Birthing and Dying: Jewishly (re)imagining life’s many beginnings and endings
Miriam Grossman
3 weeks
Mondays: 3:30-5:00 pm ET / 12:30-2:00 pm PT
May 20 · May 27 · June 3
For many people, the thought of witnessing a birth or a death can radically shake up our perception of what role we want tradition or spiritually to play in our lives. We want more! We want less! We don’t know what we want! And for something so obviously ubiquitous (we were all born and we all will one day die), it’s jarring how birth and death tend to happen out of sight and at the margins.
My father died soon after my child was born. Each experience taught me so much about the other. And each experience led on a journey of learning and yearning for more- more tradition and more practices to fill the gaps where the tradition was not looking..
Exploring Jewish wisdom on birthing and dying as spiritual events make the thought of grieving and welcoming children less alienating and scary. Tradition (from prayers, folk practices, and more) can provide grounding, inspiration and comfort. But there are still so many rituals and practices we are lacking.
What if saying Kaddish at a daily minyan feels more alienating than comforting in a time of loss? What if the tradition does not fully speak to your experience as a mourner, a parent, or even as a person? How can we take the wisdom of life’s beginnings and endings into the rest of our lives, even if we are nowhere near a birth or death in an immediate sense? And so much more. In this class, we’ll explore Jewish traditions around birthing and dying and explore new ways to make rituals during life’s highs and lows. You do not need to have any relationship to another person’s birth or death to join this class. Having been born mortal is plenty.
Sliding Scale
This course is available at a sliding scale cost of $126 (the true cost), $99 or $72.
If you can afford the full price, we hope you will choose that option, which allows us to continue to offer lower rates and scholarships to those who otherwise would not be able to access this learning because of financial barriers.
Financial Aid
If you need financial aid beyond the sliding scale, please fill out this simple form, and we will get right back to you.
**Please register each student separately. Your registrations will appear in your shopping cart and you may pay for multiple students together at checkout**
Miriam Grossman (she/her) is a rabbi, Jewish educator, ritual leader and writer. Her work sits at the intersection of Jewish spirituality, creative practice, and organizing for collective liberation. From 2019- 2023 Rabbi Miriam was the Rabbi of Congregation Kolot Chayeinu, a progressive multi-generational congregation in Brooklyn NY; she also worked as a Rabbinic Intern and then Rabbinic Fellow at Kolot from 2016-2019. Rabbi Miriam was ordained at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 2019. Prior to Rabbinical School, Rabbi Miriam led innovative Jewish education programs in Chicago at Avodah: the Jewish Service Corps, the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, and the Jewish Enrichment Center. She was the inaugural Talmud Fellow for SVARA: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva. Rabbi Miriam is the co-chair of Tirdof: NY Jewish Clergy for Justice, a member-leader with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and a cohort member of the arts-based Clergy Studio at the Jewish Studio Project. Her writing has been published in Lilith Magazine, The Forward and NY Daily News.
