By: Kobi Arieli Israel Hayom 01/21/2026
Not many have a friend like this, but I do: He serves as the director of a burial society. Every time we meet, I tell him he inspires thoughts of repentance in me. There is a saying in the Talmud: “He shall remind him of the day of death.” What is more reminiscent of the day of death than a person from the burial society? This is what I felt not long ago when I stood before him and twenty others like him, the management teams of burial societies in Jerusalem, who had gathered for a professional conference on behalf of the Cemetery Council.
What I felt there, and also told them, went far beyond jokes about the day of death. What I saw before my eyes was the beginning of a revolution, and what I told them related to the continuation of this revolution. The revolution is a service revolution.
The role of service providers in this sensitive field is incredibly complex and intricate. They meet with the service recipients at their most charged and most difficult moments.
It is clear that they need to be very sensitive and very professional, but that is the public’s concern and the concern of the ministry that employs them.
I am interested in the additional role of people like them, an issue related to all religious service providers, which is their being the ultimate representatives of Judaism and religion in the eyes of a vast portion of their clients.
There are many Israeli Jews, even those who are not religious, who encounter religion in various forms and levels in their daily lives.
They are a little religious, they are traditional, they have religious family members, they live next to a synagogue, they are interested in Torah study, they are friends with Chani and Chizki from the Chabad House in Kathmandu, they are insurance agents specializing in the damage of parokhot, they are architects of mikvahs. There are many. Many more than it seems.
But there are many Israeli Jews who have no connection at all. And even of this type, there are many more than it seems. And for them, the encounter with religion and, to a large extent, with God, is reduced to the mohel who circumcises, the rabbi who marries, the gravedigger who buries, and a few more kashrut supervisors and mikvah attendants along the way. These are men and women who routinely do what they do five times a week for over thirty years, and have long forgotten that besides being professionals, they are also the ultimate representatives of God in the story.
And their smile, their language, and their integrity can forever determine in the heart of the person facing them not only their own image or that of the organization that sent them, but the image of the Torah of Israel and the religion of Israel, and essentially that of the Master of the Universe himself.
The truth is, one shouldn’t need to resort to this. A public servant should perform their duty faithfully regardless of anything.
And what I saw at the conference indicated comprehensive professionalization stemming from great investment, and I am truly proud and happy to report on it; I merely note that beyond the general matter, there is here a Jewish mission of the most sublime kind.
Religious public servants, if there is God in their hearts, are obligated to much higher standards. In their own eyes, they are just clerks, workers, and perhaps hard-working inspectors.
But in reality, they are the vanguard of the state‘s Jewish identity.
Source: https://www.israelhayom.co.il/opinions/article/19723938