By the sweat of your brow shall you get bread to eat, Until you return to the ground; For from it you were taken. For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.
(7) the LORD God formed man from the dust of the earth. He blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.
(22) If a person is guilty of a capital offense and is put to death, and you hang them on a tree (23) you must not let their corpse remain on the stake overnight, but must bury them the same day. For an impaled body is an affront to God: you shall not defile the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess.
Joseph was concerned lest his father’s body begin to decompose during the unusually long mourning period that preceded his interment..According to the Sages, God criticized him for this, saying, “Do you think that I am unable to preserve my righteous ones?” It was on account of this that Joseph died before all his brothers...
...The next day the Philistines came to strip the slain, and they found Saul and his three sons lying on Mount Gilboa. They cut off his head and stripped him of his armor, and they sent them throughout the land of the Philistines... They placed his armor in the temple of Ashtaroth, and they impaled his body on the wall of Beth-shan. When the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard about it—what the Philistines had done to Saul— all their stalwart men set out and marched all night; they removed the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall of Beth-shan and came to Jabesh and burned them there. Then they took the bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and they fasted for seven days.
They burned him in the way that kings' bodies were ceremoniously burned; alternatively, they embalmed him with sharp spices which "burned" his flesh with their sharpness...
(א) הַנּוֹתֵן מֵתוֹ בְּאָרוֹן וְלֹא קְבָרוֹ בַּקַּרְקַע, עוֹבֵר מִשּׁוּם מֵלִין אֶת הַמֵּת. וְאִם נְתָנוֹ בְּאָרוֹן וּקְבָרוֹ בַּקַּרְקַע, אֵינוֹ עוֹבֵר עָלָיו, וּמִכָּל מָקוֹם יָפֶה לְקָבְרוֹ בַּקַּרְקַע מַמָּשׁ, אֲפִלּוּ בְּחוּץ לָאָרֶץ.
One who places his deceased in a coffin but does not bury him in earth transgresses [the prohibition of] "leaving the deceased overnight."... In any event, it is good to truly bury him in soil, even outside Israel.
An ancient burial cave, dating from the 5th century BCE, smack by one of Israel's busiest traffic arteries, the Ayalon Highway. (Moshe Gilad)
At first the wealthy would take the deceased out for burial on a decorative couch, and the poor would take the deceased out on a plain wooden board made from poles that were strapped together, and the poor were embarrassed. The Sages instituted that everyone should be taken out for burial on a plain wooden board, due to the honor of the poor... Likewise, at first taking the dead out for burial was more difficult for the relatives than the actual death, because it was customary to bury the dead in expensive shrouds, which the poor could not afford. The problem grew to the point that relatives would sometimes abandon the corpse and run away. This lasted until Rabban Gamliel came and waived his dignity, by leaving instructions that he be taken out for burial in linen garments. And the people adopted this practice after him and had themselves taken out for burial in linen garments. Rav Pappa said: And nowadays, everyone follows the practice of taking out the dead for burial even in plain hemp garments [tzerada] that cost only a dinar.
(ד) וְחוֹפְרִין בַּעֲפַר מְעָרוֹת וְעוֹשִׂין כּוּךְ בְּצַד הַמְּעָרָה וְקוֹבְרִין אוֹתוֹ בּוֹ וּפָנָיו לְמַעְלָה. וּמַחְזִירִין הֶעָפָר וְהָאֲבָנִים עָלָיו. וְיֵשׁ לָהֶן לִקְבֹּר בְּאָרוֹן שֶׁל עֵץ. וְהַמְלַוִּין אוֹתוֹ אוֹמְרִין לוֹ לֵךְ בְּשָׁלוֹם שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (בראשית טו טו) "וְאַתָּה תָּבוֹא אֶל אֲבֹתֶיךָ בְּשָׁלוֹם". וּמְצַיְּנִין אֶת כָּל בֵּית הַקְּבָרוֹת וּבוֹנִין נֶפֶשׁ עַל הַקֶּבֶר. וְהַצַּדִּיקִים אֵין בּוֹנִים לָהֶם נֶפֶשׁ עַל קִבְרוֹתֵיהֶם שֶׁדִּבְרֵיהֶם הֵם זִכְרוֹנָם. וְלֹא יִפְנֶה אָדָם לְבַקֵּר הַקְּבָרוֹת:
We bury the corpse with its face upward; we then place the earth and the stones back in place above it. They may bury it in a wooden coffin. Kessef Mishna: and in the final chapter of Kilayim (9:1) Rebbi instructed that coffins have holes that are connected to the earth...
(ד) אין נותנין ב' ארונות זה על זה ואם נתן כופין העליון שיפנה ואם יש ביניהם עפר ששה טפחים מותר:
They do not place two coffins, one above the other. If one placed [them in this position], they may compel [the owner of the] one above that it be removed. If between them [the coffins] there are six handbreadths of earth, it is permissible.
Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague.
High-rise cemetery in Petach Tikvah.
The New York Times, "Thinking About Having a Green Funeral?" Mar. 22, 2018
Here is what Americans put in the ground each year through traditional burials: 20 million feet of wood, 4.3 million gallons of embalming fluids, 1.6 million tons of reinforced concrete, 17,000 tons of copper and bronze, and 64,500 tons of steel, according to the Green Burial Council.
Green burials eliminate much of this waste by leaving out almost all of those materials; most bodies are simply wrapped in shrouds made from a biodegradable material like cotton and placed in the ground. And although cremations often have the reputation as being an eco-friendly option, they tend to have an outsize carbon footprint.
...the Sages taught: One sustains poor gentiles along with poor Jews, and one visits sick gentiles along with sick Jews, and one buries dead gentiles along with dead Jews. All this is done on account of the ways of peace, to foster peaceful relations between Jews and gentiles.
With dead Jews - Not in the Jewish graves, rather, deal with them if they are found amongst Jewish corpses.
The Jewish Exponent, "Cemetery Ad Stirs Up Controversy" (Feb 8, 2013)
Although he sensed potential provocation, the general manager of a local Jewish cemetery said he never imagined that his full-page advertisement touting cremation as an alternative to burial would cause such a backlash.
"Did you know … Jewish people are being cremated?" blared the banner in the full-page advertisement for Roosevelt Memorial Park in Trevose in the Oct. 28 issue of the Jewish Exponent.
But in a barrage of letters and calls to the cemetery, as well as to the Exponent, several rabbis and Holocaust survivors expressed outrage that Roosevelt would promote something that's considered taboo in Jewish tradition, both because of Jewish law and the association the process has with Nazi death camps.
David Gordon, the cemetery's manager, said that his intention was not to condone the practice, but to encourage Jews who consider cremation to be memorialized in some Jewish context.
"I wasn't advocating for cremation in the least," said Gordon.
The controversy highlighted a practice that, while contrary to Jewish law, has become more common among Jews as it has gained acceptance in mainstream America...
In a response to the ad, Rabbi Lisa Malik of Suburban Jewish Community Center-B'nai Aaron of Havertown, said: "In this post-Holocaust era, within a few weeks of the anniversary of Kristallnacht, how could any Jew, in good conscience, sponsor an ad that encourages the burning of Jewish bodies in ovens?"...
Maurice Lamm, The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning (1969)
Cremation is never permitted. The deceased must be interred, bodily, in the earth. It is forbidden - in every and any circumstance - to reduce the dead to ash in a crematorium. It is an offensive act, for it does violence to the spirt and letter of Jewish law, which never, in the long past, sanctioned the ancient pagan practice of burning on the pyre...Even if the deceased willed cremation, their wishes must be ignored in order to observe the will of God. Biblical law takes precedence over the instructions of the deceased...Cremated ashes may not be buried in a Jewish cemetery... Shivah is not observed and Kaddish is not recited for them...