Thank you for your sensitivity and for your question.  Unless the facility has a specific rule against the wreath, your mother should feel free and be encouraged to hang the wreath.  I believe that it is important that from a perspective of Jewish values, what is essential is that the elderly in an assisted living facility continue to feel that their space is their own.  When your mother was younger, had she rented an apartment from a Jewish landlord, she could practice her religion in the apartment despite the landlord being Jewish.
 
This is also consistent with Jewish law.  Jews are required to remove hametz, leavened products, from all their property on the holiday of Passover.  However, if a non-Jew is renting property from the Jew, the non-Jew may maintain their own leavened products even if the home is own by the Jew.  We see the rental as being their space. 
 
So, again I thank you for the sensitivity of the question.  I wish your mother many more years of health and happiness and in advance wish you all a Merry Christmas.
 

Whether man is the supreme being among all creations is a question on which Judaism is divided.  Obviously the Supreme Being is God, but God is the Creator and not created, so I assume the question refers to just to the beings God creates.  The answers are reflected in the two different chapters in Bereishit (Genesis) that describe Creation.
            In the first chapter, man is the pinnacle of Creation.  The whole Creation story leads to creation of man, who is given rule and dominion over everything else that is created.  Man is told to conquer the world and fill it.
            In the second chapter, man is placed into a world that seems to have been created without man in mind and is told to guard and serve it.  Whereas in chapter 1, the world seems to be created for man’s benefit, in chapter 2, it is man that is created for the world’s benefit.
            This contradiction forms the basis of a famous statement said by the Hassidic master, Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotsk, known as the Kotsker.  He said that a person should carry two pieces of paper, each with a Biblical verse.  On one should be written, “The world was created for me.”  On the other it should be written, “I am but dust and ashes.”  The trick is knowing when to take out which paper when.

The issue with meat and dairy is not actually about whether or not they touch but whether taste is presumed to have been transferred and that one is tasting the two together.  If both substances are cold, we do not presume any taste has transferred.  In that case, one would merely need to rinse off the substances to make sure there isn’t residual meat or dairy to be eaten together.

 

If either the meat or dairy is hot, then we presume some taste has transferred to a degree determined by other factors which would be too complicated to list here.  In that case, the entire substance might be entirely prohibited or just an outer layer depending on the circumstances.

 

Regarding the initial question about milk coming from an animal, at the time an animal is milked the animal is still alive.  Meat is only considered meat once the animal has been slaughtered and therefore there is no actual meat coming in contact with the milk.  Even if we would consider it to be meat, there is no transfer of meat taste to the milk since as stated above it is all cold.

A “Jewish cemetery” is simply one in which Jews are buried.  I suspect the question is perhaps trying to understand a common misconception that due to certain specific transgressions, one may not be buried in a “Jewish cemetery.”  There is in fact no such prohibition.  There is, however, a notion in Jewish law of burying one near the people that would be most honorable to that person.  We bury spouses together.  Many synagogues in America have sections of a cemetery so the members of a community can be buried together.
 
            Along those lines, the Shulkhan Arukh does record a law that one may not bury wicked people with righteous people (Yoreh Deah 367).  Furthermore, even a moderately wicked person should not be buried with a fully wicked person.  However, one who has repented may be buried with someone who is completely righteous.
 
            That halacha implies that how one lives in life and how s/he is remembered will also reflect on those who are buried near them.  As such, it is appropriate for communities, and burial societies to set standards for burial, so that those who are buried among the members of a community honor the others who have passed away by their proximity.  [This isn’t always possible once a grave has already been purchased.]
 
            In conclusion, Rabbis felt that in death, as in life, we are often looked at by the company we keep.

 

 

 

 

 

The blessing Baruch Dayan Haemet is in fact recited upon hearing any form of bad news, but most commonly when hearing about someone’s passing.  The Mishna in Berachot (54a) states that a person is required to praise God for both the good and the bad.  The Mishna there cites the verse that one should love God with all our heart – all of our heart implies under all circumstances, both good and bad.  We understand that our relationship with God is total and incorporates both good and bad occasions, but our love is complete.