By Chaim Spaulding, Hebrew College Rabbinical Student Parashat Vayetze (Genesis 28:10–32:3) Last winter, I went to my grandfather’s funeral, and afterwards, my living family and I took a trip to Death Valley. Grieving my grandfather, I felt keenly aware of my own mortality and my loved ones’ mortality. The magnificence of Death Valley only exists because of the instability of tectonic plates in motion over the course of millions of years. Standing on the floor of the valley, with rain... Read more
Aging with Vitality
By Rabbi Jim Morgan RS ‘08 Parashat Chayei Sarah (Genesis 23:1-25:18) At Centre Communities of Brookline, an independent housing facility in Massachusetts where I serve as Community Rabbi and Chaplain, I have the privilege of working with a surprising number of very old people. By “very old,” I mean folks in their nineties or older, including one person who recently turned 106. Among the questions that come up in my conversations with these residents is why they are still alive:... Read more