(IsraelNN.com) Jewish law generally forbids placing objects in the coffin of a Jew, but rabbis in Europe recently were faced with the dilemma of how to fulfill a Jew's request that he be buried with what he considered his best friend--a bottle of Vodka.

The question arose after a former Soviet Jew living in Germany died and left a will stating his wish to a friend that he be buried with his best friend, a bottle of Vodka, with which he had never parted during his lifetime, the European Jewish Press reported.
His wish to a friend was that he be buried with his best friend, a bottle of Vodka.

The local rabbi was unsure how to decide the question according to Jewish law, not wanting to violate the Torah but also wanting to respect a deceased person's last wishes. He contacted halachic [Jewish law] experts at the Rabbinical Center of Europe (RCE) in Brussels, which assists more than 600 rabbis across Europe on issues of daily life.

They learned that the man emigrated from the Soviet Union to Germany in the 1970s. He had a good friend who, unlike himself, was active in the Jewish community. The friend explained to the rabbis, "Every day he would drink a half a glass of Vodka in the morning and a half in the evening."

Rabbi Yaakov Rozhe, chairman of the Zaka Rabbinical Council and a representative of Israel’s chief rabbinate in the Medical Institute of Abu Kabir, ruled that there is no problem in Jewish law if the bottle is placed near the coffin. He pointed out that an object may not be placed in a coffin or between it and the ground underneath.