Why join a Chevrah? Why now? This essay seeks to address these questions from two angles, one global and one personal, as well as to explore the intersection of the two. First the personal. My father died in 1999, my mother in 2012. In both cases I felt compelled to find ritual means that would allow me to honor their individuality and the specificity of my connection to them. The idea of handing things over to “professionals”, whether a …
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As a native of the Midwest living on the East Coast, I am occasionally asked what it’s like there. Sometimes, I simply say, “it’s nice” and sometimes I answer the question with another question, like: “What do you think it’s like? I’ve found that Easterners think that it’s pretty desolate there, with a lot of farm land and very little “civilization.” Where I grew up, it was just the opposite. And, as a result, I know about as much about …
I think this may be a story of control submitting to grace. But first some background. For six years now, my synagogue, Beacon Hebrew Alliance in Beacon, NY, has built a sukkah in a public park on Main Street. Each year there’s a different theme, with programming reflecting that theme. This year, for a variety of reasons, the sukkah almost didn’t get built. But as Sukkot approached, the loss seemed too great, and we rallied to get it done, this …
It’s the bodies that haunt me. Each tells a story, shares a history. Scars from cuts or C-section births, bruises from blood draws or recent falls, surgical incision lines. The first Meitah (deceased woman) I saw with her mouth agape and her body wrinkled, was in her 90s. As a new member of the Chevrah Kadisha (CK), I was given the job of holding the meitah’s head while others performed the rituals of Taharah (ritual purification). I felt awkward …
My Uncle Harry died in March of 2002. I had gone to Kansas City to visit my parents and, hopefully, to help them move from an apartment into an assisted-living facility. Between the time I had made my travel plans and the time I arrived, my uncle had been hospitalized for what the emergency room doctor thought was a heart attack. In doing their morning check-in, the nurses at the assisted-living facility to which my uncle had moved in October …
Now that we have passed the annual Selichot service, and we are about to enter into the days of awe, it is again time to pause and take stock, review where Expired and Inspired has been, where it is, and where it is going. It is appropriate – Elul is a time of introspection, retrospection, and prospection. Expired and Inspired began as a concept in early 2014 as a way to share some of the experiences, thoughts, emotions, and …
Not uncommonly, in my work over the years in nursing homes, hospitals, and assisted living centers, I encounter someone who will say to me, “Rabbi. Why hasn’t God taken me?” It is a question, you can imagine, that is unanswerable. All I can do is take a hand, be silent, and look into the eyes of the suffering one, with compassion, trying to understand the gamut of their feelings: that there is no longer joy in remaining alive, either due …
I have written a lot of condolence notes. It’s not because I have known a lot of people who died, or because the people who died had very large families. Rather, it is because I was on the board of my synagogue for seven years, and one of the things our board members do is we write letters to the family of members of the congregation who died. So, I have some experience writing condolence notes about people I may …
I am honored to be asked to write for the Kavod v’Nichum Blog. Since this is my first entry, I wanted to introduce myself to you—at least in terms of what I believe as a rabbi and a mourner. Like you, I am involved with doing mitzvot before and after a death occurs. It is important for us to be clear about what we believe and how it affects what we do. Despite my faith in life after death, I …
[Ed. Note: This article by Makena Mezistrano is originally appeared in Jewish in Seattle Magazine on April 15, 2019. The link to the original article is https://mag.jewishinseattle.org/articles/2019/4/15/when-a-homeless-jewish-man-died-alone-a-community-stepped-up-to-help. Our thanks to Jewish In Seattle Magazine for granting us permission. — JB] When a Homeless Jewish Man Died Alone, a Community Stepped Up to Help High school students helped perform the ultimate mitzvah. By Makena Mezistrano 4/15/2019 at 2:25pm Published in the April 2019 issue of Jewish in Seattle Magazine IMAGE: KIERSTEN ESSENPREIS Rabbi Berry Farkash sighs on the other side …