Yom Kippur as Dress Rehearsal for Death: Lessons From the Pandemic
Jewish tradition considers Yom Kippur to be a "dress rehearsal" for our death: we refrain from eating and drinking, washing and pleasure, we wear white, evoking the image of shrouds. So too, this pandemic has forced us to grapple with how close we are to death on any given day. Join us for a session with Rabbi Kara Tav, hailed by the New York Times as one of "the men and women who run toward the dying" for her frontline hospital chaplaincy work, as we consider the value of confronting our mortality to help us live lives of greater meaning and connection.

This is session 3 of the 3-part series, Awakening to the New Jewish Year: Living Well in the Face of Mortality. The new Jewish year, 5782, begins in the evening of September 6. As we enter the season of reflection on the Jewish calendar, join us for a 3-part series on living well in the face of mortality. Starting with the work of taking a spiritual inventory, continuing with the deathbed stories of the Hasidic masters, and concluding with a look at how the pandemic has helped us to face our own inevitable end in new ways, we will explore the depths of Jewish wisdom to help us enter the new year open to the realities of our lives.

Taught by: Rabbi Kara Tav, BCC
NYU Langone Hospital, Manager of Spiritual Care

Born and raised in Canada, Rabbi Tav has moved around the globe, settling most recently in New York City. Here, she and her husband Kobi raised their daughter Ella, who made Aliyah 4 years ago. After a twenty year career as a Jewish Educator, Rabbi Kara fulfilled her childhood aspiration to become a rabbi. Once in Rabbinical School (JTS '10), she followed her passion to become a Board Certified, multi-faith, healthcare chaplain. Spiritual care and counseling is where the cross-section of God, Torah and Acts of Kindness meet for her. Rabbi Tav has trained extensively and held a range of Spiritual Care positions in New York CIty's public and private medical centers. She currently serves as the Manager of Spiritual Care and Palliative Care chaplain at NYU Langone Hospital, Brooklyn.