New Classes

Birthing and Dying: Jewishly (re)imagining life’s many beginnings and endings

3 weeks

Mondays: 3:30-5:00 pm ET / 12:30-2:00 pm PT

May 20 · May 27 · June 3

For many people, the thought of witnessing a birth or a death can radically shake up our perception of what role we want tradition or spiritually to play in our lives. We want more! We want less! We don’t know what we want! And for something so obviously ubiquitous (we were all born and we all will one day die), it’s jarring how birth and death tend to happen out of sight and at the margins.

My father died soon after my child was born. Each experience taught me so much about the other. And each experience led on a journey of learning and yearning for more- more tradition and more practices to fill the gaps where the tradition was not looking.

Exploring Jewish wisdom on birthing and dying as spiritual events make the thought of grieving and welcoming children less alienating and scary. Tradition (from prayers, folk practices, and more) can provide grounding, inspiration and comfort. But there are still so many rituals and practices we are lacking.

What if saying Kaddish at a daily minyan feels more alienating than comforting in a time of loss? What if the tradition does not fully speak to your experience as a mourner, a parent, or even as a person? How can we take the wisdom of life’s beginnings and endings into the rest of our lives, even if we are nowhere near a birth or death in an immediate sense? And so much more. In this class, we’ll explore Jewish traditions around birthing and dying and explore new ways to make rituals during life’s highs and lows. You do not need to have any relationship to another person’s birth or death to join this class. Having been born mortal is plenty.