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Funeral & Burial

Jewish practices of burial and death are constructed around a few key ideas: Death is to be confronted, not denied. The dead body is to be accorded the utmost respect. Mourners are to be comforted. We are equal in the face of death. The burial and decay of a body is a natural process which should not be impeded or interrupted.

Photo by Jordan Cassway

El Maley Rakhamim

Traditional memorial prayer recited at funerals in which God is asked to gather up the soul of the departed for eternal life [more]

Found In: Funeral & Burial

Tags: el maley rakhamim, Siddur Kol Haneshamah, unveiling, yizkor

Psalm 23

This beautiful psalm is often read at funerals or memorial services [more]

Found In: Funeral & Burial

Tags: Psalm 23, unveiling, yizkor

Taking Out the Torah at a Funeral Service

A tradition honoring a Torah reader at a funeral [more]

Found In: Funeral & Burial

Memory of Joe and Others

A poem describing the ritual of removing the tzitzit from a dead person's tallit and giving them to his or her beloveds prior to burial [more]

Found In: Funeral & Burial

Tags: tallit, tzitzit

Dirge Without Music

"I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground./ So it is, and so it will be..." [more]

Found In: Funeral & Burial

Memorywork

"In the rising of the sun and in its going down, we remember them." [more]

Found In: Funeral & Burial

Tags: unveiling, yizkor

Memorial Service

Appropriate for burial, cremation, or marking periods of mourning [more]

Found In: Funeral & Burial

Tags: el maley rakhamim, kaddish, Psalm 23

Feminist Interpretation of Psalm 23

A feminist interpretation of Psalm 23 [more]

Found In: Funeral & Burial

Tags: Psalm 23, unveiling, yizkor

Each of Us Has A Name

"Each of us has a name given by God and given by our parents…" —poem by modern Israeli poet Zelda. [more]

Found In: Funeral & Burial, Death & Mourning, Holocaust Remembrance Day

Tags: Marcia Falk, unveiling, yizkor