Rabbi Assi muttered the requisite verse of consolation and resignation, Barukh Dayan haEmet. With his fingers stroking his nose up and down in what he fancied was a discreet gesture in no way connected to the rank smell suffusing the space, and pinching his nostrils together so that his words were partially muffled, he instructed me with full pastoral authority that Jewish law requires that the funeral take place immediately, optimally on the very same day if feasible. That was fine with me, I replied; as night was already descending, I was in any event planning it for the first thing next morning. His eyes opened wide in bafflement. But where was I going to bury my holy mother, peace be upon her, in this idolatrous place? He went on to advise me that he had the infrastructure at hand for the purification and preparation of the body by a holy society of righteous women in strict observance of Jewish tradition, and for its shipment to Israel or America, or whatever hallowed ground I chose, for a proper burial; he was offering me a full deluxe funeral and interment package free of charge purely out of his love and respect for my holy mother, a true seeker, may her memory be for a blessing. It then fell to me to let him know that my holy mother the seeker of blessed memory had requested to be cremated. “I promised her, Assi,” I said. With my right hand under her thigh, like Joseph at the deathbed of Father Jacob in that famous scene from the Torah. If I forget my promise, may my right hand forget its cunning.

Calmly at first, Rabbi Assi instructed me that my promise was null and void. My holy mother, may her soul be bound up in the bond of eternal life, was now in another place, a place of wisdom and enlightenment, where she now sees her error and recognizes the truth. She now prefers a proper Jewish burial, he assured me. Therefore, my under-the-thigh oath to my mother, may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing, is canceled, void, invalid, without force or standing or power, completely vaporized as if with the full clout of the Kol Nidre prayer intoned on the eve of Yom Kippur, annulling all the year’s oaths. I was not only permitted to break my vow, I was obligated to do so as it had been superseded by what my holy mother, peace be upon her, actually wants now at this very moment as she stands at the gate of heaven. What she wants now, Rabbi Assi advised me with complete certainty, is to return to the earth from which she had come. I merely shook my head. Nice try, Assi, good khop, but no cigar. It was Ma’s living will to be cremated. Unless she shows up now to tell me right here in person that she has changed her mind and signs a release waiver, I’m moving ahead as scheduled, all systems go.