Description:
Foreseeing death or loss can stir up complicated feelings — including grief. This phenomenon, known as "anticipatory grief," is frequently experienced after a medical diagnosis or the decline of someone we love.
How might we understand anticipatory grief as a meaningful coping mechanism, not just a painful one? What does Jewish wisdom offer us here? And what rituals might actually help?
Join us as the Jewish calendar prepares for a season traditionally devoted to mourning and collective loss. Shomer Collective’s Rabbi Melanie Levav will be in conversation with Barri Leiner Grant, “Chief Grief Officer” of The Memory Circle, whose work centers grief as a lifelong practice.
Let’s Talk is a series of educational programs created to put end-of-life topics in conversation with Jewish wisdom.
Recording:
Resources:
Vidui - The Deathbed Confession
Annual Life Review ritual by Shomer Collective on Recustom
Grief and Growing at Camp Newman
Speakers:
Barri Leiner Grant is a highly respected grief specialist, author and founder of The Memory Circle, a creative and healing space for remembrance and ritual. Barri brings a distinct aesthetic sensibility to the field of grief work—bridging beauty and healing in ways that feel modern, personal, and deeply human.
She is the creator of Permission Granted, a widely read Substack newsletter that invites readers to navigate loss with honesty, tenderness, and earned wisdom. Barri is recognized for her unique approach to grief support, which combines storytelling, symbolism, and community to help people mark loss with intention and carry memories forward with care.
Sought after as a speaker, collaborator, and guide, Barri is redefining how we talk about grief—removing the shame and silence, and replacing it with permission, presence, and grace.
Her work has been featured in People, The Washington Post and Psychology Today and on award winning podcasts.
Rabbi Melanie Levav serves as executive director of Shomer Collective, devoted to helping more people talk about death Jewishly. She pivoted her career toward end of life after seeing too many families end up in crisis because we don’t talk about or plan sufficiently for death and dying. A second-career rabbi, Melanie was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary; she is a board-certified chaplain, licensed social worker, credentialed death doula, and certified grief coach.