Mourning & Bereavement

Traditional Jewish mourning and bereavement practices are designed to help us bear our grief. But sometimes we need something more: a poem that captures our imagination, a creative ritual that addresses the particularity of our grief, a song that speaks to our heart. May you find a measure of comfort in your time of need.

Latest Rituals

“12 months of mourning, / Travelling, conjoined, / On our continuing / Separate ways.”
dark water with bubbles of light
“Any ‘I love you’ / Like water, uncontained / Can have no form.”
woman standing in a canyon stream facing a waterfall
“what I really need to work on is letting in”
white hand holding lit candle in small glass jar
“For the first time / I will miss / The Hanukkah lights”
nine candles lit against black background
“Teach us to spin apart the light in this dark.”
person holding lit tea light candle near rows of other lit tea lights
“because you breathed / because you dreamed”
coral colored stone with the word remember on it with line of stones in the background in various shades of coral and beige
“i am the rock that burst open”
headstone with hebrew writing and stones on top
“We are here / To find the cracks / At the edges of possibilities”
mountains sunrise fog clouds
“We can envision this world and beyond as havens of peace”
landscape of pink-tinted mountains with person standing and sky above with one cloud on the right side
“Whatever is being born / In the darkened seed / Of Mar Heshvan / Is welcomed”
autumn forest with path between trees and waning light

The Reconstructionist Network

Learning to Say "We": Writing Identity

In this immersion, we will reflect and expand on our personal experiences of identity, using writing exercises and in-depth discussions to think about, challenge, discover, explore, and experiment with different ways to identify ourselves, to consider how those ways connect us to and separate us from others, and how they represent and misrepresent aspects of who we are.

Four sessions, starting June 15th

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