How Threads Become Cloth

By Susan Esther Barnes

This story is a composite of stories that really happened. The names have been changed for the sake of privacy.

*****

It is Saturday morning. Rabbi Sarah is at home with her family. It is her day off. The synagogue’s other rabbi is performing services this morning, when Rabbi Sarah’s phone rings. It is about Leah, a congregant.

Leah’s mother Keren had minor surgery yesterday. They were supposed to take her home today to recuperate, but somehow, during the night, she died. Can you go?

“Of course,” says Rabbi Sarah, and she heads out to the hospital.



It is Saturday evening. I am at home, thinking about the Super Bowl party I will attend the next day, when the phone rings. It is about Keren, may her memory be a blessing.

The funeral will be on Monday afternoon. Can you help with the taharah Monday morning?

“Of course,” I say, and I send an email to work to let them know I will be in late on Monday.



It is Monday afternoon. Joan, this month’s Nichum (comfort) Captain receives an email. It is about Leah.

Leah’s mother died suddenly over the weekend. The funeral was today. Can you make sure some meals are delivered to her over the next couple of weeks?

“Of course,” replies Joan, as she turns to her computer to send an email to a list of volunteers who live near Leah.



It is Monday evening. Iris receives an email from Joan. It is about Leah, but the email does not include any names or addresses.

A woman’s mother died suddenly this past weekend. She lives in your area. Can you bring her a meal? You don’t need to cook. Anything, even just a chicken and salad from the grocery store, would be fine.

“Of course,” replies Iris, “I will be happy to help.”

*****

At the hospital, Rabbi Sarah hugs Leah. “If you like,” she tells her, “we have volunteers from the congregation who will watch over your mother’s body, who will make sure she is not alone, who will wash her and dress her, and prepare her for burial.”

“Do people still do that?” Leah asks.

“Yes, there are people who still do that.”

“I would be so grateful,” breathes Leah.

Later, Rabbi Sarah watches as the coroner puts an identification tag on Keren’s toe. It is a sign that she is really dead.



At the mortuary, we talk about how this is a person we are about to wash and dress, a member of our community, not just a body. We will refer to her as “Keren” or as “she;” never as “it.”

After we enter the room where Keren is lying on a table under a sheet, we check the tag on her toe. This is important, because we will be the last people to see her face. Once we place her in her coffin and seal it, the coffin will not be reopened. The tag is a signpost to ensure we are doing this for the right person.



At home, Joan contemplates the year gone by. Within a six month period, she had two major surgeries, one on one leg, and one on the other. During her two separate month-long stays in a care facility, and during each recovery period, members of the congregation delivered meals to her and her family.

She is grateful to be the Nichum Captain this month. She is grateful to be able to give back to the community that helped her when she was in need. It is a sign that she is well on her way down her path of healing.



Iris is thinking about the recent passing of Keren. Although they didn’t know each other well, the two of them used to work at the same company. Iris regrets that she was unable to attend Keren’s funeral, and that she was unable to tell her daughter Leah how sorry she is that Keren is gone.

While she is thinking these thoughts, she receives a follow up email from Joan, giving her the name and address where she is to take the meal she has volunteered to deliver. It is for Leah, Keren’s daughter.

Outside Leah’s home, Iris is about to double check that she has the right address, when she sees the mezuzah on Leah’s front doorpost. It is a sign that in this house dwell members of our community.

*****

During a shiva visit to Leah’s home, Leah can’t tell Rabbi Sarah enough about how much she appreciates the fact that members of our community sat with her mother and cared for her from the time of her death until the time she was buried. She never expected the outpouring of love she has received, from meals, to phone calls, to cards and notes.


As we seal Leah’s coffin, light the Yartzheit candle, and leave her in the company of the Shomeret who will watch over her, we feel grateful to have been given the chance to do this holy act of taharah. On some level, we understand the family probably feels we have done them a favor, but we know, in fact, it is they who have done us the favor by allowing us this opportunity. After spending two hours with death, we are changed, and we cannot help but notice the abundance of life around us.


As her time as Nichum Captain comes to a close, Joan is grateful to have been given this opportunity to give back, and to help make connections in her community. She appreciates how much she received when she was ill, and is aware that in giving back in this way, she is still in the process of receiving.


Iris delivers her meal to Leah, and is able to take the opportunity to speak with her about her connection to Keren. She tells Leah what a special person Keren was, and how sorry she is that Keren is no longer with us. Leah thanks her for her words, and Iris feels grateful to have been given this chance to express what she was unable to say at the funeral.

*****

This is how we gather loose threads, each which, by itself, would lie alone and underutilized, and weave them into the fabric of our community. This is how we take threads that, by themselves, could be easily broken, and create a material with a strength far beyond that which any individual thread could provide alone. This is how threads become cloth.

She is Pure

By Susan Esther Barnes

My day started with the strangest shopping trip I’ve ever been on. The evening before, I had been at the phone bank where we were calling congregants to ask for donations to our annual Tradition of Giving Campaign.

While I was there, Rabbi Lezak called me into a private room to let me know a member of our congregation had just died. She had been suffering from cancer for some time, and I had agreed to be one of the people to perform taharah for her, the ritual washing of her body and preparing her for burial.

I had been preparing for this for about a year, ever since Rabbi Lezak had said we were planning to expand our Bikkur Cholim group, a group of people who visit the sick, to become a Chevra Kadisha, a holy society or group of friends, to perform taharah. Although our congregation was formed over 50 years ago, to my knowledge we had never before had a Chevra Kadisha there.

I read about it, and I attended a seminar on it in San Francisco. I also attended the series of classes Rabbi Lezak offered to us at the synagogue. One evening, Sue Lefelstein, the Associate Executive Director of Sinai Memorial Chapel in Lafayette, came out to give us a copy of the procedure manual they use, and to explain the process.

The night before the congregant I mentioned above died, about 20 to 25 of us went to Sinai Memorial Chapel where Sue led us as we performed taharah on a manikin for practice.

When I first thought about doing taharah, it really freaked me out. It seemed like an incredibly scary thing to do. Then, last summer, my friend Rose died, may her memory be a blessing. I sat with her in the morning on the day she died, and suddenly taharah seemed much less frightening. How could Rose’s body ever be scary? But she had chosen not to have taharah done for her.

As I got closer to actually doing it, it became even less scary. While I stood in the room at Sinai Memorial, watching the washing of the manikin, I found myself feeling completely calm. I was prepared.

Except we as a Chevra Kadisha weren’t entirely prepared. We had only just finished the training the night before when we learned of this congregant’s death. If she and her family had chosen Sinai Memorial, or any Jewish establishment, as her mortuary, they would have had all the taharah supplies available to us on hand.

This family had chosen a non-religious mortuary, however, which meant we couldn’t be sure what supplies they would have available to us. And because our tradition is to bury people within 48 hours of death whenever feasible, that meant we would be doing taharah on her the next day. Thus, my sudden shopping trip for taharah supplies.

Fortunately, Sue, the angel from Sinai Memorial, had given us a list of things we would need. I grabbed my list and headed to Target, arriving just as they opened at 8am. For all I knew, the mortuary might be ready for us as early as 9:30 or 10, and I didn’t want to hold things up.

As I walked down the aisles, I thought about my odd list and how I didn’t want to say anything that might get me arrested. For instance, when I asked a clerk where I could find nail polish remover, I thought, “If she says something like, ‘We recommend this one because it has aloe which is good for the long term health of your nails,’ it would probably be a bad idea for me to respond with something like, ‘Oh, I’m not worried about that. We’re only going to be using it on dead people.’”

As I was at the check-out counter, Rabbi Lezak called on my cell phone to tell me the coffin delivery was delayed due to it being Veteran’s Day, and therefore we wouldn’t be able to do taharah until the afternoon. So it turned out there had been no need to rush.

Although my heart was racing as I drove the last few blocks to the mortuary, as we met with Rabbi Lezak and talked about the woman who had died and what we were going to do, I relaxed.

When we walked into the preparation room (without the rabbi, since only women are allowed to wash women), I found I was perfectly calm. I thought I would feel a jolt of anxiety the first time I saw a real person covered by a sheet, but I didn’t.

So we washed her, and one of us said the prayers, and we poured the ritual water over her while we repeated three times in Hebrew, “She is pure, she is pure, she is pure.” Then we dried her and dressed her. It was all done with deliberate, loving care.

She had been ill for so long and had lost so much weight that we didn’t need to use the electric lift to move her into the coffin. I had the privilege of being one of the three people to move her.

I will never forget the feeling as I cradled her in my arms and gently lowered her into her coffin. The only way I can describe it is it felt purely, wholly right. We covered the coffin and asked her forgiveness for anything we may have omitted, or any error, or anything we may have done to offend her.

I thought, “This is such a beautiful thing. How could anyone who knows about taharah not want it done for themselves and for their loved ones? Why would anyone want this done by strangers, no matter how competent they may be, rather than by their own, loving community?”

Afterward, we spent about 20 minutes talking with each other, as a transition before we hugged each other and got into our cars to leave.

Because we had started so late, it was already getting dark. Usually I equate darkness with lifelessness, but as I drove home I found myself feeling deeply aware of the incredible abundance of life all around me.

As I navigated my way through the rush hour traffic, I found that whereas when I drive I normally think of the cars around me as just vehicles, I was suddenly acutely aware that inside each vehicle was a person. As I drove I was part of a stream of living, breathing, human beings all heading in the same direction down the freeway.

On several occasions I have heard Rabbi Lezak say, “Get close to death. It will bring you closer to life.” I thought I knew what he meant, but now I finally understand.

Chevra Kadisha Seminar - The Knowledge

By Susan Esther Barnes

Below is Part Two of a two-part post about a seminar I attended. I'm posting it in two parts since each post looks at the seminar from a different perspective. The first post includes some things I learned that were incidental to the seminar. This post is about some of the things I learned that the seminar intended to teach. The first post also explains what the words “Chevra Kadisha” and “taharah” mean.


**************************
While I expected to learn the technical aspects of how to perform taharah at the Chevra Kadisha seminar I attended on Sunday, I was surprised to find it included information on Jewish beliefs about what our soul does after we die. In hindsight, it shouldn’t have been such a surprise. The seminar was, after all, being taught by a rabbi.

I was fascinated by what the rabbi said happens when we die. Of course, there’s no way to know whether his description is accurate, but it appeals to me in many ways, so I can hope the tradition got at least some of it right.

He described how, while we’re alive, we can only think of a certain number of things at once. There are a lot of things going on all around us, but we can only focus on one thing at a time, and we usually tune out everything else. Similarly, we can’t remember every single detail about everything in our past; we can just remember certain things.

He says when we die and our soul separates from our body, we suddenly lose our previous limitations. Suddenly, we can perceive everything around us at once. We can remember every detail of our lives, including the joy of every single thing we ever did right and the shame of every single thing we ever did wrong.

The separation from our body and the sudden knowledge we gain about ourselves is a big shock. A soul in this state wants to move on, but it isn’t ready yet. It is distressed and confused. So it clings to the thing that is most familiar, its former home, its body.

The soul is fascinated by the experience of being outside its body and is concerned about what will happen to its body now that it has left. Thus, as we perform taharah we should be aware the soul is still there, hovering nearby, watching everything we say and do.

This is why, when we do taharah, we apologize to the person we’re washing, for any indignities they may suffer during the process. We’re not just talking to a dead body; we’re also talking to the soul who used to be in the body and who is in the room with us. This is one reason why, when we talk about taharah, we use the term “dead person,” not “dead body.”

The seminar also conveyed quite a bit of useful information about the technical aspects of taharah, such as the best way to turn and hold the person on his or her side so they don’t slide across the table while washing the back, how to remove a tube from them with a minimum of bleeding, what to do if we find a prosthetic limb or a cast, etc. He even showed us the best way to put on the traditional garments after the washing is done.

There are certainly a lot more details to consider than I would have thought. The seminar also helped me see how various unexpected things could come up during the process, and why it’s important to handle those issues in a calm and resourceful way. I think I could be helpful with that. If I ever get over the whole squeamishness thing.

Chevra Kadisha Seminar - The Experience

By Susan Esther Barnes

Below is Part One of a two-part post about a seminar I attended. I'm posting it in two parts since each post looks at the seminar from a different perspective. This one is about the experience and the second one is about the knowledge I gained.

***************

On Sunday afternoon I attended a Chevra Kadisha (generally translated as “holy society”) seminar. It was an introductory lecture on taharah, the Jewish method of ritually washing dead people to prepare them for burial. It was an uncomfortable experience for me, in more ways than one.

When I arrived, I walked into a large room set up with tables and chairs. On the far side of the room were two women and a man seated at one of the tables. I walked over to them to confirm I was in the right place for the seminar. They invited me to have a seat.

More people came in, and they naturally gravitated to our table. In time, there were eleven of us gathered there, chatting amiably. That’s when the man who’d been there from the start said, “It looks like we might get enough for a minyan. If we do, we can daven.” (“Daven” means to say Jewish liturgical prayers, some of which require a “minyan” of ten Jews to say).

From my perspective, we already had a minyan, because there were at least ten Jewish people present. But by his statement this man was declaring he only counts men in a minyan. Without giving it a second thought, this man was telling me, and the other women at the table, that we don’t count. None of us said anything, but I think he picked up the change in body language from some of us, because a short time later he said some things such as he knew some of us were “liberated women.”

The point is, because of this comment, before the seminar even started, I felt uncomfortable. Since taharah is not common among Reform Jews, I started to think, “As I do this am I going to run into a lot of similar situations in which I feel like I’m being put down in some way because my customs are different?”

Aside from the cultural concerns that arose immediately before the seminar, my main source of discomfort during the seminar was caused by the talk of things like blood and mucus and oozing. My husband would probably think it serves me right, because whenever I have a cold or some other malady I want to describe it to him in great detail, and he does not want to hear a bit of it.

The fact is, I needed to hear about the blood and the mucus and the oozing. I still need to hear a lot more about it. This is because my biggest fear about trying to do taharah is there’s a very real possibility that when I see the blood or the mucus or the oozing, I might need to sit down and put my head between my knees in order to prevent myself from passing out. I say this based on past experience.

Frankly, it’s mostly the blood I’m worried about. The good news is, the woman sitting next to me said she’s been doing this for about ten years and so far she hasn’t encountered anyone who has had a violent death. So she hasn’t seen a lot of blood or similar unpleasantness.

Nevertheless, it’s clear I’m not going to be able to do taharah unless I can somehow desensitize myself to some extent to my natural reaction to blood. It’s going to be a bit hard to ritually wash someone while I have my head between my knees. The best way I know to desensitize myself, as with any irrational fear, is to approach it close enough to get uncomfortable, back away, talk about it, calm down, and then repeat the process as often as necessary. This seminar was one step in this process.

So although the content of the seminar may have been things I could have read in a book, my attendance at the seminar provided me with two important experiences: The realization that I need to prepare myself for encounters with people who observe different Jewish customs than I do, and a chance to approach my fears about blood. Not a pleasant way to spend the afternoon, but certainly one that was worthwhile.

Thinking About Caring for Dead People

By Susan Esther Barnes

This Fall our synagogue is planning to have a group of people learn how to do taharah, the ritual washing of people’s remains after they die. This mitzvah is considered to be one of the most holy, because the people who perform this task know the person on whom they perform it has no way to thank or reward them.

I looked it up online, and found the washing is done in a particular order, from the head, down the right side, and then the left. All sorts of details are spelled out, including what to do if there is any bleeding, the position of the person being washed, and the privacy of the room in which the washing is done.

Just reading about the procedure makes me nervous. It’s something I’d like to be able to do, but I’ve never been in a room with a dead person, and I don’t know how I’d react to it. I suspect that feinting at the feet of the person to be washed would be bad form. Especially since the instructions clearly state there should be no interruptions during the washing.

I’m not sure why I feel so anxious about it. I suppose being in the room with a dead person makes one think about one’s own mortality, but it’s not like I don’t do that on a regular basis. Since I’m severely allergic to fish, I tend to think about how quick and easy it would be to kill me every time someone mentions sushi or I see tuna salad at the deli counter.

There’s something more primal to it than the intellectual contemplation of death. The discomfort must be a deeply ingrained survival mechanism. In a world before disinfectants, refrigeration and antibiotics, I’m sure that being around a dead person was a pretty good way to catch your death of something. People who avoided dead people probably lived longer, and people who didn’t probably got weeded out of the gene pool over time.

I would like to think I could just go into a room with a dead person, take a deep breath, focus on the facts (this person is dead, I’m not, they’re not contagious, therefore there is no danger), and get on with the taharah. I have a terrible track record when trying to predict how I will react in a new situation, so it’s possible I’d be able to do this with no problem, but I doubt it.

Like any irrational fear (I was going to say phobia, but I think that’s a little strong in my case), I suspect these feelings can be overcome by a gradual introduction to the object of the fear. So it seems to me the safer path would be to act first as a shomeret (a guard) for the dead first. A dead person is not to be left alone between death and burial, so a shomeret (or shomer for a male) watches over the dead person, traditionally reading Psalms, but not touching the person. If I can do that without freaking out, then I’d be more confident about my ability to take it to the next level.

To a large extent I want to skip the shomeret part. I don’t like to give into irrational fear, and I don’t want to miss the first class just because I’m afraid of what might or might not happen. Frankly, I’m hoping there will turn out to be a requirement that everyone who doesn’t already have experience being around dead people has to be a shomer or shomeret before they learn taharah. That way I could ease into it without feeling like I’m wimping out.

At any rate, although I believe when someone’s dead they’re gone (I hope to whatever comes next), and I don’t think they hang around their dead body, I’m still enamored with the idea that we treat the dead with respect by guarding the remains and carefully preparing them for burial even though we don’t believe in open casket funerals. And I like the idea that it’s close family members, not a stranger, who throws the first handfuls of dirt on the coffin after it’s lowered into the grave. I don’t know why this is important to me, but it is, and I hope I’ll be able to keep myself together enough when the time comes to be able to participate in the tradition.