Question:
What are the liberty needs of a body that has ever been desecrated by tattooing, marking, branding, piercing or any other method of human disgrace? Do the bodies deserve special altered burial? Will the soul have special atonement or more important daily prayer to endure such a life?
Answer:
A person that desecrated his body, did something that he shouldn’t of done. However like all sins, we can do teshuva and the sin is atoned. There is nothing special that i am aware of that has to be done. Regarding removing the tattoo, there is no obligation to remove them.
Sources:
Shevet Hakehosi 5-154, R’ Ovadia Yosef zt”l, Mein Omer vol. 7 chapter 3-4.
I think I also heard or read somewhere that the process of having a tattoo removed might also be a transgression of desecrating the body.
I am unfamiliar with such an idea. There is discussion amoung the poskim if it permitted to remove a tattoo of Hashem’s name, and even that many poskim permit. There are also opionions that a tattoo must be removed as quickely as possible, (not everyone holds of this). They would all surely permit removing a tattoo.
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