As Marek Tuszewicki notes in his study of Ashkenazi folk medicine, A frog under the tongue, the prayers said during feldmestn were of fundamental importance. “According to the author of Sefer matamim, the fundamental significance of this custom … lay not so much in measuring as in pacing the cemetery with prayer on one’s lips, and hence in a symbolic cordoning off of the space occupied by death” (Tuszewicki, 2021, p. 185).

However, few examples of these prayers have survived. Similarly, I have not found any record of the incantation which was said to protect the measuring thread – known in Yiddish as the “dead thread”.  S. Weissenberg, in his study of the custom, recordעד the prayers said when measuring an individual grave, but not those said when measuring the cemetery. However, he did note that when a feldmesterin performed the ritual for a paying client, the client would often follow behind her reciting tkhines separately – suggesting that there were two sets of prayers, those spoken by the woman conducting the measurement, and those said by the person who had ordered it.  

Nonetheless, even in the few sources available, it is possible to identify a common theme: the comparison of the measuring thread with the human soul, and the suggestion that by extending the thread around the cemetery, the life or lives of the sufferer(s) might be extended.

Two sources I have come across record songs that were sung during cemetery measuring or during the soul candle making that followed cemetery measuring.

The first was recorded by Max Weinreich in his hometown Goldingen (Kundinga), Latvia, in an interview with a woman he names as “Mrs Berte T”. Remembering how, 35 years earlier (in the 1890s), people used to measure the cemetery in Goldingen, Berte T only remembered a short verse of the song that they used to sing during the measurement: 

געגאַנגען איז ער אין אַ קײטעלע

פֿאַר זײַן נשמה, אַ קנײטעלע

דרײ דעם פֿאָדעם, דרײ

Gegangen iz er in a keytele
Far zayn neshome, a kneytele
Drey dem fodem, drey…

He went in a little chain
For his soul a candlewick 
Spin the thread, spin…

The second, is from Pruzhene (Pruzhany), Poland, and was recorded by A Fayvushinsky in an essay on Pruzhene Folklore in a memorial book written after the Holocaust.

כ׳האָב אַ מאַמע, צײטעלע

פֿאַר איר נשמה, אַ קנײטעלע

דרײט מען דאָס פֿעדעמל שטאַרק

לאַנג, לאַנג

Kh’hob a mame, Tseytele
Far ir neshome, a kneytele
Dreyt men dos fedeml shtark
Lang, lang

I have a mama, Tseytele,
For her soul – a kneytele (candle wick)
The thread is spun, strong
long, long.

These songs are strikingly similar, both comparing the measuring thread to the human soul, and emphasizing the act of drawing it out. They also bear a resemblance to the cemetery measuring prayer recited by Gitele the gabete of Koriv, in which she compared the thread to the life of the child she was trying to save, and described the act of lengthening it as an act of healing.

“Raboyne shel oylem, azoy vi mir beyde hobn getsoygn dem fodem mit undzer gantsn koyekh, un der fodem iz nisht ibergerisn gevorn, azoy zoln botl vern ale beyze koykhes. Dem tayern kinds lebn zol kholile nisht ibergerisn vern.“

“Master of the universe, since we both pulled the thread with all our power, and the thread did not break, shall all evil powers come to naught. The dear child’s life shall also not break and be cut short, God forbid.”

When, on one occasion, the thread accidentally snapped during her measurement, Gitele quickly adapted her tkhine. Rather than comparing the thread to the life of the child, she compared it to the “menacing degree of punishment” that threatened the child’s life.

Raboyne shel oylem! Azoy vi der fodem hot zikh ibergerisn, azoy zol ibergerisn vern der beyzer gzardi’n

Master of the universe! Just as the thread was broken, shall the menacing decree of punishment also be broken!

A very similar tkhine is recorded in the Groyser verterbukh fun der yidisher shprakh [The great dictionary of the Yiddish Language], under “iberdreyevdik” – overturnable. During grave measuring, the dictionary records, the following tkhine was said:

Vi der fodem tsit zikh, azoy zol zikh tsien zayn lebn

As the thread is extended, so shall [the sufferer’s] life be extended

If and when the thread broke, this tkhine was “overturned”:

Vi der fodem rayst zikh, azoy zol zikh opraysn zayn khoylas

As the thread breaks, so shall [the sufferer’s] illness be broken

All of these sources suggest that the comparison of the thread to the human life or soul was a common theme in cemetery and grave measurements (as well as the “reversal” of this comparison at times when the ritual went wrong). This arguably supports the theory held by Polish ethnographer Regina Lilientalowa that “measuring the cemetery was intended as a substitute for measuring a patient” (Tuszewicki, 2021, p. 185). The custom of measuring the sick person themselves and making a candle the size of their body, popular among Catholics in the medieval period, was still practiced in some Eastern European shtetls in the late 19^th century. In a study conducted published in YIVO’s Filologishe shriftn in 1928, citing Lilientalowa’s work, recorded that in order to rescue a severely ill person:

The sick person is measured with a thread, which is then used to make a wick for a candle the size of the sick person. The candle is carried into the shul or buried in the cemetery, wrapped in shrouds. Sometimes instead of doing this the cemetery is measured with the thread. (Khayes, 1928.)

Residents of the shtetls Orle (Orlya) and Volp (Vowpa) interviewed for the study remembered a similar custom:

[To rescue a severely ill person] A candle the size of the sick person is melted, charity is donated, and bread is distributed to the poor and to pious Yeshiva students. (Khayes, 1928.)

And in Bilsk:

Wax is poured for the person and then buried in order to rescue a dying person.

Grass from the cemetery is placed at the sick person’s head. (Khayes, 1928.)

Weissenberg, in his study of cemetery and grave measuring, noted the importance that the thread came into contact with the cemetery earth, suggesting a common belief in its healing properties.

Overall, cemetery measuring seems to have consisted of several, overlapping, symbolic gestures:

• It created a boundary – both physical, with thread, and with song and prayer – around the cemetery, the realm of the dead, separating it from that of the living.
• It created a connection with the dead, through which they could be called on to help reinforce that same boundary by advocating with God in the spiritual realm.
• It created a physical connection with the earth of the cemetery, which would then be used in candles or other objects, and which was believed to have healing properties
• It used thread, candles and other objects as symbols for human life. By extending the thread, cemetery measurers hoped to extend the life of the person or people for whom they performed the ritual. Similarly, candles could be buried or donated to the synagogue as a stand in for that person, in the hope that this offering would be accepted and that their life would not be taken. The act of giving candles or other materials produced in cemetery measuring to the poor or to the synagogue was also a mitsve – a holy act that it was hoped would inspire God’s mercy on the sufferer.

Cite this: Annabel Gottfried Cohen, “Songs and prayers for cemetery measuring (and what we can learn from them)” https://pullingatthreads18.wordpress.com/2024/08/02/songs-and-prayers-for-cemetery-measuring-and-what-we-can-learn-from-them/

Sources:

Joffe, Judah Achilles and Mark, Yudel, (eds), Der groyser verterbukh fun der yidisher shprakh, (New York, 1961)

Fayvushinksy, A,“Pruzhener Folklor”, in Bernshteyn (ed.), Pinkes fun finf fartilikte kehiles. Buenos Aires,1958. Excerpt translated by Annabel Gottfried Cohen.

Rabbi Tuviah Gutman Rapoport ‘Parents and grandparents and the biography of a generation’, Yizker Bukh Koriv, (Tel Aviv, 1955). Trans. Annabel Gottfried Cohen.

H. Khayes, ‘Gleybungen un minhogim in farbindung mitn toyt’ (Beliefs and customs  connected to death), Filologishe shriftn, 2, Vilna, 1928.

Tuszewicki, Marek, A Frog Under the Tongue: Jewish Folk Medicine in Eastern Europe. Liverpool University Press, 2021. Trans. Jessica Taylor-Kucia. 

Weinreich, Max, Shtaplen: fir etyudn tsu der yidisher shprakhvisnshaft un literatur geshikhte, (Rungs: four studies in Yiddish linguistics and literary history). Wostok, Berlin, 1923. Extract translated by Annabel Gottfried Cohen.

Weissenberg, S. “Das Feld Un Das Keywermessen” (Cemetery and grave measuring), Mitteilungen zur jüdischen Volkskunde, Neue Folge, 2. Jahrg., H. 1 (17).1906. Trans. Annabel Gottfried Cohen