Last night my congregation participated in a program on Zoom called “Death over Dinner.” The premise is that sometimes death is a difficult topic, one that is to be avoided at all costs. I first participated in the this program at the Chicago Board of Rabbis in February of 2020. Yes, you read that right, February of 2020 before we knew what was coming. I sat there and said, “This will be my Selichot program.” And it was. On Zoom. What we were given that day was a series of cards. A Jewish teaching on one side and some questions of the back.  

Last night we started with this, written by Rabbi Sharon Brous, author of the Amen Effect which will be our November book group book and a One Book, One Read congregational book. She introduces Dinner over Death with this:

“Yom Kippur is the annual Jewish deep dive into our mortality, the one moment when we step out the death denying culture we live in and peer, with open yes and heart into the deep. Every year we talk about how the rituals of tis day create for us a deathscape—we don’t eat or drink, we wear white, we immerse in the memories of loved ones who have died. We repeat the words who will live and who will die, wrestling with the realization that the stark and bitter and awful reality is that some of us will be here next year and some will not. Yom Kippur is rooted in the assumption that we have more clarity around what matters most when we’re on the edge of life. So we go there, together, in order to ask ourselves the ourselves the questions of the palliative care doctors: what matters most o you, now? And what will you do about it.?” 

We didn’t get much beyond the first question on the back. “If you discovered you had 30 days left how would you spend them?” 

For some this was difficult. For some they will spend time with family and friends. (Connections!) For some they will have a big party to tell their friends just how much they mean to them. (More connections!) I think I liked this one best.  

One card said Create Space and added that the Torah is filled with genealogies, connecting people from generation to generation. With each name comes a new story. We talked about how we were named, who we were named for and the significance they have in our lives. It was fascinating. And it deepened our connections to each other hearing the stories. The connections between the generations were obvious too.  

We talked about music, and Psalm 23 which is heard at many Jewish funerals. In English, in Hebrew or both, chanted or not. What role do you want music to play in your own funeral. No one listed a Hebrew song. But there were many English ones…and again we deepened our relationships one to another. One thing that surprised me was two people said that want me to do their funerals. Why? Because I know them. They didn’t want someone to just standing up there reading poems, not knowing them. This is connection and community too. I am humbled.  

We ended our evening with Kaddish, for those who came before and for the hostages recently murdered. As hard as the conversations can be. As tragic as the recent executions were, it was a good and important and connected evening. I am grateful to the CKI community.