Telling Stories and Lighting Candles
Telling Stories and Lighting Candles
This week I participated in a workshop on “Narrative Medicine” which was a brand new term/concept for me. Narrative Medicine is a way of approaching medicine (often diagnostic) through telling and hearing stories. It’s a lens through which to learn about a person as more than the sum of their symptoms in order to improve outcomes for patients and caregivers.
One of the tools narrative medicine uses to highlight how we bring our own life experiences and perspectives into every interaction is to have people observe a piece of art or writing and reflect on it out loud so that everyone can hear and experiences the varied approaches.
For a part of the workshop, we (a group of strangers) read a poem together and then explored what it evoked. For some that was reflecting on what they found interesting, while others shared memories.
The experience was both new and totally familiar.
The familiarity was rooted in how it felt like a mashup of chevrutah, paired learning, and reading a verse in the Talmud, the central rabbinic text for Jewish law, with all the commentary surrounding it. We can all read the same sentence and have countless interpretations and understandings of it informed by who we are in the world.
I began to think how this might apply to conversations around death and dying; big conversations that are both difficult and filled with our unique perspectives. What might it look like to use a tool (like the one I shared from the Narrative Medicine workshop) and ground it in the Jewish tradition of welcoming different opinions so that we can learn from each other more fully and advance important conversations?
FROM THE GRAM
Instagram has been an incredible space to learn from and connect with people from all backgrounds. Find me @be.sideproject
Here’s an excerpt from a recent post about lighting Yahrzeit (Yiddish for “a year’s time”, specifically relating to the anniversary of a death but are also used following a death and throughout the year) Candles:
There’s an interesting thing about Yahrzeit candles: there’s no blessing to say when you light them. (If you know why, please let me know!)
After we lit the candles, my partner, Ari, and I blessed our daughter like we do every Friday night. Part of the traditional blessing for children that we say is translated as “May God bless you and protect you. May God show you favor and be gracious to you. May God show you kindness and grant you peace.”
In the moment it felt right to send that same blessing to the soul of the one I knew who had just died. So I did.
It wasn’t until afterwards that I learned one of the common offerings for a yahrzeit candle lighting is “El Malei Rachamim/ A Prayer for Mercy”, it is the prayer for the soul of the person who has died and is usually recited graveside. While it is not the same prayer as blessing the children, it has similar themes of protection, love, and peace.
This sparked me to write a blessing for lighting a Yahrzeit candle:
I remember you, [name]. I remember your light and what it felt like to be in your presence.
May The Spirit of the Universe help protect the memory of you so the world may know your legacy.I feel the love that bound us in this world, I bask in its warmth, and share love with others in your honor.
May The Spirit of the Universe bond its love with yours and strengthen the fabric of life.The memory of you brings me peace even though my heart aches missing you. I am blessed to have known you and your memory will forever be a blessing.
May The Spirit of the Universe grant your soul peace.
ON THE POD
There’s a Be.Side Project podcast! I LOVE putting it together and I hope it’s meaningful and interesting to listen to. The first three episodes are up and you can download them wherever you like to get your podcasts or over here:
03: Teach me Something with Rabbi Lisa Goldstein
Wishing you a Shabbat Shalom and a Chag Sameach, a wonderful end to the Passover holiday.