With today's high cost of burial -- casket, tombstone, plot of land -- many are opting for cremation. What is the Jewish position?cremation in judaism

Judaism permits only burial. The source for this comes from the Torah, where God tells Adam:

You will return to the ground, for it was from the ground that you were taken. (Genesis 3:19)

Judaism not only specifically forbids cremation, but insists on a very simple burial directly into the ground.Let's understand why.

BODY AND SOUL

Upon death, the soul goes through a painful separation from the body, which until now had housed the soul. This process of disengagement occurs as the body decays. When the body is buried, it decays slowly, thereby giving comfort to the soul as it disengages from the body.

This decay is crucial, which is why Jewish law forbids embalming or burial in a mausoleum, which would in fact delay the decaying process.

Also, Jews are buried in a wooden casket, which decays more rapidly. Similarly, Jewish law dictates that burial take place as soon as possible after death. (In Israel, funerals often take place on the same day as the death.) All this is for the benefit of the soul.

One reason that Judaism prohibits cremation is that the soul would suffer great shock due to the unnaturally sudden disengagement from the body. As the Talmud says:

Burial is not for the sake of the living, but rather for the dead. (Sanhedrin 47a)

What about the millions of Jews cremated in Nazi ovens?The Almighty certainly guarded their souls from needless agony.

RESURRECTION

Jewish tradition records that with burial, a single bone in the back of the neck never decays. It is from this bone -- called the luz bone -- that the human body will be rebuilt in the future Messianic Era when all the dead will be resurrected.

With cremation, that bone can be destroyed, and the resurrection process stymied.

In fact, someone who chooses cremation is as if he does not believe in resurrection.

Resurrection is a fundamental belief of Judaism, as expressed in Maimonides' classical "13 Principles of Faith":

I believe with complete faith that there will be a resurrection of the dead, whenever the wish emanates from the Creator.

Sources:
Beit Yitzchak, Yoreh Deah II, 195 (based on Talmud - Temurah 34a).
Achiezer III, 72:4 (based on Deut. 21:23, and Maimonides - Laws of Sanhedrin 15:8).
by Rabbi Shraga Simmons via aish.com