Category: Mourning & Bereavement

Here I was ... singing about the purity of souls with a room full of Reconstructionists: queers, gender outlaws, patrilineal Jews, and so many of us who are so used to being reminded that our souls are anything but.

As we enter the month of Av, which includes the holiday of Tisha b'Av, a day of mourning for communal tragedy, we are reminded of the power of ritual to sustain us during times of loss. However, for grieving families, the pain of loss can often make funeral planning challenging. In that spirit, we present an interview with Sharon Litvinsky and Jennifer Ross, founders of By Your Side, a funeral and memorial planning service in Princeton, NJ.

We're surrounded by the death of innocents. Orlando. Nice. Dallas. Tel Aviv. Innocents dead at the hand of terror. Innocents dead at the hand of gun violence. Innocents dead at the hand of complacency and silence. In Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, France, a priest was murdered in his church, a religious man doing holy work. Hostages were taken. His throat was slit. His name was Fr. Jacques Hamel. He was 84-years-old.

Here’s our message: if you suffer, get help. You’re worth it.

After more than half a century of struggle with mental illness, mired in despair, my father died by suicide.  

I continued to wonder how a Jew-by-choice goes about honoring a dead loved one in a way that doesn’t offend non-Jewish relatives and honors my adopted Jewish traditions.

Four months ago I was about to get ready for bed when my cellphone rang. I ignored it because it was from an unknown caller. When I ignored it a second time, the caller left a voicemail. It was my stepmother's friend, whom I had never met, calling from a hospital in Texas.

While I have always found Jewish mourning rituals to be meaningful, providing a structure through which to process one of life’s most difficult moments, I have also noticed over the years a few areas in which these rituals could be augmented to mark significant moments for the mourning family and the community that supports them. As someone who is deeply involved in organizations that specifically address Jewish mourning practices, I am particularly interested in seeing creative additions to the repertoire of Jewish mourning rituals.

"Take solace in the fact that she's in a better place now."  "Don't sit around moping after the breakup—you need to get out!" "Cheer up! It'll get better from here." "You just gotta keep busy to keep your mind off of it!" "You're doing great!" "Life goes on, you can't drop out from it forever."

Rabbi Deborah Glanzberg-Krainin, Ph.D. interviewed her friend and colleague Rabbi Vivie Mayer about ritual mourning following her father’s death.