Why do we say Tehillim by the side of a dead body waiting to be buried?
I pondered this as I was doing the mitzva of Shmira for a lady who had just died. It seems that from my very limited knowledge on the subject that a neshama of someone is still present with the body until it is buried. It seems that there is some level of distress for the neshama. For 70 years it has grown to love and obsess about its body. The neshama thought that it WAS the body and HAD a neshama – whereas now the neshama is coming to the realisation that it is more like ‘it HAD the body’ and WAS a form of neshama. Perhaps an uncomfortable realisation takes place that a body which for so long seemed to be the ‘REAL’ person is now motionless and slowly decaying. So whilst i was saying Tehillim, in some way I felt that I was saying “Praise G’d…cling to Him….
Go to Him…don’t worry about the physical world – it is not reality” In some way, I hope that I was helping ease the pain of the neshama and helping by making a kol vechomer (a logical argument):
Just as I am praising G’d and trying to cling to Him in this physical world where there are so many barriers, mirages and stumbling blocks … even more so, you, the neshama who no longer has any stumbling blocks should (and can) cling to the A-lmighty!
In the zchus of coming up with this Dvar Torah, may it be liluy nishmas MIRIAM BAS AVRAHAM HALEVI
