In the winter of 1982, a shluchah—a woman serving as the Rebbe’s emissary—wrote to the Rebbe that a young man had asked for her guidance. He was unable to convince his father that he should not be cremated.
Here is a free translation of the Rebbe’s handwritten response, excerpted from a letter dated Tevet 4, 5743 (Dec. 20, 1982):
When speaking with someone who wants his body to be burned after death, you should answer clearly and simply: The body continues to be sustained with a kind of life even after the soul has departed. As long as the body has not completely decayed, some of the soul remains attached to it.1
If so, anyone who instructs or agrees to the burning of his body is effectively agreeing to burn some of his soul—an act similar to burning a person alive.
The distinction is that it’s not all of the soul, only some of it. But it is nevertheless an unrivaled act of cruelty—even if it’s his own soul that he is burning.
As for his argument that many people have done this: Thousands of Nazis also burned people while they were still alive in the full sense of the word, among them scientists, doctors, merchants, family people…
Thank you for the reply and your time. I was more thinking along the lines if its stated anywhere in the Tanach. I know conclusions can be drawn but for something as definite as that it would seem to be stated pretty matter of factly. I mean your talking someone being conscious in the body even after death, would that not be the utmost worst prison and punishment ever? Even the righteous suffer the same fate? I know that there is an understanding of waiting 3 days to ensure death and the soul has "left".. Just some thoughts and again I thank you for the reply, Shalom, Kasey
From what is written in the Zohar and elsewhere, it seems the only pain is from the decay of the body. The bodies of the righteous do not decay.
In Tanach, as in any contemporaneous account, the obvious--things everyone takes for granted--is almost never stated. We have plenty of gravesites from archeological digs, as well as mausoleums in caverns, so we know that's how they did things. And it is certainly implied by the language, "I will lie with my fathers" that occurs repeatedly throughout Tanach, beginning with Sarah, Abraham, Isaac, Rachel, Jacob and Joseph.
The only mention of cremation in Tanach is of human sacrifice. The Greeks may have brought their idolatrous cremation practices with them, but that was post-Tanach.
Christian saints l’havdil are also believed not to decay. What might account for the similarity of belief?