In my experience as a photographer at huge funerals, such a funeral can flow smoothly even with a million people. Until the moment when a person jumps up and says something, for example, to the people carrying the bed.
Since around the bed, and everywhere at the funeral in fact, a collection of strangers gathers - whoever gives instructions, naturally, people follow.
I was 18 years old at the funeral of Rabbi Reuven Yosef Gershonvitz, one of the heads of the Negev Yeshiva, which was held on the eve of Passover. I am around the bed, tens of thousands of mourners around. No one knows what's next. We're not moving forward an inch.
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200 meters from the Lederman synagogue on Rashbam Street in Bnei Brak, the Habra Kadisha's car was parked. One of the rabbis standing there told me: "We need to get the bed into the ambulance. Because it won't move.".
I raised my voice towards the bedside attendants and shouted: "Take the bed to the ambulance.".
I was sure they would roll me down all the stairs. But from that moment on, like a disciplined herd, they did everything they were told. Without a second thought.
That's how it is: whoever takes command, even if he's a teenager - because there's no familiarity - people follow him.
Last night, in the 'Sages of Lublin' beit midrash, there was a wise man who decided, out of respect, control, principle, or who knows what else, to change the order of getting out of bed. And they acted on it at that moment.
And so, in one moment, the order of removing the bed to the tragic location of the stairs was reversed. The same one who navigated and shouted and changed the established order - is directly responsible for what happened as a result of his shouts. He determined the deaths of the people.
And the solution?
A. The greatest man in Israel will write a will detailing the funeral procession: who will hold his bed, who will walk around it, from which Beit Midrash, and will add that whoever pushes - there is no forgiveness for him. He will also expand on the strict prohibition against entering the house of the living, trampling on the minimal dignity of the deceased.
That great generation who will do this - he will determine for generations the funeral order forever, at every funeral.
B. Immediately upon the announcement of the death, one person will be appointed in the field - and will be announced in all the media outlets of the Haredi public - who will be responsible for everything that revolves around the bed. Each trip can be the same person or a new person each time - although it is desirable to appoint one person who understands and knows the souls of the people during such a trip.
C. That person in charge will wear an identifying garment and will wear something on his/her forehead. They will camp, stand, and walk on his/her forehead.
D. The time has come, within the framework of these changes, to put an end to the disgrace that police officers who desecrate the Sabbath, who despise everything holy, are the ten people who surround the bed of the greatest of generations on his last journey.
Please note: Rabbis who did not allow Sabbath desecrators into their rooms are surrounded by Sabbath desecrators when they are taken to the grave, on their final journey.
The time has come to establish for such positions a group of ultra-Orthodox people, fearing God, whose strength is in their loins, and they are the ones who will secure, stand around and ensure that in the final moments, when the great man of the generation is buried with his books and rulings, there will be around his grave only people who followed his path - the path of the Torah.
