num_pages: 432
description: At times of pain and sorrow, we reach out to the teachings of a religious tradition for answers to our most anguished questions. How can Jewish insights on death and dying teach the living and comfort the grieving? In this new collection, Rabbi Jack Riemer brings together the experiences and insights of people from many walks of life as they encountered the Jewish rituals of mourning and healing. This essential volume introduces and explains the traditional Jewish practices from the moment of death through the week of shiva and the year that follows. Contemporary writers talk about their rediscovery of and appreciation for Jewish customs and rituals at this time. Many explore the thoughts and feelings accompanying the commemorative rites of kaddish, yizkor, and yahrzeit. Some share new rituals created to fill a need, such as a way to mark the end of shiva, a prayer to say on lighting the yahrzeit candle, and a prayer for doctors and nurses to say upon the death of a patient. These personal reflections offer a collective outpouring of hope and support from those who have experienced loss. Jewish teachings are also brought to bear on contemporary problems not addressed directly by the tradition: Do we have the right to hasten the process of dying? How do we mourn the stillborn child? What does the Jewish tradition have to say about an afterlife? How does the knowledge of the certainty of death affect the way we live? A timely chorus of voices on a perennially timely issue, Wrestling with the Angel provides both guidance and solace from the wisdom of a caring community.
language: English
title: Wrestling with the Angel: Jewish Insights on Death and Mourning
titlecomplete: Wrestling with the Angel: Jewish Insights on Death and Mourning
genres: Judaism, Jewish
ratings_count: 10
publisher: Schocken Books