Category: Preparing for Death

This, I believe, is why the High Holidays are followed immediately by Sukkot, the Festival of Booths. Five days after we acknowledge mortality, Sukkot is a celebration of the temporary.

Ritual helps us pay attention. From the joy of a recovery to the grief of a funeral, ritual helps us inhabit the breadth of human experience.

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.

My first Taharah, ritual purification, was a trial of courage for me. I stepped in with little preparation, and it was new to me.

It is an incredible and humbling privilege to sit with people who are dying.