Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph

It is a Jewish custom to place a small rock on the headstone of a parent or relative when one visits a cemetery. Apparently, this custom dates from medieval times. No one knows exactly why we do this. Perhaps it is simply an indication that we have visited the resting place of our departed. God is sometimes called, “The Rock of Israel”. Perhaps it is a silent request for God to remember our loved ones. Rocks are also solid and permanent. Perhaps this represents the idea that although they have left this world, their souls endure in the next.

Recently on my way to visit my parents’ graves I stopped at a restaurant for lunch. The restaurant had a lovely garden with hundreds of smooth grey garden pebbles that made up part of the landscaping. Without much thinking, I stuck a couple in my pocket and drove off, intent on using these beautiful stones to place on my parents’ headstones.

After driving for a mile, I realized that I had committed a grave sin! I recalled that God brought a flood upon the world because “the world was filled with lawlessness”. (Genesis 6:11) What was so bad about this lawlessness that the world should be destroyed? The rabbis explained: “A merchant would walk through the marketplace with a container filled with grapes, and each passerby would reach forth and steal a small amount, less than he could be prosecuted for.”

Right then and there I pledged to take those stones back to the garden when I returned from my trip. I pulled into a rest stop and gathered some wild stones from the nearby woods to place on my parents’ headstones. They were dirty, and ugly, but at least they were not stolen! Then I proceeded with a clear conscience to the cemetery, to place my wild stones, honestly acquired, on my parents’ graves.