Norbert Weinberg

“My father often told me of the folkways of the shtiebel.   For one thing, you didn’t go to shul, the synagogue, at midnight. After all, the dead are pious Jews, and they too need to gather to pray. You just don’t want to be in their company when they do. When we put stones on the tombstones at the cemetery, we did this as a sign that the deceased was not forgotten, but that dear ones had come by to pay their respect. But for whom is this sign? After all, the living know they were there. The sign is for the dead, so that when they arise at night to chat among themselves, they can take comfort in having been visited and enjoy bragging about it to their neighbors. How do we stop the plague when it strikes the shtetl? We find an orphan boy and an orphan girl, bring them to the cemetery, set up a huppah, and marry them off. Their deceased parents will find rest for their souls in seeing their children set right in their lives, and their pleas to heaven on behalf of their children will surely bring an end to the plague.”
― Norbert Weinberg, Courage of the Spirit