We have just begun “the three weeks”, a period of national mourning and introspection between the fast days 17th of Tammuz and Tisha B’av. There is a well-known passage in the Talmud (Yoma 9b), which says that the Second Temple was destroyed because of Sinat Hinam – groundless hatred. On the other hand, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kuk said that “if we were destroyed and the world with us due to Sinat Hinam, we will return to being rebuilt and the world with us due to Ahavat Hinam (groundless love) (Orot Hakodesh, III, pp. 323-324). My Uncle, Rabbi Baruch G. Goldstein זצ”ל  — a Holocaust survivor who passed away at the age of 94 on Erev Shavuot — lived his life according to the principle of Ahavat Hinam. Therefore, I have decided to share my eulogy for him during the three weeks as an incentive for all of us to practice Ahavat Hinam and Ahavat Hessed (to love kindness) during the three weeks and throughout the year. Yehi zikhro barukh! May his memory be for a blessing!

After checking dozens of books we have learned that there are three customs related to dirt, grass and stones at the end of the burial service or after visiting a grave. We shall present them in chronological order with the sources and explanations we have found for each custom:

There is a widespread custom today to use the matronymic in the mee sheberakh prayers recited for the sick during the Torah service. It is not entirely clear when or where this custom began. A prayer for the sick from fourteenth-century Provence uses ploni ben ploni [a male son of a male]. In a classic series of articles by Avraham Ya’ari about the mee sheberakh prayers, we also find ploni ben ploni or the abbreviation p’b’p’ in prayers for the sick.