Counting miracles at Hanukkah: The intertwining miracle of life and death

Elissa Felder with her new book.

Elissa Felder, of Providence, started and actively manages the only international community of practice for women engaged with traditional chevra kadisha (burial society). The community mission is to share experiences, give encouragement, network, learn together and help to develop and support each other. She is responsible for building the community and providing on-going professional development.

After the death of her first child, Sam, Felder began her quest to understand where her baby had gone. She explored what the Jewish tradition had to say about death and the afterlife. She was anxious to find comfort from her faith.

In response to understanding more about the traditional Jewish way of caring for the dead, she became involved in that work herself and has been very active in her local chevra kadisha (burial society). Felder speaks widely on the topics of grief and loss and is committed to spreading greater awareness of the holy and loving Jewish customs surrounding death and burial.

Felder is the founding director of Core Connects RI, a nonprofit organization in Rhode Island that aims to deepen women’s connections to one another, to Jewish wisdom and Jewish values, to empower each other to find greater meaning, purpose and possibility in life and to cultivate unity without uniformity.

In a recent interview, Felder discussed her new book “From One Life to the Next Life; The Sacred Passage After Death,” which was published in September by Mosaica Press.  https://mosaicapress.com/product/from-one-life-to-the-next-life/   It is also available on Amazon and at local bookstores.

On what grief is:

“Grief is like a snowflake, since no two snowflakes are alike. It is multi-layered. We don’t ever recover and go back to a previous pre-loss way of being. However, we can learn to live with grief and learn to carry the holes in our heart that loss brings.”

On what it means to heal:

“I think people sometimes ask, Am I ever going to be normal? Am I ever going to be the way I was before Sam died? No, we’re not going to be the same, but can we use our experiences to become different people, hopefully better people, more compassionate people. We can continue to live fully.”

On dealing with the pain of loss:

“We live in a society that unlike Judaism seeks to avoid pain. The Jewish tradition teaches that the pain that we endure and are challenged by are orchestrated by God to help us grow. The pains and struggles of life are not meaningless and are not random. They are part of the process of our soul’s journey.”

On what comforted her on the loss of her son:

“One thing that comforted me was an understanding that death is not the end of our journey. Jewish wisdom teaches that life is a miraculous coupling of a holy God-given spiritual soul with a physical, organic body. Death is the beginning of the separation of the soul from its body. Our soul, the shining bright light that God constantly breathes into us, continues its journey in the next world. Death is a transition to another life beyond this one. That to me was very comforting. Understanding that Sam didn’t stop being, that he didn’t end, that he moved on was very comforting.”

On what Judaism teaches about what happens when we die:

“When we die the soul separates from its body. This uncoupling of the two aspects of who we are happens in stages. The chevra kadisha cares for both the body and the disembodied soul. We are able, with Divine assistance, to bring about a purification and a cleansing of both aspects of who we are. We wash and pour water on the deceased to help release the soul into the spiritual world.”

On Elissa’s mission with chevra kadisha:

“My service on the chevra kadisha has become a very important aspect of who I am. Every time we enter the morgue to prepare our fellow Jew for burial, we are starkly confronted with our own mortality. This jars us into appreciating the gift of life we still have and ‘wakes us up’ to try to live our lives meaningfully and well. When faced with death on a regular basis, you are so aware of the fleeting nature of life and the need to seize every moment of life that we get to still enjoy.”

What Judaism teaches about mourning:

“Our tradition teaches that one shouldn’t mourn excessively. Perhaps, this means that those who are alive must continue to keep living. When Sam died, I felt that my life was over. But I didn’t die, Sam did. Our lives matter because each one of us has something only we can do. All of us who are alive have a purpose and work to do to rectify the world in our own unique way.”

On the importance of giving and receiving:

“Sometimes it’s hard to receive because we feel that it is a sign of weakness. I see accepting help as something very courageous because we are acknowledging that we can’t do everything on our own. We need others. We need help.”

“After Sam died, I was very aware of the importance of all the things people did to help us. I had a friend who brought me a cup of coffee a week after Shiva had ended. That small act was so big for me. I understood that when your heart is cracked open even small gestures can bring great comfort and healing.”

Closing thoughts:

“Within our Jewish tradition, there is a wealth of wisdom that can bring great comfort to our lives, our losses, our pain and our suffering.  Don’t stop learning.”

PATRICIA RASKIN, owner of Raskin Resources Productions, is an award-winning radio producer, business owner and leader. She has served on the board of directors of Temple Emanu-El, in Providence. Her “Positive Living with Patricia Raskin” podcast can be heard on voiceamerica.com