The gemara is trying to determine if the dead know what is happening in our world and relates the following story:
Come and hear; for Ze'iri deposited some money with his landlady, and while he was away visiting Rav
she died. So he went after her to the cemetery and said to her, Where is my money? She replied to him: Go and take it from under the ground, in the hole of the doorpost, in such and
such a place, and tell my mother to send me my comb and my makeup by the hand of So-and-so who is coming here tomorrow. [From this episode the gemara proves that the dead are aware of what is going on here].
One is puzzled: Why does this woman need her comb and makeup? She is DEAD!! Finished. Out of commission for good. Geshtorben. פגר מת.
There is a passage in Rabbeinu Yonah's Shaarei Tshuva [שער שני אות יח] that can answer this question. He seems to say that if someone is connected to physicality he takes it with him to the grave. The problem is that where he is he can never fulfill his physical desires because he is no longer physical. He is a soul that yearns for an ice cream cone.
This woman was very connected to her appearance. Now that she is dead it is STILL important to her but she is in a place where such things not only lack value but don't even exist. No hair to comb and no face to make up.
This world, teaches the gemara, is like a wedding, so grab as much food as you can while its still free and plentiful. The food is ruchniyus and the time is limited.....:-)
