Jewish Aging, Loss of Community, and Anticipatory Grief

This episode of "Bereaved But Still Me" features Rabbi Richard Address.

Rabbi Address was ordained from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1972 and began his Rabbinic career in Los Angeles congregations. He also served as a part-time rabbi for Beth Hillel in Carmel, NJ while regional director and, after his URJ tenure, he served as senior rabbi of Congregation M’kor Shalom in Cherry Hill, NJ from 2011-2014.

Rabbi Richard Address is the Founder and Director of www.jewishsacredaging.com. Rabbi Address served for over three decades on the staff of the Union for Reform Judaism; first as a Regional Director and then, beginning in 1997, as Founder and Director of the URJ’s Department of Jewish Family Concerns and served as a specialist and consultant for the North American Reform Movement in the areas of family-related programming. 

A major part of Address’s work has been in the development and implementation of the project on Sacred Aging. This project has been responsible for creating awareness and resources for congregations on the implication of the emerging longevity revolution with a growing emphasis on the aging of the baby boomer generation. This aging revolution has begun to impact all aspects of Jewish communal and congregational life.

Beginning in the winter of 2018, Rabbi Address began hosting a weekly podcast, Seekers of Meaning, dedicated to discussing issues related to aging, spirituality, and the impact on families and congregations.

Rabbi Address' podcast and website:

https://jewishsacredaging.com/category/podcasts/jsa-podcast/

Transcript

Rabbi Richard Address: 0:00

Because we're living longer, and the issues that we face it's let's say 75, 85, 95 We don't need any bubba meises, we just want to know how to deal with this

Michael Liben: 0:19

Welcome to"Bereaved But Still Me". Our purpose is to empower members of our community. I'm Michael Liben and and the father of three children: Idan, Sapir, and Liel. Liel, my youngest daughter, was born with a heart defect, and later she developed autism and epilepsy. Losing Liel at 15 is what has brought me here to be the host of this program. Today's program is "Jewish Aging, Loss of Community, and Anticipatory Grief", and our guest is Rabbi Richard Address. Rabbi Address was ordained from Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion in 1972, and began his rabbinic career in Los Angeles congregations. He also served as a part time Rabbi for Beth Hillel in Carmel, New Jersey, while Regional Director and after his (Union for Reform Judaisim) URJ tenure served as a senior rabbi of Congregation M'kor Shalom in Cherry Hill, New Jersey from 2011 to 2014. Rabbi Richard Address is the founder and director of Jewish Sacred Aging. He served for over three decades on staff of the Union for Reform Judaism; first as Regional Director, and then beginning in 1997, is founder and director of your days Department of Jewish Family Concerns and serves as a specialist and consultant for the North American Reform Movement in the areas of family related programming. A major part of his work has been in the development and implementation of a project on sacred aging. This project has been responsible for creating awareness and resources for congregations on the implication of the emerging longevity revolution with growing emphasis on the aging of the baby boomer generation, this aging revolution has begun to impact all aspects of Jewish communal and congregational life. Beginning in the winter 2018, Rabbi Address began hosting a weekly podcast, "Seekers of Meaning" dedicated to discussing issues related to aging, spirituality, and the impact on families and congregations. Rabbi, thank you so much for joining "Bereaved But Still Me".

Rabbi Richard Address: 2:00

Hi, Michael. Nice to be with you. I hope you're well.

Michael Liben: 2:02

Thank you. Yes. So far, so good.

Rabbi Richard Address: 2:05

Then you're ahead of the game. And you're ahead of the game.

Michael Liben: 2:07

I'm aging, and I'm Jewish so I'm right there. So let's talk about your podcast. We know that you have had this for some time since 2018. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about your podcast and why you started?

Rabbi Richard Address: 2:21

The podcast "Seekers of Meaning" which you can access on our website, Jewishsacredaging.com really grew out of a lot of the work we were doing in congregations and Jewish organizations and with classes and then a couple of seminaries and questions constantly emerging as what does it mean in this day and age, and this was even before COVID. And it exacerbated with this as a result of COVID with, obviously, the rise in isolation and loneliness in many ways. So the podcast really has evolved. Initially, it was just focused on just our generation, the baby boomer generation, but it is sort of like morphed and evolved into not only that, but things that are associated with books, you were on in February. And so the core thrust is still the search for meaning and purpose as we get older.

Michael Liben: 3:11

You deal with so many different topics on the program, what are some of the main ones that you like to focus on or what's moving something, your particular favorite?

Rabbi Richard Address: 3:19

We do a lot in things associated with end of life and advanced care. We do a lot with caregiving, a lot with caregiving. And in recent, I'd say that they see I guess, in the last year or so especially as COVID begins to change directions or become or wane whatever it is, or if it ever is, a lot more on the spiritual aspect of aging, and this search for meaning. And there's some bioethics stuff. The podcast right after you is with a brilliant young, traditional rabbi in Los Angeles, Jason Wiener and his new book, "Care and Covenant", again on Jewish bioethics. So there's a lot of that. We work with hospices and other organizations, and people find us and we get to go out and solicit some authors. A lot of times we'll get requests, or we'll see a book that is, well, for example, a mutual friend, Alden Solovy's new book, we recorded him in his new book in March, so he's been on it a couple of times, because his work touches on so many of the things as you know, sure, that we talked about.

Michael Liben: 4:28

I want to point out that many of our listeners already know him from this program, because he's been a guest more than once and everybody's favorite we all agree. I want to go back though, you said Jewish bioethics? Can you define that? Because I don't think I've ever heard those words put together quite like that.

Rabbi Richard Address: 4:45

It's really the how you approach or how you apply Jewish traditional texts and values, to ethical issues that emerge out of expanding medical technology from the beginning of life to the end of life and everything in between.

Michael Liben: 4:57

Well, that would, I think, would include transplants and the question of when is it-

Rabbi Richard Address: 5:01

Absolutely.

Michael Liben: 5:02

When is it legal? When is it possible?

Rabbi Richard Address: 5:04

of Jewish Family Concerns, a blessed memory, we actually created for the Reform Movement, a program we call "Nacham Chayim". We used to publish once a year, a text based bioethics, case study guide for congregations. And one of them, I think it was number nine was on organ tissue transplantation, we had actually rituals that were used with people on donating a kidney of accepting a kidney, an organ, and the family basically shecheyanu-ing it. So just just every major denomination accepts organ transplantation and under the rubric of pikuach nefesh, the saving of a life. It's fascinating. There's still a significant amount of ignorance. I think, in a normative Jewish community, we shouldn't do this, or we can't do this. Just the contrary. On the contrary.

Michael Liben: 6:00

I know from personal experience, that it's sometimes very difficult to convince people that it's a good thing to do. It's hard to do. It has been, as you said, acceptable now, in most, I would say most not all denominations, because there are certain sub sects and sub sub denominations that are finding that a little bit more difficult. I just for the for the sake of many of our listeners who are not Jewish, you talked about ritual and use that term, the Shehecheyanu. The Shehecheyanu is a blessing that we say on something when it's the first time, where it's something new. So if you, for example, a fruit, that's the first of that season for you, you would say, "Shehecheyanu", it means it's thanking God for bringing us to this point in time bringing us here. And so that's very appropriate for someone receiving tissue or organ transplant because Shehecheyanu, it's their first time, and hopefully, it's gonna go well. So it's certainly a blessing there. What kind of rituals though, have you developed for that? I'm just curious.

Rabbi Richard Address: 6:55

One of the more popular workshops that we do is what we call "New Rituals for New Life Stages". And they run the gamut. There's an explosion of this all over the Jewish world today a tremendous amount of creativity. There's actually a study guide that we put on our website under the "Resources" section. But just to give you an example, we have a prayer for on signing an Advanced Directive, which begins with a shehecheyanu, by the way, because it gives thanks for the saying, you know, I've been given the opportunity to make a decision about how my life will end and I, I'm hoping and praying that my family will carry out my wishes, which is long, involved introduction to the concept of stewardship, and Jewish bioethics, and we publish the rituals on leaving the family home, moving into an assisted living facility, older adult cohabitation without marriage, the removal of a wedding ring after the year of mourning. There's books now being the CCAR has a series of little pamphlets, one of them that we teach, which is very brutal, is the one brutal in the sense of the language is very real, on receiving a diagnosis of dementia, and the language is very, very beautiful and spiritual. And then the one that's gotten us a little bit of concern is the redefinition of adultery in light of Alzheimer's and dementia.

Michael Liben: 8:15

Oh, boy. So these kinds of things that go there. That sounds very, very, very, very difficult.

Rabbi Richard Address: 8:22

It's fun to teach, because these are all things that are happening, every ritual that we teach has been used, or the issue is happening within congregations.

Michael Liben: 8:31

Well, I've seen it, I've seen it, and I know it, thank you for taking that on, head head on, because that's, that's a very difficult stuff. And it's something that more of us are facing all the time, as our parents are getting older. And as we're getting older, more and more people are living to the point where dementia kicks in, which is kind of-

Rabbi Richard Address: 8:51

Yes, the statistics are frightening. The statistics are frightening.

Michael Liben: 8:57

I would imagine. I'm glad you brought it up end of life issues because I was gonna ask you if that was related to bioethics, when to turn off machinery, if to turn off machinery, under what circumstances you might be allowed to turn on machinery.

Rabbi Richard Address: 9:11

Correct. That tradition has guidelines when when it is permissible to, as the Talmud alludes to, allow the flame of life to flicker out in dignity and in sanctity,

Michael Liben: 9:22

They talk about that?

Rabbi Richard Address: 9:24

Yeah.

Michael Liben: 9:25

I'm a little shocked.

Rabbi Richard Address: 9:26

Oh, no, no, there there. There are actual halakhic boundaries; gosess, traifa, and there's tons of books and articles that have been written on this. It's part of the workshop that we do on making the sacred decisions at the end of life. And the Jewish tradition is so powerful and modern and prescient. And the tragedy is we don't teach this enough because so many of our people are living it. There's one of the rituals that we have and one of the books that we use, really as a as a brief prayer, as you remove somebody from life support.

Michael Liben: 9:56

Wow, I didn't know there was one. I wish I had known that that at the time.

Rabbi Richard Address: 10:01

This is one of the reasons why this ritual workshop gets a lot of people. It's a great thing to teach because it really engenders a tremendous amount of, of conversation and people tell their stories. And it's fun to teach, and it's very meaningful.

Michael Liben: 10:17

I also understand why you call it sacred aging, because there really is that aspect to it. Just before we end the first part, I'm going to ask you, people who are hearing this might want to become guests on your podcast, how can they find you? And how can they become guests?

Rabbi Richard Address: 10:30

Real easy. Just email me at

Anna Jaworski: 10:30

You're listening to "Bereaved But Still Me". If rabbiaddress@jewishsacredaging.com That's how to get a hold of us. you have a question or comment that you would like addressed on I'm from Philadelphia, we try to keep things really simple. Or just go to the website jewishsacredaging.com. And there are ways to get a hold of me but that that's the easiest thing: rabbiaddress@jewishsacredaging.com our program, please send an email to Michael Liben at michael@bereavedbutstillme.com. That's michael@bereavedbutstillme.com. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. The opinions expressed in the podcast are not those of Hearts Unite the Globe, but of the hosts and guests and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to congenital heart disease or bereavement.

Michael Liben: 11:30

Richard, let's talk about anticipatory grief, especially in the Jewish community. What do you think we can do as a community to prepare for the loss of life?

Rabbi Richard Address: 11:37

This is becoming more and more a reality. As more and more people deal with chronic illness, the

Michael Liben: 11:42

Do you think people are afraid of closure? Alzheimer's and dementia thing. My personal belief, and when I work with congregations, I always urge them to put in every program year, a mandatory at least one educational forum on end of life advanced care, care planning, and how the Jewish tradition approaches this so that people can begin to talk about this in families, there's, as you know, a significant amount of denial, people don't want to do it, there's not the easiest conversation to have with my 40 year old children about are you going to how are you going to take care of me? There's lots of psycho-spiritual aspects involved with this. And also, if I'm dealing with this with an adult parent, which happens all the time. So the more I know that congregation's talk about this raises within the context of Jewish tradition and texts, the better off we are all going to be. And I have had this experience. And I will guarantee you, most of my colleagues have had this experience, when they have worked with a family to do advanced planning, when they've had even to sometimes facilitate a conversation when a family has made the decisions, are comfortable with these decisions, the dynamics of the family change, even if there's estrangement, and but you can't change the fact let's just say with a dementia issue, that you know what the end result is going to be. And as I experienced with my mom understood that I began sitting, Shiva for her six months before she died, right? Because it was quite obvious what was going to happen there. And that is that anticipatory grief, there is a magnificent book by Pauline Boss- B O S S - about the myth of closure and anticipatory grief as a result of COVID. That's really an, if there are any clergy, that that's a really interesting and valuable small book, to get into your library because it really unpacks some of the issues that you're talking about. But there's no substitute for talking about it and raising it for the Bimah raising it in forums, continue to talk about it. And my belief also is it shouldn't wait until people are older. Kids deal with this as well. Many, many younger adults are also actively involved in caregiving.

Rabbi Richard Address: 14:06

Depends. Some people want it very badly, and they walk away without really understanding the necessity of the rituals, Jewishly of Shiva. I mean, when you really study Shiva it is brilliant.

Michael Liben: 14:22

Yeah but Shiva, Shiva doesn't give you closure, it enables you to begin a long process.

Rabbi Richard Address: 14:26

But that begins the process. Yeah, great. Closure implies I'm done with this. You're never done with it.

Michael Liben: 14:34

That's the point.I think. I think also people are afraid of closure, because they think that if I've moved on from somebody, I've left them behind somewhere. I'm not taking them with me. So talk about that because I think in Judaism, one of the things we do one of the things that Shiva begins, it's a process of learning how to take your loved one with you into your future and maintain a future for that loved one. Right?

Rabbi Richard Address: 14:58

Absolutely. You know-

Michael Liben: 14:59

They're still alive, you keep them alive, right?

Rabbi Richard Address: 15:02

That's that's how that's the really eternal life, isn't it? I mean, internal life is memory and living. And the fact that this person lives on with me and what I do and my family, that's really eternal life, none of this other mumbo jumbo superstition stuff, the challenge, Michael, which very few people want to talk about, is what happens when there's no one left to say Kaddish for the people. This is why the congregations have you everybody rise for the Kaddish, and memory of the 6 million or other people. But there's a scholar who wrote once I don't remember which book says, "People live on, as long as there's somebody left to say, Kaddish for them". And when there's no one left to say Kaddish for a person, where do they go?

Michael Liben: 15:51

Well, that directly brings me to my next question, which is how can we, as a community, help members of our community when they're grieving? And maybe that's one of the things we can do is maybe if there is nobody to grieve, we can step in as a community. Can we do that? Are there things that we can do?

Rabbi Richard Address: 16:06

Yeah, people do it all the time. They endow lectureship say build buildings, they name things is a naming requires a certain amount of economic security to do that, which not everybody shares. But that's why telling the story, that's why legacy is so important. And why all of a sudden with the baby boomers has the ethical will become as this resurgence. Because we're concerned that I believe, I believe we're concerned that after we understand, we're going to fully finally understand that we're going to die. And what of me do I want to leave behind? And it's not the condo. But it's the spiritual aspect. And that's a very, very hard conversation to have.

Michael Liben: 16:52

How can we have that then? How can we force ourselves to have it, and I'm thinking as a bridge in two directions, I would like to have that conversation with my children. I'm over 60, and they're approaching 30. And I think we need to have that conversation. I need to talk with my sisters and my brother about our mother. I mean, this affects everybody in every every possible direction, up and down. And sideways. How can we how can we make it easier to get into that conversation? Do we just bite the bullet and go? How do you do it?

Rabbi Richard Address: 17:20

This is a probably a bad answer. But it varies from person to person, because all this is very, very, very subjective and unique. When I teach this, I refer to this as a dance, a dance, right? And sometimes is your perception of well, we're all going to gather around the table, and we're going to have this conversation, that rarely succeeds. And sometimes it takes several attempts. And the massaging the issue and people families relate to this very, very differently. The hope is you don't wait for a crisis. So when you talk to people about developing a care plan, who's going to take care of who, when, who's going to be responsible, if you're lucky enough to have that conversation, because I was an only and there were no brothers and sisters to come in. And and then you have this other phenomenon, at least in the United States, of this literature, we call them solo agers where people aren't growing older, they have no family, they've never married they have no children. And they basically say, "wait a minute, who's going to take care of me? I'm all alone". I think a synagogue has an absolute responsibility to talk about this. Because we talk about it from Jewish texts. And I don't understand why more of them don't because the rabbi deals with this all the time. And they're often -

Michael Liben: 18:35

That's like sort of my next few sub questions. As a rabbi, people come to you and say, "What do I do?" And then you have to go through the whole thing from start to end. Because they probably if they're calling you, they probably reached the crisis moment. And they didn't discuss it. And now they're stuck. And the other thing is, now as a rabbi, do you introduce this conversation naturally into the community or is it by hosting courses? Is it by having lectures? How do you get people into the idea that they need to do this?

Rabbi Richard Address: 19:01

All of the above? No, no, seriously sermons, educational forums, text, you can study a series of texts from Tanakh onward, that talk about this. There's great midrash that are used when in the bioethics teaching that talk about choices, Deuteronomy 30:19; "Therefore choose life". But the "B" part of the verse is the reasons why you make choices to sanctify life is so that the people that come after you are blessed. Well, what does that mean in the contemporary world with medical technology? That goes back to your original question of about 10 minutes ago about the boundaries and and sometimes the choices are between bad and badder. One of the main thrusts that I learned when I worked for the URJ and even in my own congregation, is that as wonderful as all the macro issues are, in the real life, in the trenches, and people's homes, and their families and their souls. They want their Judaism to speak to them and say, how do we deal with this from a perspective of faith? Not pediatric, as Dr. Larry Hoffman refers to it, not pediatric Judaism, but we call them mature spirituality, because we're living longer. And the issues that we face, it's that say, 75, 85, 95 we don't need any bubba meises, we just want to know how to deal with this.

Michael Liben: 20:25

If you've enjoyed listening to this program, please visit our website, heartsunitetheglobe.org and make a contribution. This program is a presentation of Hearts Unite the Globe and is part of the Hug Podcast Network. Hearts Unite the Globe is a nonprofit organization devoted to providing resources to the congenital heart defect community to educate, empower, and enrich the lives of our community members. If you would like access to free resources pertaining to the CHD community, please visit our website at congenitalheartdefects.com. For information about CHD, hospitals that treat CHD survivors, summer camps for CHD families, and much, much more. The life of a community I think, in some sense mimics that of a person. Communities are young and vibrant, they get older, and eventually they pass on. And what I mean by that is in the Jewish context, all of our lifecycle events are focused in the synagogue. So there's an age when we're very young, and all of our friends are having all of our bar mitzvahs. And then there's an age we all get married at the same more or less level, in a space of so many years, all of us and all our friends get married. And then we all have children, and all of these are celebrations and joyous. And then somebody's parents begin to die and our usage of synagogue and our Judaism changes, and it changes radically and that doesn't always come back. So let's talk about that in terms of communities and what happens. America is very transient in that sense. I remember in high school being told that America was the newly nomadic state, that people would, could be born in New York can be educated in New York and get a job in Chicago or California. And that's it's not a big thing. They just move. Now, when I was a kid, I remember in a synagogue of 500 families, if every now and then somebody's kid made aliya, that was good thing moved to Israel, that was good thing we could support that. Somebody's kid got a great job in Chicago or California we could, we could support that, it was good thing. At some point when the congregations are no longer 500 families strong, that's not a good thing. So let's talk about what happens at the end of life for a community.

Rabbi Richard Address: 22:32

There's a variety of ways of looking at it. Not every community dies, a lot of communities in my experience transition, they sometimes see the change in the demographic of where they are, I know from home, several congregations did this and they just moved further out into the suburbs where the flow of population is growing and younger families are, are moving in. But there are situations where the demography of a particular community is significant enough, where existing congregations start losing members. Every colleague who may listen to this knows chapter and verse, probably in some of their own experiences. Sometimes that is exacerbated by changes in economic systems, the pandemic had a lot to do with some of this stuff. And they merge, they'll merge. I remember some when I was a regional director, a couple of the smaller congregations all the way out in the western part of my region, these small old congregations that were thriving 75, 80 years ago with the coal mines. They're not there anymore. Some of them merged. Some of them disappeared. And the southern part of the United States that also. I have had a very good friend, Rabbi Schakowsky of Blessed Memory, who was the regional director of the peart of the United States and the Reform Movement, Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, where he was involved with shutting the doors, the funeral of the community. Because young people left, and there was a very few numbers of existing older adults, and they just couldn't handle it. They couldn't keep the building up. And then you have the issue with, just as if you would give, what do you do with the clothing, the books, etc, of somebody who passes away? In those situations what do you do with the Torahs? How can we donate them? What do you do with the memorial plaques? This same thing, and there are people who really specialize, there's a program out of Jackson, Mississippi, The Institute for Southern Jewish Life, who right now deals with this a lot, because there's a lot of those little congregations in there. So it's very fluid. And there are, right now in the States, it seems to be a little trickle of unifications and mergers, because of the change in demographics. It's very fluid and there are people who just go through his whole ceremony of closing the door. And by the way, it's very hard because it's emotion and I think, and some people have done this, there really needs to be a period of mourning, and a service, some sort of acknowledge, what was the memories, you know that, so many memories.

Michael Liben: 25:01

I totally agree with that. Judaism is very community oriented in every different stream of Judaism, whether they say so or not, it's all about community. Exactly. And communities, everything in where you come from, or where you grew up says a lot about who you are. Because it's, it's everything you know, right? I live in Israel, but I grew up in New York, and you can't take that out of me. I'm a fish out of water sometimes here because I'm still that kid from New York, you can't take that away. And when a congregation goes away, even if you haven't been there for a long, long time, there's something that some umbilical that gets broken there, you know what I'm saying.

Rabbi Richard Address: 25:39

But this has gotten the neshama and kishkes, of memory. And it has to be recognized, it has to be, you just can't, I don't think, I don't think we just close the door, sell the building move and say, "Okay, we did this, everything's great". No, there's an emotional attachment there that has to be recognized.

Michael Liben: 25:58

I totally do. These are things that exist for generations. I mean, it's not just my generation, or my 50 years that I was there. My parents were there. In some cases, people say the grandparents were there. If I had stayed in New York, my children would be there. I mean, it's just everything. And it's a hard thing to realize. And I've begun to see it lately in other places, it's a hard thing to realize. My community where I live right now, our neighborhood is changing. It's becoming ultra orthodox. I'm the only conservative congregation in this neighborhood, and most others nearby, there's there are one or two others, we're all feeling the pinch, none of us are getting any younger, our children even in a small country, like Israel, they're moving away, it's gonna hurt, it's gonna hurt and I can see it coming. I can see it coming. And it's nice that there's a ritual for that, it's nice to know that we can prepare for it. Because when somebody dies, we know what to do. We know exactly what to do. There's Shiva, and we know what it means. And our neighbors get together and prepare food and, and we know how to get through it. And we know it's coming on the other side. When a community goes, I'm not sure we really know yet what to do, because from so many of us, it's it's a very new idea.

Rabbi Richard Address: 27:12

This a fascinating conversation because one of the things that's very prevalent right now in end of life funeral conversations is this rise in cremation. And oh God, yeah.

Michael Liben: 27:24

I'm shocked.

Rabbi Richard Address: 27:25

And the United States especially, and the conversation in a family well, in previous generations, you were in a neighborhood, you went to the cemetery. You saw your parents or whatever, whatever, whatever. But a lot of times people are opting for cremation, mostly for economic reasons. What do you do with the remains? I've done interments of cremains, in the cemetery in the family plot, as well as a lot of my colleagues. And I work with an organization, "Kavod Nachum", who works with whatever Kadisha groups, but does a lot of work in all this explosion of new ways of burial from - New York, just passed accepted human composting. There's so much ferment right now in the community and change part of its around new rituals. It's fascinating. It's fascinating. It's just fascinating.

Michael Liben: 28:13

Well, I wish we had more time to go through that but as I can see by the clock on the clubhouse wall, we're out of time. If you're old enough to get that reference, write to me. Richard, thank you so much for being with us.

Rabbi Richard Address: 28:23

Thank you Michael for that. And I do remember that clubhouse wall I'm very happy I mean, in my growing up that was a baseball reference so but we won't get into baseball right now because we'll be here for another three or four hours.

Michael Liben: 28:38

You know you will, you know you will.

Rabbi Richard Address: 28:40

Okay, man. Thank you.

Michael Liben: 28:41

That concludes this episode of "Bereaved But Still Me". I want to thank Rabbi Richard Address for sharing his experience and wisdom with us. Please join us again at the beginning of the month for a brand new podcast. I'll be with you soon and until then, please remember moving forward is not moving away.

Anna Jaworski: 28:58

Thank you for joining us. We help you have felt supported in your grief journey. "Bereaved But Still Me" is a monthly podcast, and a new episode is released on the first Thursday of each month. You can hear our podcast anywhere you normally listen to podcasts at any time. Join us again next month for a brand new episode of"Bereaved But Still Me".