian manner of dealing with their dead. They would place them in a Tower of Silence. The following image is AI-generated, but see the Wikipedia link for images and a discussion.
Well, maybe not a tower, per se, since the towers were first documented in the 9th century CE. But they had ritual exposure of the dead. But:
The Byzantine historian Agathias has described the Zoroastrian burial of the Sasanian general Mihr-Mihroe: "the attendants of Mermeroes took up his body and removed it to a place outside the city and laid it there as it was, alone and uncovered according to their traditional custom, as refuse for dogs and horrible carrion".
Rationale, and more details:
The doctrinal rationale for exposure is to avoid contact with earth, water, or fire, all three of which are considered sacred in the Zoroastrian religion.[2][3]
Zoroastrian tradition considers human cadavers and animal corpses (in addition to cut hair and nail parings) to be nasu, i.e. unclean, polluting.[1][2][3] Specifically, Nasu the corpse demon (daeva), is believed to rush into the body and contaminate everything it comes into contact with.[3][11] For this reason, the Vīdēvdād (an ecclesiastical code whose title means, 'given against the demons') has rules for disposing of the dead as safely as possible.[1] Moreover, the Vīdēvdād requires that graves, and raised tombs as well, must be destroyed.[1][10]
To preclude the pollution of the sacred elements: earth (zām), water (āpas), and fire (ātar), the bodies of the dead are placed at the top of towers and there exposed to the sun and to scavenging birds and necrophagous animals such as wild dogs.[1][2][3] Thus, as an early-20th-century Secretary of the Mumbai Parsi community explained: "putrefaction with all its concomitant evils... is most effectually prevented."[12]
Now, a bit more about Shapur II and Zoroastrianism:
Shapur II pursued a harsh religious policy. Under his reign, the collection of the Avesta, the sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, was completed, heresy and apostasy were punished, and Christians were persecuted. The latter was a reaction against the Christianization of the Roman Empire by Constantine the Great. Shapur II, like Shapur I, was amicable towards Jews, who lived in relative freedom and gained many advantages in his period.
Still, we know that while the Sages thought Rava had a great relationship with Shapur, as Rava revealed, in fact it was quite fraught and dangerous.
So, King Shapur II’s questioning of Rav Chama was interfaith dialogue, and there could have been a lot at stake. The Jewish burial practice was at odds with Zoroastrian doctrine. And here was the king asking how necessary burial was — how intrinsic was this Jewish practice.
If Rav Chama could not produce an answer, maybe the king would prevent Jewish burial in his lands. Maybe existing graves would be destroyed.
That is why Rav Acha bar Yaakov thought that it foolish / dangerous not to come up with some Biblical source, even if, I would argue, the source was weak in the Biblical sense. It was not so weak, as the simple peshat of it indicated that leaving corpses exposed to the elements overnight — precisely Zoroastrian practice — was considered disgraceful, a kilelat Elokim.
A few other thoughts in relation to this.
(1) First, the distinction between (lav / issur asei) for non-burial, on the one hand, and (remez) on the other.
In the immediately preceding segment:
וְלֹא זוֹ בִּלְבַד כּוּ׳. אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן מִשּׁוּם רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן יוֹחַי: מִנַּיִן לַמֵּלִין אֶת מֵתוֹ שֶׁעוֹבֵר עָלָיו בְּלֹא תַעֲשֶׂה? תַּלְמוּד לוֹמַר: ״כִּי קָבוֹר תִּקְבְּרֶנּוּ״. מִכָּאן לַמֵּלִין אֶת מֵתוֹ שֶׁעוֹבֵר בְּלֹא תַעֲשֶׂה.
§ The mishna teaches that everyone, not only an executed transgressor, must be buried on the day of his death, if that is at all possible. Rabbi Yoḥanan says in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yoḥai: From where is it derived that one who leaves his deceased relative overnight without burying him transgresses a prohibition? The verse states: “But you shall bury him [kavor tikberennu]” (Deuteronomy 21:23), doubling the verb for emphasis. From here it is derived that one who leaves his deceased relative overnight without burying him transgresses a prohibition.
אִיכָּא דְּאָמְרִי: אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן מִשּׁוּם רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן יוֹחַי, רֶמֶז לִקְבוּרָה מִן הַתּוֹרָה מִנַּיִין? תַּלְמוּד לוֹמַר: ״כִּי קָבוֹר תִּקְבְּרֶנּוּ״. מִכָּאן רֶמֶז לִקְבוּרָה מִן הַתּוֹרָה.
There are those who say that Rabbi Yoḥanan says in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yoḥai: From where in the Torah is there a hint to the mitzva of burial? The verse states: “But you shall bury him [kavor tikberennu],” doubling the verb for emphasis. From here there is a hint to the mitzva of burial in the Torah.
So, there are two competing girsaot, both appearing within the standard Talmudic text, where it is either a real derasha or a remez / allusion.
The Rif and some others apparently maintain that, even if it says remez, there’s a Biblical level violation. But I think that here, and in many other sugyot, the word remez is akin to an asmachta. A nice support for the idea, but not a clear-cut commandment. If so, that might explain why Rav Chama was reluctant to cite is as definitive proof to King Shapur.
Still, it would have been better to have some response than to have remained silent, indicating there was no argument.
Interestingly, in this case of an ikka de’amrei, we can find one manuscript that has one variant but not the other — Munich 95, with no hint of the word remez:
I’d argue that there’s some other variant text that only had remez, and the other texts than collected the two variants as an ikka de’amrei.
(2) On a peshat level, I would say that (one of the two interpretations of) Rabbi Meir is a whole lot more persuasive. In terms of ki kilelat Elokim taluy, the idea is NOT “for one who has cursed God is suspended”. Rather, the taluy, suspension unburied, is considered an affront / kelala to God.
If so, it is the publicity of it, or the lack of burial? (Tangentially, taluy also can mean suspension of action, like bread on erev Pesach.) If it is an insult to God, or pains God, then the immediate burial is imperative. And it logically should extend to non-executions, because of the same underlying values about leaving bodied unburied. So this would be a nice verse to cite to King Shapur.
(3) All the suggested alternatives, and the objections, are from the Talmudic Narrator, rather than Rav Chama and Rav Acha bar Yaakov. Still, the objection that it is mere minhag that compelled each of these Biblical instances is understandable. Different groups have different customs, and so deviation from that, in its cultural context, would have been considered a slight to the person missing out on burial. That’s why we need a verse showing that it is a religious requirement.
(4) I liked this proof:
״לֹא יִסָּפְדוּ וְלֹא יִקָּבֵרוּ לְדֹמֶן עַל פְּנֵי הָאֲדָמָה יִהְיוּ״. דְּלִישְׁתַּנּוֹ מִמִּנְהֲגָא.
The Gemara proposes another proof: Jeremiah pronounced a curse upon the wicked, saying: “They shall not be eulogized, nor shall they be buried; but they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth” (Jeremiah 16:4), which proves that when no curse has been pronounced, the dead should be buried. The Gemara rejects this proof: From here, too, there is no proof that it is a mitzva to bury the dead, as Jeremiah cursed the wicked, saying that they would deviate from the general custom and not be buried. Due to all these difficulties, Rav Ḥama was unable to adduce incontrovertible proof that there is a mitzva to bury the dead.
Some variants only quote the first part, לֹא יִסָּפְדוּ וְלֹא יִקָּבֵרוּ. Others include the continuation, לְדֹמֶן עַל פְּנֵי הָאֲדָמָה יִהְיוּ. But the verse actually had a concluding portion, so that it reads in full:
מְמוֹתֵ֨י תַחֲלֻאִ֜ים יָמֻ֗תוּ לֹ֤א יִסָּֽפְדוּ֙ וְלֹ֣א יִקָּבֵ֔רוּ לְדֹ֛מֶן עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הָאֲדָמָ֖ה יִהְי֑וּ וּבַחֶ֤רֶב וּבָֽרָעָב֙ יִכְל֔וּ וְהָיְתָ֤ה נִבְלָתָם֙ לְמַאֲכָ֔ל לְע֥וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וּלְבֶהֱמַ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃ {ס}
They shall die gruesome deaths. They shall not be lamented or buried; they shall be like dung on the surface of the ground. They shall be consumed by the sword and by famine, and their corpses shall be food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth.
It is not just the lack of the positive burial. But, “their corpses shall be food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth” is presented as a negative thing, a terrible result, akin to being consumed by the sword and famine. And that sounds a whole lot like the Tower of Silence.