Mandy Patinkin decided that when he dies, he wants his body to be composted.
The 73-year-old said on his “Don’t Listen to Us” podcast that he remembered memorizing a speech from “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, “and it was about being in a box … But the idea — I’m very claustrophobic, very claustrophobic, and the idea of being put in a box, knowing that I’m going to be in a box when whatever I’m familiar with is drastically changed is just unacceptable to me. Period. Full stop.”
The “Criminal Minds” star continued, “Don’t give me any business about, ‘Well, you’re not you, you’re not here, it’s a whole different thing.’ Excuse me. Not OK.”
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And because of his Jewish heritage, he explained, “The other idea of being put in an oven is seared into my heritage genetics of the crematorium in Auschwitz, which I’ve visited. I can’t bear the idea of being burned.”
He said that while he considers himself a “conservative Chicago Jew,” Orthodox Judaism dictates that “you must not do anything. You must not even let somebody do an autopsy on your body to study something, because when you go to the Olam Haba, the world beyond, you must be complete, because when the Messiah comes and everything is resurrected, and the Jews are waiting for that … you must be complete.”
Patinkin joked that “you’ll be in the ‘Wizard of Oz’ looking for the parts” otherwise.
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“I can’t deal with the oven and I can’t deal with the box,” he said. “I love this idea so much because I don’t have to be burned, and I don’t have to be claustrophobic. I’m naturally put in this encasement that you’ve just described. I’m free to go to the Olam Haba, the world beyond, as complete. And then the organic process turns me into, you know, mulch, food, soil. And I’m not in an oven … I just am ecstatic over this.”
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Patinkin was presented with the idea by a woman named Robyn who came on to his podcast to discuss her husband’s wish for an earth-friendly burial.
Human composting involves putting a person’s body inside a vessel and covering it in organic material. The vessel breaks down the body through controlled heat, oxygen and moisture over a period of about a month, eventually becoming soil that is returned to the family.
