The Jewish Journey Through Loss: Rituals, Grief, and Healing with Batya Ludman and Gina Junger

Death doula and funeral celebrant Jill McClennen hosts clinical psychologist Batya Ludman and Jewish educator Gina Junger to discuss their book, The Jewish Journey Through Loss: From Death to Healing, and how Jewish mourning traditions support grief and healing. 

They explain active rituals like shoveling dirt at burial, tearing a ribbon or garment, and sitting shiva as a week-long “permission to grieve,” with visitors bringing food, stories, and support while mourners set the tone. 

They describe stages after shiva, including shloshim and year-long practices, memorial prayers like Mourner’s Kaddish, and customs such as covering mirrors and placing stones on graves. 

They also discuss Chevra Kadisha body preparation, simple burial practices, quick burial, differences between Israel and the diaspora, COVID-era online shiva, and the book’s use for mourners, clinicians, and end-of-life decision-making.

00:00 Shiva Permission to Grieve

00:17 Podcast and Guests Intro

02:52 Why They Wrote the Book

04:10 Jewish Funeral Participation

08:41 Sitting Shiva Explained

11:47 Beyond Shiva Ritual Stages

14:07 Chevra Kadisha and Tahara

18:14 Burying Quickly and Memorials

21:14 Differences by Death and Place

25:40 COVID and Zoom Shiva Etiquette

28:34 Covering Mirrors Meaning

31:33 Who the Book Helps

38:19 End of Life and Children

41:18 Where to Find the Book

44:00 Host Closing and Call to Action

The Jewish Journey Through Loss: From Death to Healing

https://a.co/d/03VvOz5E

Transcript

Gina: [00:00:00] This week of shiva is the permission that we give to grief. And we say, for this time, we don't expect from you anything else except to be with your loss. People come in and out. We allow the mourners to guide the feeling in the shiva house 

Jill: Welcome back to Seeing Death Clearly. I'm your host, Jill McClennen, a death doula and funeral celebrant.

I created this podcast of honest conversations about death, dying, grief, and life itself. My hope is that each episode offers a space where we can explore these topics together, challenge old assumptions, and consider new perspectives with curiosity and compassion. In this episode, I'm joined by clinical psychologist Batya Ludman, and Jewish educator Gina Junger, co-authors of The Jewish Journey Through Loss: From Death to Healing.

Together, we explore how Jewish mourning traditions can offer structure, meaning, and support during one of life's most difficult experiences. We talk about rituals that encourage [00:01:00] active participation in the grieving process, including helping to shovel dirt at a burial, tearing a ribbon or garment as a visible sign of mourning, and the different stages of grief observed in Jewish tradition.

Whether you're Jewish, supporting someone who's grieving, or simply interested in how different cultures approach death and loss, I think you'll find wisdom, comfort, and practical insights in this conversation. Thank you for joining us. 

Batya: Welcome to the podcast, Gina and Batya. Thank you so much for coming on.

A friend of mine sent me a link to your new book, 

Jill: and as soon as I saw it, I was like, "All right. I have to reach out and see if they would get on a call with me and talk to me about your book," because it's something where I love to learn. I love to learn about different cultures, and especially when it has to do with death and dying.

So I really appreciate both of you taking your time today. If you wanna start off, just tell us a little bit about who both of you are, even [00:02:00] outside of the book that you wrote. 

Batya: Okay, sure. I'm a clinical psychologist. I did advanced certification in, in Thanatology, and I have a private practice seeing from cradle to grave, essentially, and do a lot of work around bereavement and, and loss.

One of the things that I think maybe we may get into at some point is I also served on the Chevra Kadisha, which is the Jewish burial society. So I did that for a bunch of years. 

Jill: And then Gina, how about you? 

Gina: I'm a Jewish educator, mainly adult education. I teach classes, various groups and audiences, and Batya and I have been friends and learnt and studied together for many years.

So it's been a, an amazing partnership, in that we were friends, and then we became colleagues, and then co-authors. 

Jill: Wonderful. And tell me a little bit about the book and why you decided to write the book that you wrote. 

Batya: We got [00:03:00] into the book ... It's been a, it's been a long time. We wrote the book because we found ourselves frequently talking about death and the Jewish rituals and the psychological overlap.

In the rituals and how they dovetailed to just make the whole process of grieving so perfect. But what we found was that in the literature, there was a lot on the Jewish practice of the whole grieving thing and some stuff on the psychological aspects of loss, but they didn't go together and it felt like something was missing.

And so that's how we got started and the whole 

Gina: thing. As Batya said, it kind of developed over some time. We both realized that there was something in the market that was not being addressed and that was there are many books on grief and many books on Jewish law and ritual, but nothing that brought the two together.

With her background, of course, and her experience [00:04:00] in psychology and grief and bereavement and my, my background in Jewish education, we- Decided to work together. 

Jill: Hmm. Beautiful. And I have supported a few people that are Jewish through the end of life, and I actually went to my first Jewish funeral last year.

I'm a big fan of ritual, and especially, I grew up Catholic, so to me, you went to a funeral and you just kinda stood around, and you know, you didn't participate at all. And so thankfully I was standing next to a couple that was really lovely, and I just kept asking questions. I was like, "All right, what are they doing?

Why, why are they doing that now?" Because it was all so new and so different to me. But it was so beautiful. I really loved the way that family and friends were brought into the experience, because I feel that that's part of what we lack in American culture at least, is there's not this [00:05:00] connection to death and dying that our ancestors used to have.

We put people in the hospital. We put them in the nursing homes. We're not near them when they die, and when they do die, we certainly don't get near the body. There's just such this disconnect, and I feel like that's part of why we don't process our grief really well. So I am really interested in some of the rituals that I probably have not even seen myself of, like, the death and the dying, and then also the grieving that you do in the Jewish religion and culture.

Gina: Thank you for mentioning, actually, the funeral, because we have a big chapter on funeral. Because we suddenly realized that only when we compared it to other religions and other cultures that indeed the Jewish funeral is different and special. And like you say, it's encourages people to participate and to be a part and to send a person off with a great deal of respect that we didn't realize until we really started to work on it how indeed different, unique, [00:06:00] special it was.

And the fact that you said that you participated and you watched and you thought it was interesting is special for us to hear. 

Batya: I was gonna say, I'm, I'm guessing you may have seen, I don't, I don't know if in this funeral they did it, but the participants, the people at the funeral actually helping to bury- Mm-hmm

the person, to put dirt on the grave and, and, and yeah, that's something very, very special. 

Gina: We have a custom that the mourners tear their clothes or wear a ribbon that identifies them as mourners. It's also interesting because it makes others be sensitive, be aware, and therefore in this concept of a week of a shiva in which we are at home and we receive people to come and comfort us is also, again, um, unique and interesting to Jewish ritual.

Jill: Mm-hmm. And I did not see any tearing of any clothing. And now I'm trying to think, did I see anybody wearing ribbons? They may have been, and it may be [00:07:00] just I didn't notice it because- Right ... I didn't know what it was. I didn't know what it represented. But they did have the people shoveling the dirt into- Mm-hmm

the open. And the rabbi was explaining it, you know, a little bit- Mm-hmm ... as they were going through it The mindfulness that there was in that experience, and everybody was doing it. You know, you had, like, the older people that were up there and somebody was helping them. We had children that were helping, and it was just this slow, mindful process that I found that to be really...

It gave me this feeling, this experience that you don't get in a normal everyday life, that taking the time to honor the person's life, to honor the grieving that were there. You know, it was, like, the daughter, the grandchildren, like, everybody that was there. I just found that so moving. And I didn't go to the shiva at all for the family, just because life was crazy at that time.

Uh, [00:08:00] but that's something else that I wish was part of my upbringing, part of my family life. Because for me, somebody dies, you go to the funeral, maybe you go to a luncheon, and then it's like back to life as usual. You go back to work, and everything just moves on. And I think having that period of seven days to just really sit and process what you've experienced and to sit with your grief and to be surrounded, hopefully by a lot of loved ones so you're all there together, just seems so healing to me versus let's just get back to normal life and act like it's a everyday occurrence when really it's not.

Batya: And the process, the process is so healing because people come, and they may not know the person who died. They may not know you, and they knew the person who died. I mean, it depends. And they come, and they're there for you, and they tell stories perhaps. They listen to your stories. [00:09:00] So the, uh, person who died is very much present in discussion.

They may look at photo albums. They may... Just very hands-on about the person, and they're there t- for you for a week. They surround you. They bring you food. They bring you love. They... I- it's just, it's a, it's quite a process, and it's an exhausting process, right? It's a very strange process to somebody who has never sat shiva before because, you know, here you're grieving, so you end up wearing the same clothes that you wore to the funeral, basically.

Mm-hmm. You wear them, you know, the shirt at least for the week, the torn shirt. And you are wearing bedroom slippers typically, and you don't wear makeup, and you're not at your best. And yet all these people are coming in, and they're surrounding you, and it's just an amazing, it's an amazing process. So much so that at the end of the period of sitting shiva, when you get up and you finally leave your house for the first time, and one [00:10:00] of the other customs is typically to walk around the block.

It's such a, it's like the world has changed. It's been a whole week and the world is totally different because you've lost your loved one, and you've had that acknowledgement and it carries you for the duration. Mm. It's really something. Yeah. 

Gina: One of the things that you said, Jill, that kind of stuck with me is Batya's taught me that oftentimes in Western culture we sanitize death.

Like, we don't wanna, we don't wanna talk about it. The idea that people are involved in burial and are present is this is what it is. This is the process, and we will be actively involved and we will pass the shovel one to each other, and we will acknowledge it, and we're not gonna brush it under the carpet.

We're gonna be there. We're gonna be present. I had colleagues in the United States that after their parent or loved one passed away, they were expected to show up to work the next day. Like you said, business as usual. And how can you go on when you've had such a [00:11:00] loss and pretend nothing so drastic has happened and expect to show up for work the next day?

So the process of this week of shiva is actually interesting. It's the permission that we give to grieve, and we say, for this time we don't expect from you anything else except to be with your loss. And that's really quite special. Like Batya says, people bring you food. People come in and out, and I can just be.

If I wanna speak and tell stories, if I want it quiet, whatever it is, we allow the mourners to kind of guide the feeling in the shiva house. We say, "Whatever you want. If you feel like talking, if you feel like being quiet, we're here for you." I 

Jill: love that way of putting it, permission to grieve, you know? And it is important.

And I wanna know, is there any other rituals that go around with death and grief that maybe might be a little bit more unusual? 'Cause I think probably a lot of people have at least [00:12:00] heard of shiva, even if they don't know what it is. But is there some that maybe most people have never even heard of, even if they are Jewish?

You know, I know there's a lot of people in my life, they're Jewish, but they don't necessarily practice the religion in a way that they know as much as they even would want to. So those are the ones I wanna know about, too. Anything that's maybe a little unusual. 

Batya: Batya, anything come to your mind? I go back to putting, shoveling dirt on the grave, right?

There's that thud, you know, when the dirt first hits the coffin and it's real. It's very real. It's that, you know, stark contrast between, okay, you've just been there and all of a sudden you're now burying your loved one. Mm-hmm. So that, that's one thing. Uh, where we identify the body, I mean, that's a single person typically in the family identifies the body just prior to burial, uh, and that's when the ribbon is torn, around that time.

At the end of Shiva, [00:13:00] one goes into a month-long period called Shloshim, okay? And that, the restrictions, restrictions is the wrong word, but I'll use it for now. The restrictions lighten a bit, okay? Uh, then there are also year-long ritual practices in terms of going to social events because the last thing you feel like doing is perhaps going to a wedding or going to a movie or doing any of those things, and those are some of the rituals that are prescribed.

Like, we recognize that it's a process and it takes time, and the first week is the heaviest per se, and then the month and then into the year, and we memorialize. At the end of the year there, there's a ceremony as well. There's, uh, Kaddish. There are prayers that are said, Mourner's Kaddish, are prayers that are said on a daily basis, right?

And at some point they stop. But it kind of goes 

Gina: with the 

Batya: cycle of where [00:14:00] you are psychologically, and it carries the person, it gives them strength. So those are the ones that come to mind Right away ... 

Gina: Batya served on the Jewish Burial Society in, in Canada before she came to Israel, and, um, she describes so beautifully in the book, um, how the body is washed and prepared for burial, and there is this very gentle and beautiful ceremony about preparing the body before burial.

And in Jewish custom, it's a plain pine box. Like, there isn't this go to a funeral home and choose something very elaborate. There's a great deal of emphasis on the simplicity. As we came into life, that's how we go out, and we don't adorn the body or dress them in fancy clothes. They are in very simple linen garments.

Everybody is the same. Doesn't matter what your status is or how much money you have in the bank. Everybody is the same. Like we said, a baby is born, [00:15:00] everyone is the same and equal, and when you leave this world, the same. And I think that's actually something maybe not everyone knows about Jewish burial, which is really very powerful in terms of what it says.

We give a lot of respect to the body, but we also say that at this moment, we go back to a very simple, right? We go back to basics, as it were, to return the body to the earth in a very simple but respectful way. 

Batya: You mention that, and one of the things that came to mind right away is after we've washed the body and we've dressed the body, and even while we're preparing the body, we ask for forgiveness.

There are usually three, four women in the room if we're working with a female body, and we ask for forgiveness. We're not cracking jokes. We're very serious. We're very reverent. Absolutely. And even how we handle the person, we make sure that if we're washing their face, the rest of their body is covered.

If we're washing their abdomen, the rest of their [00:16:00] body is covered. It's just an amazing feeling to be in the room, be in the presence with somebody who was just really so special, and to honor that and to ask forgiveness if we've handled them improperly. We brush their hair, and we make sure everything is just perfect for them and so gentle and so kind and so caring.

And yeah, it's very special to have that honor. 

Gina: I just wanna mention something that I heard from Jill herself, in that she had a T-shirt about live your best life- Yeah ... which I thought was amazing because Batya shares in the book how when she would go on a call for the Jewish Burial Society, when she would come home, she would make sure to tuck her children into bed at night.

It's tremendous appreciation when you've been so close to death to also live your best life, right? And balancing both of those things. So reading from her experiences really taught me a great deal about how we live our life is extremely important. 

Jill: Yeah, [00:17:00] being so close to death definitely changes the way that you live your life.

And with your, like, what did you call it? The Jewish burial 

Batya: The, the Chevra Kadisha The Kadisha 

Jill: Yes. Chevra 

Batya: Kadisha, which is what you translate it, the holy society? The holy, I don't know. Holy is the- Yeah ... burial society. 

Jill: It's females that take care of females, males that take care of males. Yes. And it's not necessarily family members, it's just a- 

Batya: Oh, it's non-family members.

Jill: Okay. 

Batya: Yeah, yeah. We recognize that that would be far too painful for them to be in that situation. Yeah, so from the time of death until basically the time of burial, the family is busy doing other things. They're involved in making arrangements. In fact, even being at the cemetery or identifying the body, it brings it very, very real for the family, and I couldn't imagine anybody

It's very difficult. I've [00:18:00] actually helped prepare bodies of children who were a cousin of a close friend, and it feels like such an honor to be able to do that. But it would be too close to do it with your own. 

Gina: Perhaps it's something that people don't know, in that Jewish practice we try to bury as soon as possible.

We don't... If we have to wait for a burial, it's because of extenuating circumstances. Extreme weather conditions, the ground is frozen, or people... All kinds of very extreme things. But in any other case, we try to hold the burial as soon as possible, recognizing that the mourners are in a difficult situation, and the longer we make them wait before they can have closure, and closure is burial.

As long as they wait, that process of waiting is very, very difficult. We even say in Jewish practice that you shouldn't comfort a person until burial, because [00:19:00] it's not even real. They haven't processed that until they've actually put their loved one to rest. And so that's an interesting concept in terms of Jewish ritual in that we really, really make an effort not to delay burial, to do it as soon as possible.

Batya: Unless we're waiting for people to be coming from away, or if the body is coming from away and it has to be released from state to state or something like that, that sometimes detains things. But there's a sense that you can't grieve while the deceased is laying in front of you. Okay, so until, as Gina said, that burial takes place.

So it's like, you know, you walk out of the house and let's say in the morning to go to the funeral and the emphasis is on your loved one. And you come back to your house after the funeral, and now the emphasis on you and your healing. It's, you know, that process changes with the funeral it- itself. You may have observed that when people have been at the cemetery, [00:20:00] afterwards they walk out of the cemetery, congregants, the people that are at the funeral- make two lines and you walk down and you're cared for, I guess is the best way to put it, as you exit the cemetery.

So every single stage is carefully ... You're taken care of, I guess, is the best way I can put it, from the moment of death and right through until, you know. There are all these discussions now about prolonged grief What's a problem in terms of how long can you grieve? Jewish ritual recognizes that you will always feel that loss and that it's, you know, it's normal.

And therefore, you know, as I say, at the end of the year, but every year, there is a memorial marker, okay? And there are prayers that are said. In fact, there are prayers that are said several times a year for the deceased, for your loved ones. So a sense that, you know, love is strong and it's there and it's not abnormal.

It's very, very [00:21:00] normal to feel that way psychologically. 

Jill: It's normal to feel it long-term, but I love that there's, like, markers when you say a prayer. It's like you, again, you give yourself permission to feel long-term effects of the grief. And the question that I have, it's kind of like two parts, but they go together, is, is there a difference in the rituals, whether it's, like, the cleansing of the body or the burial rituals, depending on somebody's age or how they died?

If somebody dies suddenly, if it's a violent death, if they take their own life, if it's a child versus somebody that's maybe in their 90s, does any of that change or is it the same no matter what? 

Batya: What I thought of when you said that is that if somebody dies, let's say in Israel, and they have died in battle, for example.

Mm-hmm. They're a soldier and something has happened to them, then they often skip [00:22:00] that cleansing or the ritual process of tahara, the clothing and the washing and everything, because it's considered to be they're very holy, and that's typically skipped. In Israel, and again, I'm diverging, they typically don't bury somebody in a coffin, in a casket.

They are covered in their shroud, their burial shroud, and they're put directly into the ground because, again, from dust to dust. Okay. And the only time that there's an exclusion is if they don't have the entire body, okay, if the whole person isn't recovered. Mm-hmm. But in terms of age and everything else, it's the same.

There are no differences, or sex or whatever. It's the same. That's what came to mind for me. Did, Gina, did you think of anything that was- 

Gina: No. 

Batya: Yeah. 

Gina: It's a fascinating question. I, I think I never thought about it before, Jill, but I think it's an amazing question. But everyone is treated exactly the same, regardless of whether it was a tragic [00:23:00] death or someone lived to be 99, 100.

Everyone is treated the same. The burial, the prayers that we say, the rituals are exactly the same. Regardless of age or circumstance, whether a person died from an illness or from a tragedy, everything is the same in the burial and in the prayers and the rituals that we do. 

Jill: And how about different areas of the world?

Is there different rituals whether somebody's in Israel or... I know people are Jewish all around the world, and different cultures depending on what country you live in. Do they pull a little bit from different cultures, or is it really pretty much that people very strictly stick to certain practices?

Gina: It's a wonderful question. The, the biggest difference is between the land of Israel and outside of land of Israel. Like Batya mentioned, outside the land of Israel, Jewish cemeteries bury with a simple [00:24:00] wooden casket. And in Israel, we bury directly in the ground. That's the major difference. Otherwise, it's the same everywhere you go.

At least I could say about the United States. I don't know in other places. But in many places in the United States, the cemeteries are simply far away from where people live. You know, they're on the outskirts, these large cemeteries. And so oftentimes some type of ceremony will be held in the synagogue or at a person's house, and then not everyone will go to the burial because it's just physically very far away to go to the cemetery.

And so that's possibly a difference, at least from the United States and in Israel, that the cemeteries are just physically far away. Those are the things that come to my mind. I will say that it's not a Jewish custom to bring flowers to a cemetery. The Jewish custom is to put a stone on the grave, as a stone represents something which [00:25:00] stays and is permanent and is always there, while flowers wither and die.

So that's, if you go to a Jewish cemetery, what you'll see is you'll see a grave marker with all kinds of pebbles and stones on it, signifying that a person came to visit or came to pay their respects and they left a stone. While in other places in the world, it's very common to bring flowers to a cemetery.

That's a very major difference. You will see sometimes in Israel wreaths that people want to show their respects, but that's definitely something major difference that you will see in terms of Jewish cemetery and non-Jewish cemeteries. 

Batya: And we have a chapter in our book off-topic somewhat, but we put in a chapter on COVID.

Mm. Because the burial practices and the sitting shiva and the year-long practices were so different They were streamlined. Instead of sitting shiva, sometimes having people come to your [00:26:00] house, because of all the restrictions, shiva was moved online, okay? And people, people did their visit o- online.

Funerals were sometimes moved online because of restrictions in terms of how many people could be there and things like that. But that's worldwide, and I don't think it's, I, most of those things, I don't think are, they're not, they're necessarily relating to somebody who's Jewish. It's more that's what happens in, in the country, whatever country they were living in at the time.

I 

Jill: never thought of shiva online. I know people were doing funeral services online, but I'm like, yeah, how do you do shiva through Zoom? I guess the person just, they're sitting there and people just come in and out of the Zoom room like you would 

Batya: a house. That's exactly. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly how it went, and, uh- I 

Gina: will say, though- Yeah

it was, it's very difficult on a Zoom shiva to leave. Right. 

Batya: When you're in 

Gina: person, you could offer [00:27:00] condolences and make your way out. But on the computer, it's kind of- It's 

Batya: harder to, to do 

Gina: that ... uncomfortable to kind of leave. 

Batya: Yeah. We actually have a section in the book called Shiva Etiquette. Mm-hmm. Like, some of the suggestions for, for making a shiva visit.

One that would relate to this is, you know, stay 10 minutes, stay 20 minutes, but don't sit there and stay forever. Like, it's exhausting to sit shiva. People tell the same story over and over and over again, which is very therapeutic. But it's very hard when somebody's there for a long time, even if it's a very close friend.

So we have particular rules that relate to that. When it was online, what often started to happen in some of the Zoom shivas is that there'd be k- kinda like a moderator, a person who would help in that process. It may have been the child of somebody who's sitting shiva who could then turn around and allow that entrance and exit in a softer way instead of just disappearing on the screen.[00:28:00] 

Jill: Yeah. You're right. That would be a little awkward just being like, "All right, guess I'm gonna exit," and just hit the button and disappear. Yeah, 'cause I did go to a shiva for a friend's mother. But it was, I guess, probably very Americanized. And he, I mean, he'd even said, like, "This is not a traditional shiva."

It was more just, you know, a little bit of a party in some ways. It was just a bunch of people, and we sat around and we ate and we talked and, you know, I learned more about his mother then than I did when she was alive. Right. And so that was my really only experience with shiva. But- Is there a practice where you cover the mirrors?

Is that correct, during shiva? Okay. That's what I thought- Yes ... somebody had told me. Traditionally, you cover all of the mirrors. And why do you cover mirrors? 

Gina: The idea being that, uh, during shiva, I don't have to worry about how I look, and there is no vanity. And so I am not preoccupied with my appearance.[00:29:00] 

As I said it, I can just be. I can just be. And people will see you not at your best, and that's okay. A- as I said, it's permission just to be, and putting on anything or brushing, you know, or making myself look better, well, I don't feel better, so I'm just going to be. And I don't need to preoccupy myself with how I look.

Another thing that I shared in the book that someone said to me, which I thought was really powerful, is that sometimes when you look in the mirror, you see your mother's eyes or your father's ears. 

Batya: Yeah 

Gina: Or how you and your brother have the same smile, and that's actually quite painful after a loss. So I'm also gonna give myself permission during that week not to be reminded of those very, very difficult things.

When I get out of my protective cocoon of shiva and I go back into the world, people will say, "Oh, you look just like your dad," or, "You look just like your mom." [00:30:00] I'll be okay. I can hear it. But during the week of shiva, maybe it's just a little bit too painful or too, you know, hurts too much. So it's another reason for covering up, uh, mirrors, just to be sensitive to the mourners.

Jill: That is interesting, and that makes a lot of sense, too, because I think sometimes it's easier to ignore what we look like when we don't have to look at it. Mm-hmm. And when we do see it, in some ways, we're gonna be more worried about other people. You know, like, oh, I don't want other people to see my hair a mess and to see my face.

I know when I'm s- upset and I cry, my whole face is, like, swollen and red, and it is not how I would want people to see me. And it would be a lot easier to not care if I didn't have to see it myself. So that makes a lot of sense. And yeah, and the idea of, like, looking in the mirror. I know when I look in the mirror, I see my mom.

Especially the older I 

Gina: get. 

Jill: Right? The more I'm like, oh, my gosh, I look just like my mom. And so I can imagine [00:31:00] when I will be grieving her, because I know I will at some point, that yeah, I don't think I would wanna look in the mirror and see myself upset and also looking just like my mother. I can see how that would be very, very challenging.

Just cover the mirrors. Then I don't even have to worry about it. 

Batya: The Jewish rituals actually make sense. 

Jill: Mm-hmm. 

Batya: And it's fascinating. Like, initially when we first started with the book and we'd talk through different things, it was like, why did they do this? And we came to realize how therapeutic it is to have these things, and 

Jill: yeah.

And who did you write the book for? Is it for clinicians? Is it for Jewish people that maybe just wanna learn more? Is it for somebody like me that has Jewish friends and family? Like, who is your ideal reader that you wrote the book thinking, "This is gonna help these people"? 

Batya: I think it was all of the above, right?

There are seven acknowledged mourners, okay? There's the spouse, there's [00:32:00] the sibling, there's the parent, there's the child. I think I hit them all, those variations. So definitely with them in mind. But it's not unusual to go into a shiva house and see a book there, because people are always looking up this and that.

So it's for them. It's a book that you could pick up and put down, you know, or, "This is what's relevant to me now. I wanna read about this section," and, "Oh, no, you know, we talked about the first year, and then we talked about after the first year. Well, after the first year, I'm not there yet. I'm in the first week, so I'm into shiva, or I'm into shloshim."

But it's also for anybody that would come in contact, so different theology departments. It's really a book that just explains so much through the lens of the Jewish world. 

Gina: One of the things that we decided as we started to write was that we wanted to include all through the book stories and vignettes that we kind of gathered.

First, some of them are from our own personal experiences and our own losses, and others were from [00:33:00] things that people shared with us And we thought it was important to include it, and some are even humorous, like the stupidest thing someone said to me at Shiva. Some are serious, but all of these stories or vignettes are true, and the idea of including them throughout the book was that someone could just pick up the book and read it and say, "Oh, that's exactly how I felt," right?

"I get it. Yes, that happened to me," or, "That's how I was feeling at any given time." And this idea that nobody grieves the same, and your grief is your own, and don't compare. People are at different stages at different times, and that everyone would be able to, at any point, pick up the book, not read it from cover to cover, but wherever they are at any given time during their grieving process, pick it up and read a little bit and say, "Oh, yeah, that's how I was feeling," or, "That's legitimate.

Oh, wow, someone else had a similar experience." So that we even called the book, like a [00:34:00] companion. A companion that a person could feel that they're being kind of guided through the process of grief, knowing that other people experience similar things, and that I'm not strange for what I feel or I'm not different, and other people felt frustrated or angry or at sometimes even relieved after a person died.

Mm. There was a long illness. And that all these things are acceptable and legitimate, and people, I think, need to hear that as well. It's important. It's called The Jewish Journey, so obviously we had in mind, but it's not only for Jewish people, and so that's why when you reached out, both of us were actually really excited because it is something we'd like to share.

We think that there's a lot of wisdom to it, and Batya showed me how it parallels the psychological healing that takes place. So we would be thrilled that not only Jewish people would [00:35:00] find some comfort in the book that we've written, even though ideally it's Jewish Journey is in the title. That's why this podcast really is wonderful for us to be able to share with other people as well.

Batya: We did, one of the things we included all along in the book was about the expectations that people had. You know, they had the expectation you lose somebody, and that's a whole discussion, too, in terms of lose, right? Uh, like what are the expectations? Mm-hmm. You know, the expectation is in six weeks everything should be fine and you're back to normal.

Right? And the expectation is, is that, you know, okay, you've loved somebody, you're done, move on. And we really wanted to dispel a, you know, some of those myths about what was real and what wasn't real. And, you know, it's perfectly acceptable and normal for you to be feeling this way at this point in time and to, you know, your anger, as Gina said, or your frustration, or your this or your that, and to be able to normalize it because what, you know, this is [00:36:00] a very normal response to a very abnormal situation, okay?

And this is especially the case if it's a sudden loss and coming to terms with things and trying to understand or make sense of it and just where are you psychologically compared to where you think you should be. And Judaism really makes space for that. So we tried to get that across, too. 

Jill: Yeah, that permission.

Permission. Yeah I love that word for it, and making that space. And I find one of the things with grief, too, with death and grief, is it is a human experience. And, you know, hopefully if people can read your book, and maybe, you know, they're not Jewish. Maybe they don't even know anybody that's Jewish. But if you can read it and see, yeah, that's exactly what I felt when my mother died, or when my brother died, or when my child died.

You know, just to see that humanness and understand that in the long run, we are way more alike than we are different. [00:37:00] Especially in the world, I just feel like it's so ... We need to feel those similarities and understand how we are more alike than we are different, and that death is, I think, one of those ways that it's so obvious that we're all the same.

So, you know, I definitely will encourage anybody that I know that works in end-of-life care to get the book and be able to use it to help support people, 'cause I know a lot of the palliative care workers that I know, hospice workers, death doulas, right, we're gonna come across people of different religions and different cultures.

And the more that we can understand them and why they do what they do and why they believe what they believe, we're just gonna be better at supporting them and meeting them where they're at, even if it's not the culture or the religion that we come from. I know I'm gonna get the book so that I have it and I can read it.

I will, for sure, encourage anybody that I [00:38:00] meet along the way to get it as well, so that we can learn and just support people in a way that takes us even a little bit outside of our own box, right? A little bit outside of our own comfort zone, and just show up and meet people where they're at, and not our experience, basically, of what's going on.

Gina: Beautiful 

Batya: You're welcome. I- That we have a whole section on end-of-life decision-making- 

Jill: Mm ... 

Batya: and organ donation and all of that. And the truth is, one of the difficult parts of the book for us was, you know, do we put death in the title? Do we not put death in the title? Mm. And the first 100 pages are before the funeral already.

Mm-hmm. We haven't even gotten to the funeral, but we have so much that we put in before because how you deal with your loss will be very much dependent on what your relationship was like and all the issues around the loss itself. So it's interesting that you say that in terms of end of life and, and I've accompanied a few people towards the end.

Again, just all the misconceptions and [00:39:00] it's so important to point that out. The other section that we put in the book, we have a fairly large section on death in children. Okay, both for children that die and how do you deal with death and how do you explain that to children and the issues that are going on.

I remember growing up, my father always used to say, and he was also a member of the Chevra Kadisha, and he used to say, "Children belong in a shiva house because it reminds the mourners that life goes on." And by having children and bringing in, you know, they say the darndest things, and they'll be there, and it normalizes a process to some degree, too, and 

Jill: the importance of that for the family.

Batya: I just remember when my parents died that my children were around and how they fit into various aspects of it. And so we said we felt it was really important because often people think, nope, children should be seen and not heard, and they're not going to be a part of the process at all. And then they turn around and we wonder why they don't understand some of the things because we've left them off to the side.

So yeah, we've added that as well. We [00:40:00] 

Gina: also talk about, like, the Passover Seder without a loved one. Mm. But I could definitely substitute Thanksgiving dinner instead of the Passover Seder. Just because we use an example which comes from Jewish experience doesn't mean that the first Thanksgiving without someone that you love around the table is not a hole in your heart and that place at the table which is missing.

So yes, the book brings Jewish experiences, but it's the very same from whatever culture, religion you come from. That first year when that person is missing from your family table, it's very difficult. But being able to talk about it is also important. And not only that, Batya gives all kinds of wonderful suggestions about how to make that- First whatever it is, right?

First event, right? Just a little bit easier by talking about how we wanna celebrate or what do we wanna do to [00:41:00] remember that person who's not, and, and things like that. Because we know it's going to be difficult, so let's see what we can do to kind of embrace it, recognize it- Mm-hmm ... celebrate, still celebrate, right?

But in a way which brings comfort, I think. That's what I was trying to say. 

Jill: We are about at the end of our time. So can you tell me, and I'll put links in the show notes, but can you tell us again the name of the book, where people can find it, if anybody wants to find either of you, if you wanna give contact info, anything like that, whatever you wanna share.

Batya: The book is The Jewish Journey Through Loss: From Death to Healing, Batya Ludman, Gina Junger, and it's published by Maggid, by Koren Publishers. It's available, uh, through Amazon. That may be the easiest way for your readers to get it In terms of being able to reach out to us, probably the easiest way to reach out to me is just to Google my name and you- [00:42:00] somewhere you'll get to an address.

I don't know, for Gina, you're harder to just spot that way. 

Jill: Well, that's how I found you. I Googled your name, and then I reached out to you, and then you connected me with Gina- Sure. Yeah ... 'cause I could not find any contact info for Gina. 

Gina: Perfect. 

Batya: Yeah. Oh. We probably talk three or four times a day, so it gets back and forth.

Gina: I was just gonna say that some of the podcasts that Jill has already done in the past reminded me of this idea of difficult conversations and being prepared. And that's another reason why we wrote this book, because the more prepared we are, I mean, it's not something we could choose when we're gonna die or how we're gonna die.

But if we're willing to talk about it, if we're willing to have difficult conversations, if we're willing to not be so afraid of the topic of death, then we'll be maybe a little bit more prepared. Batya brings the analogy in the beginning of birth, like we used to have this book, What to Expect When You're Expecting.

Then we would read it, and then nothing would be [00:43:00] as we actually read. But we felt that we were doing some type of preparation before giving birth. And perhaps the idea that if you are able to prepare just a little bit before death, then maybe it takes away the fear, the anxiety, and that's part of the work that you do as well, Jill.

So we hope that it will be a helpful tool for people. It's, I think, what we hope for. 

Batya: For sure. 

Jill: And I think that's exactly what you did. You provided a tool for people to start the conversations and to help support others. And so I'm really excited to read the book. I really appreciate your time today.

Gina and Batya, this was wonderful. I really enjoyed it. I love being able to ask all kinds of questions, so thank you for answering all of my questions. Oh, 

Batya: thanks. Thank you so much for inviting us, really. 

Gina: Thank you. Thank you. It was wonderful. Thank you so much. Wishing you lots of success, continued success, in the special and wonderful work you do, Jill.

Thank you. 

Batya: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. [00:44:00] 

Jill: If you've been listening to my podcast for a while and you hear me and my guests talk over and over about how important it is to create a plan for the end of life and to have the conversations with your loved ones about what's important to you, and you're thinking, "Okay, maybe it's time.

Maybe I should actually sit down and figure this out instead of just hoping it all works out later," I get it. These conversations can feel overwhelming or scary or just like something you'll deal with another day, but you don't have to do it alone. If you want help creating an end of life care plan for yourself or for someone you love, maybe it's your aging parents, a spouse, whoever it is in your life, you can book a complimentary 30-minute call with me, and we'll just talk.

We'll get clear on what's going on for you and what the next right steps might be. There's no pressure, just support. The link's in the show notes whenever you're ready. And if this episode made you think of someone, a sibling, a friend, or another caregiver, feel free to share it with them. Sometimes these conversations are easier to start when someone else opens the door first.

Thank you for being here. The fact that you're even [00:45:00] willing to listen to this kind of conversation means a lot.