Q. There is an inyan to put in your tzitzis when going to a cemetery because of lo'eig l'rosh. Does this apply when going to a funeral for a woman where there are separate sections in the cemetery for men and women, like in the Agudah section? Would it apply because tzitzis is a mitzvah, and the meis cannot perform mitzvos, or does it not apply as women never had this specific mitzvah?
A. Mishna Berura (23: 5) rules that one should cover their tzitzis when next to a deceased or a kever of even a minor, since it may be the resting place or the body of the neshama (gilgul - reincarnation) of a great man. However, next to a woman, who was exempt of this mitzva, there is no "loeg Lerosh" or ridiculing and deriding the poor, who cannot comply anymore with mitzvos, since when they were alive they were also exempt.
However, not all Poskim agree. Kaf Hachaim (ibid. 3), Kehilos Yaakov (9: likutim 9), Mishne Lemelech (Avel 13: 9) and others are stringent and require the covering of tzitzis next to deceased women also. (See Piskei Teshuvos (23: 1).
Horav Shlomo Miller's Shlit'a opinion is to be stringent when possible, since the fact that women are exempt is also due to the fact that they comply with other mitzvos, so indirectly there is a reference to a loss of mitzvos after death, and therefore loeg larosh. The Rov also pointed out that this woman's neshama could be a gilgul of a man.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit’a
Important Numbers
