Luz (bone)

Hebrew word associated with the top of the spinal column in Judaism

In Jewish mythology, the luz (Hebrew: לוּז, romanized: lûz) is a bone in the spinal column that houses the soul of the human body.[1] In Hebrew, "luz" means almond, though in some editions of the Bible, it is translated as hazel. Jewish traditions teach that the luz is the bone from which the body will be rebuilt at the time of resurrection, and share the idea that this bone does not decay.[2] Rabbi Shraga Simmons teaches that destruction of this bone by cremation could prevent resurrection.[3]

Interpretations disagree as to where in the spine the luz is located. Some say it refers to the small, almond-shaped bone at the top of the spinal column (the first cervical vertebra, C1 or the Atlas), underneath the brain, on the top of the spine, (the bone where the knot of the tefillin rests). Other tradition however identified it with the coccyx, at the bottom end of the eighteen vertebrae. The Talmud, for example, mentions a small bone at the end of the spine, identified as the luz by some.[4][5] Julius Preuss discusses the Rabbinic views on this and agrees that the luz refers to the coccyx.[5][6] Similarly, Saul Lieberman also mentioned that popular Jewish tradition identified the luz with the end of the spine, and understand it to be the coccyx.[6]

Within Midrash, there is an aggadah (non-legalistic exegetical story) involving a dispute regarding the luz bone between the Roman Emperor Hadrian and the rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah. Hadrian asks how man would be resurrected at the end times, and Joshua replies it would be "from (the) luz of the spine". When asked to prove his claims, Joshua demonstrates the bone's apparent indestructibility: it could not be softened by water, cremated by fire, crushed by a mill, and when placed on an anvil and struck with a hammer, both the hammer and anvil were broken, but the bone remained undamaged.[7][8]

In Kabbalah, the Zohar states that the luz is the bone in the spine that appears like the head of a snake,[9] implying that it is the sacrum at the bottom of the spine, because the sacrum is the only bone in the spine that looks like the head of a snake. The sacrum has similar significance to the luz as a source of resurrection in Egyptian and Greek cultures contemporary to the Zohar and Talmud.[10][11] Likewise, in Islamic thought, the bone's status as the indestructible nidus of human resurrection is repeated in several hadiths.[12] The sacrum has a pattern of dimples and shape that appear similar to those of the almond shell.

## References

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1. ^ Shapiro, Robert (June 1987). "The Mystical Bone of Resurrection". Radiology. 163 (3). Radiological Society of North America: 718. doi:10.1148/radiology.163.3.718. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
2. ^ Sperling, Avraham Yitzchak. "Ta'amei HaMinhagim". Sefaria (in Hebrew). Siman 425. Retrieved 1 January 2025.
3. ^ Simmons, Shraga. "The Jewish View of Cremation". Retrieved 31 October 2021.
4. ^ Reichman, Edward; Rosner, Fred (1996). ""The Bone Called Luz"". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. 51 (1): 54-55. doi:10.1093/jhmas/51.1.52. PMID 9120253. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
5. ^ a b Preuss, Julius (2004) [1911]. Rosnar, Fred (ed.). Biblical and Talmudic Medicine. Lanham, Maryland: Jason Aronson. p. 65\. ISBN 1-56821-134-1.
6. ^ a b Schofer, Jonathan Wyn (2010). Confronting Vulnerability: The Body and the Divine in Rabbinic Ethics. University of Chicago Press. p. 34\. ISBN 978-0-226-74009-6.
7. ^ "Kohelet Rabbah". Sefaria (in Hebrew and English). Parasha 12:5. Retrieved 1 January 2025.
8. ^ "Bereshit Rabbah". Sefaria (in Hebrew and English). 18:4. Retrieved 1 January 2025.
9. ^ "Zohar". Sefaria (in Hebrew and English). Toldot 6:50 (Midrash HaNe'elam 1.137a). Retrieved 1 January 2025. "I have been to distant lands, and heard there that this is the name of the bone of the spine. Of all the bones this one remains in the grave. It is called 'Betu'el the deceitful'. I asked about it, and they said that its shape resembles a head of a serpent, which is deceitful. And that more than any other bone in the body, this bone is deceitful."
10. ^ Sugar, Oscar (1987). "How the Sacrum Got Its Name". JAMA. 257 (15): 2061–2063\. doi:10.1001/jama.1987.03390150077038. PMID 3550163.
11. ^ Stross, Brian (2007). "The Mesoamerican Sacrum Bone: Doorway to the Otherworld" (PDF). S2CID 826456. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
12. ^ "Humans resurrect from tailbone". Quranic Resources. Retrieved 3 April 2024.

## External links

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*  Kohler, Kaufmann (1901–1906). "Luz". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.