He is mulling a memorial ceremony to mark the thirtieth day since the burial of the comics.
Ra’anana, January 27 – A man whose childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood took shape through a devotion to reading and rereading favorite issues of The Punisher, Batman, and other figures in the Marvel and DC universes finally felt compelled to give the worn, venerated materials a dignified farewell, and put them in the ground alongside ruined prayer books, works of Jewish philosophy, and unusable ritual objects today.
“It’s important to treat our core texts with the proper reverence,” explained Daniel Shemesh, who still considers himself an aficionado of those fantasy worlds. “Our ancient Sages ordained that a Torah scroll, any holy book, really, or any sacred object, cannot be simply discarded. It requires a dignified burial. That is what I did today.”
“I hope I did not cause any further indignities to the texts,” he continued. “Many pages were no longer legible. All had frayed corners. At least three, at one point or another, became warped or distorted when something spilled on them. And one copy of a Green Arrow issue was the victim of a vengeful younger sibling who was not permitted to borrow my stuff. Nevertheless, in burial I tried my best to treat each piece with due honor, and if I fell short, I ask forgiveness.”
Shemesh lamented the lack of material in the Jewish liturgical canon to mourn such a loss. “There are definitely passages to recite at a burial of shaimos,” he acknowledged, using a shorthand term for texts containing any of various names for God. “But even that is quite niche. Almost no one knows about it. I only became aware of it when doing the research for this. It turns out there’s nothing.”
He disclosed that he is considering holding a memorial ceremony to mark the thirtieth day since the burial of the comics. “It’s not appropriate to put a grave marker there – the site is for all manner of sacred materials, not just mine. Maybe I’ll invite an intimate circle of my friends and family to a little something where we can recall the special moments spent with those comic books.”
Shemesh also revealed that he had previously intended to bury as sacred a number of other no-longer-usable items in his possession: a broken Cobra Rattler aircraft from the G.I. Joe action figure series, circa 1985; a well-loved baseball glove; a partially-filled sticker album featuring players in the 1983 NFL; and other important pieces of hallowed memorabilia. Unfortunately, Shemesh’s parents unceremoniously discarded those items decades ago, unaware of their sanctified status.
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