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 …