This month's feature:

Death over Dinner

Why talk about death over Shabbat dinner?

In Judaism, talking about death is welcome. Death is neither macabre nor morbid, it is simply the natural end to a natural process. By the medieval period, Jewish theologians had sketched an approximate to heaven called olam ha’ba, or “the World to Come,” a messianic age without pain, suffering, poverty, or strife.

Shabbat became the link, a weekly version of the world to come, one day of peace, of gathering, of joy without distraction or work. In other words, Shabbat is a weekly taste of heaven. The Shabbat dinner table is therefore an ideal place for conversations about death, an invitation to use the end of the creation cycle and the end of the
week as a setting to embrace the end of life.

Our discussion this day will be followed by a 7-week series of The Conversation Project. With the Conversation Project, we'll talk about how to start the conversation about our end-of-life plans with our loved ones and medical team.
To join the Conversation Project, please visit nhs-cba.org/conversationproject