Water Water Everywhere
I’ve spent the better part of this week immersed in Jewish learning about the Chevra Kadisha and the Jewish approach to death and dying at Kavod v’Nichum’s annual conference. So, even though I’m usually thinking about Jewish end of life things, I’m really thinking about it this week and I wanted to share some thoughts that were left swirling around in my head.
A recurring topic at this online conference was about re-entering the world post covid. Specifically, re-entering the taharah room.
Taharah is the Jewish ritual of preparing a deceased person for burial. The word comes from the Hebrew root “to purify” and involves ritual liturgy, washing the body, dressing the body in simple white (traditionally linen) clothes, and placing the body into a casket. For the last 16 or so months, many Jewish burial societies (chevrah kadisha) have been unable to perform this ritual in person.
When is became clear that the pandemic had indefinitely paused in-person taharah, a wonderful new ritual was created via taharah ruchanit, a spiritual cleansing performed remotely utilizing different liturgies over video or tele-conference. Several times over the last week I heard how powerful it was to hold a remote taharah and how deeply ready people are to come back into physical space together. To care for body as well as the soul.
In one session there was a question about how individuals or communities can mark going back to being in person. How might we honor and acknowledge the transition and how it’s making us feel? What do we need to leave behind and what do we want to carry with us? These questions were aimed at resuming in-person taharah and I think they are important questions for anyone to be asking themselves now.
As I was soaking up and processing all these amazing discussions, I did something I hadn’t done in a while and looked up the Torah portion to see what we’re reading this week. It turns out this week (tomorrow) we read parsha (chapter) Chukat in the Torah and it’s beautifully aligned.
If you’re familiar with this chapter, you might think I’m going to reference the laws introduced around the red heifer, water, and ritual impurity after coming into contact with a dead body. It’s a solid connection with the conference this week, but what I really want to talk about is Moses hitting the rock.
Let’s set the scene: the people of Israel are nearing the end of their 40-year journey through the desert, they’re tired and thirsty, and God tells Moses to talk to the rock to bring forth water. Instead, Moses strikes the rock from a place of anger (at the Israelites #storyforanothertime) and waters come forth. Huzzah!
But as punishment for leading from anger and not following God’s commandment, Moses is told he will not be allowed to enter into Israel.
Judaism and water show up to the party together all. the. time. Most commonly via mikveh, ritual immersion in water. Water is used for spiritual cleansing, milestones, and to mark moments of transition.
So I’m thinking about the people of Israel, on the verge of the next part of their journey and about to enter into an unknown place. I’m thinking about these miraculous-from-a-rock waters that serve to quench both actual and spiritual thirst.
And I’m thinking about how I want to enter into this changed post-covid world. Will I hold onto anger after losing so much time this past year+ ? Will I give myself permission and space to think about when I’ll be most comfortable removing my mask, shaking hands, hugging friends? Will I immerse myself in water either literally or metaphorically and allow my spirit to be refreshed so that I can move forward more unburdened than I currently feel?
I hope that the work of all chevrot kadisha can resume to their fullest extent and that at next year’s conference we can talk about the time we weren’t able to be together to perform holy and important work as past.
Shabbat Shalom.
ON THE POD
Episode 07: Emiliya Zhivotovskaya
In this episode, Emiliya shares about her experiences of grief and loss and how she connects those pieces of herself to Judaism and her work in the scientific study and application of Positive Psychology.