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 …
Month: November 2019
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 …