Why Jews bury books like they bury the dead

Why Jews bury books like they bury the dead

For many years,  I’ve stood with members of my congregation in our cemetery — not to bury a person, but to bury books. There are no eulogies. We lower tattered prayer books, weathered bibles, Passover Haggadot, and other sacred texts into the earth. Judaism teaches that such objects, when no longer usable, must be treated not like garbage, but like the dead: with dignity, care, and a return to the soil. The practice is ancient. The biblical sour…