blogs/brentspodek

If you or anyone you love is mortal, this might be of interest.

Though it comes inevitably as a shock, we know that to be alive means that one day, we will die. In fact, the only certainty we have about our existence on tihs earth is that it's limited. 

From the dawn of time, Judaism has helped all of us through that ultimate transition - most commonly first as mourners, then as mortals.There are rituals around dying, there are rituals around caring for the dead and there are rituals for the living to mourn the dead.

Many of are unfamiliar with these rituals and learn them at moments of grief or shock. At those moments, it can be a struggle to to make sense of them or think about how we might want to shape them.

We tend to avoid speaking of death, and I think it's good spiritual practice to address it directly. We have a few very special events planned to talk about death and its rituals in our community and I very much hope you will mark them on your calendar.

Rabbi Regina Sandler-Phillips, the executive director of WAYS OF PEACE Community Resources, will be teaching at BHA on two occasions - on Friday, March 11, Rabbi Sandler-Phillips will be teaching about Facing Death as Jews and on Saturday, March 12, she'll be teaching about Jewish Burial Societies, and what it would take to start one here at BHA. On March 26, I'll be sharing a Guide to Death and Dying at BHA, which I hope will inform how we care for each other during hard times at BHA.

These events are free and open to anyone who is interested.