An Ancient Custom

The stone is a sign that the living remember the dead. The pebbles on the stone are like the headstone itself; they are signs that this is a pious family who visits the grave of their loved one.

The main idea here is that Judaism encourages mourning and visiting the graves of loved ones, but it does not encourage doing this so often that you lose your focus on life. Some Jews don’t leave pebbles on tombstones, but rather a clump of grass. We are born, grow old and die, just as grass grows and dies with the seasons.

But the guy who mows the lawn in the cemetery prefers you use the clumps of grass because they don’t shoot out of his mower and chip the tombstones.

Solve the problem…get cremated.