Erin Levin: One Woman’s Journey Around the World

The Key to Better Investment Returns

Wow.  What an amazing evening!

It was thrilling to walk into a room full of smiling, laughing, chatting people.  What a beautiful way to consecrate Feldman’s new chapel.  I am so grateful to Rebecca for giving everyone a wonderful reason to be there.

I trust you found Rebecca’s talk interesting and thought-provoking.  Did you connect with anyone during the guided meditation?  Rebecca said intuition is a muscle; it has to be exercised to get stronger.  I hope you will find the practice fulfilling.  It certainly helps me to live a more purposeful life.

Thursday night, I mentioned that Rebecca and I have similar goals in our work.  Though our methods are very different, both of us try to normalize conversations many think of as scary.  Rebecca’s approach is helping people to connect with deceased loved ones and mine is prearranged funeral planning.

By planning ahead, you can relieve your loved ones of the emotional and financial burden of making arrangements on your behalf.  I’d like to show you how to make plans from a point of strength instead of in an emergency.

Let’s talk!

Hi Jamie,

I wanted to share a few thoughts I had after hearing Doron Kornbluth speak to the community about the Jewish Perspective on Burial versus Cremation.

Wow, what I knew before doesn’t compare to what I know now! Doron made a sensitive and difficult topic approachable. Hopefully to all the people present Monday evening.

I found it encouraging that Doron took the time to make a meaningful effort to search for the answers to questions many people find hard to ask, let alone answer.  His presentation of engaging the audience to find out from them first about their concerns opened up, I believe, a trusting and honest discussion of what is considered in our culture an almost taboo topic.

As you can tell, we are both working with a general public that is given “mass media” answers to personal (and I add sacred) choices that now I understand to be misleading as well as miss-information. Doron took the fear out of the “known” when it comes to helping a person or families go to that sensitive place of deciding how final arrangements can bring peace of mind and acceptance into a “rite of passage”.

My Chaplaincy in Hospice Care taught me a few lessons I have held dear to my heart.  One of them is that we need not fear any choice we want to consider when we can have a bit of quiet time and space to reflect internally along with those that love and care about us.  Life is not meant to be lived alone, and neither is death. The dying process, as it is experienced in nature, as Doron described in his talk, is a very natural and honorable  process that gives the dying person and the living person a “rite of passage” to prepare for the absence of a loved one.  And so is saying good-bye.  Participating in the rituals of passages gives the grief process both context and time to move through the loss of a loved one.  This process of grief cannot be hurried or ignored (without consequences). I am pleased to know more after I attended Dron Kornbluth’s presentation than before I arrived.

I thank you for inviting me to this touching presentation that is very much needed in our community today.  I plan to share about Doron’s work and book when I meet with my “Graceful Conversations” clients, since I have decided that I was not going to focus on this particular wish when helping people to complete their Advance Directives.

Peace to all,

Rev. Nancy True

Making the decision about what to do with our bodies and those of our loved ones is both personal and meaningful. It is the last major life-cycle event and these decisions are best made thoughtfully and from a point of strength.

Our goal is to help people make these incredibly important plans long before they need them. Above all, we hope our community recognizes and remembers that Feldman Mortuary is committed to helping people make the decision that is best for their family.

Thanks so much to the Hebrew Education Alliance for hosting us!

If you were unable to attend, we should have video of the event soon.  And I highly recommend you get Doron’s book of the same name.  There really is a lot to think about.

read more

Doron has developed a very positive way of discussing the subject that resonates with people no matter their backgrounds or beliefs – he discusses both sides of the issue and both views, though he does come down on the side of burial. He is very positive and respectful of people who choose cremation.

Join us on Monday, March 12 at 7:00 pm at the Hebrew Educational Alliance, 3600 S. Ivanhoe.  Call Jamie Sarche at 720-404-6772 with questions.

Listen to her story…

A chevra kadisha (Aramaic for Holy Society) is an organization composed of observant Jewish men and women who see to it that deceased Jews are prepared for burial according to Jewish tradition.  At the heart of the society’s function is the ritual of tahara, or purification.  The body is thoroughly cleansed, and then ritually purified by immersion or by pouring a continuous flow of water from the head over the entire body.  Following the laws of modesty, men prepare males and women prepare females.   In accordance with tradition, the tahara is performed while reciting special prayers and relevant scriptural verses.  Those engaged in the tahara are careful to maintain the dignity of the deceased, covering parts of the body as soon as they have been washed.  Additionally, at all time the face of the deceased remains facing upward.  In some communities it is customary to wash the deceased under a sheet without uncovering any part of the body.  No objects are passed or handed over the deceased and all unrelated activities or unnecessary talking is prohibited.  Once purified, the body is dressed in a plain white cotton garment and placed in a casket.

For more information about traditional observance of Jewish death and dying, see The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning by Maurice Lamm.