#168: Behind the Bima - Rabbi Elchonon Zohn

from bitone Florida this is behind the beima on this episode Rabbi Goldberg is joined by Rabbi Alan Zone founder and president of the National Association of kadisha and director of the kadisha of the Vadim of Queen Rabbi Zone discusses the challenges and responsibilities of his role and explains why respecting the debt is a Cornerstone of Jewish belief rabis Zone also addresses contemporary issues such as cremation the importance of proper burial and the need for communal support in these matters rabis Zone provides insight into to how communities can improve their burial practices and explains the significance of maintaining dignity and respect for those who have passed away all this and more behind the [Music] Bea welcome back to behind the Bea we have the privilege this week to go behind the beo with RAB alhan Zone RAB Zone has been a tremendous resource to me and and a hero to me of RAB zon what you've dedicated your life to and since I've been in rabanus as an assistant Rabbi and rabbi uh We've called countless times our kadisha has relied on you and you've done incredible even to my own family by helping my father bring my grandparents to to burial in Israel after having passed away a long time ago and being buried first uh first in America so it's with a great hakar to of a lot of gratitude that we're we're going behind the Bea together thank you for being with us today it's an honor to thank you very much for having me it's a great privilege really really a great honor to be here uh as I told you R Goldberg I don't always get to watch but the few times that I have it's been extremely inspirational and uh I was hoping someday to be here so here I am here we are so let's yeah let's Jump Right In right so everyone knows RAB Zone as as the world expert I would consider uh in so many ways of kadisha the director of the K kadisha the of Queens founder and president of of nask of the of the National Association ofra kadisha um we have an incredible Cemetery we can get to loc Al that wouldn't that wouldn't exist without without your leadership RAB zone so I'm going to imagine at your bar mitzvah at your bar mitzvah nobody said that little Alan RAB alhan is going to grow up to become a nationally recognized Authority on death and dying and tahara and and preparation for funeral and Cemetery and funerals um I don't know that there's a long line of people that this is the career path that they choose or the future they see themselves how' this happen how did you emerge to become this author and this resource for the whole Jewish World on this issue I go a step further and say at my at my wedding and even when I got SM the last furthest thing in my mind was that I was going to be uh involved inad work I studied which is dedicated to K dedicated to outreach and teaching and um working with people and uh it just happened to be that the this was my calling uh I was 17 I was in it was the night before the Z began it was right before and uh one of the members of the anol passed away one of the rean passed away and I was asked to be a Sher and so there I was uh at 17 and I was in a funeral home in Brooklyn where the mace the person who I passed away the person whom I knew was on the floor there were no refrigerate refrigerators in those days and our job was literally to keep the person from uh you know having uh you know any bugs or animals or anything else literally uh you know Scamper about the body and we actually heard bugs and we have to that was our job which was the main wow idea of shme uh it was sobering at the age of 17 my first real uh exposure to death firsthand um and at the end of the I was there we were there from 3 o'clock in the morning to 7 that was the shift I was there and as we were leaving the kadisha came and I called the Yesa and I spoke to the Mas the person who had sent us and I said we're leaving the Kisha is arrived they're G to do the T the preparation and he said don't leave if you think you can handle it asked them if it's okay to stay you're gonna go into K someday you're going to be a rabbi most rabbis don't have much knowledge of this issue because they're never exposed to it if you can get the chance to watch kadisha do this why don't you do it and so I stayed and other show that was there with me stay as well and that was my first exposure to kadisha fast forward two years later I was 19 and the V of Queens rical Council of Queens was forming a kadisha for the community of Queens some of the local shs had their own group but by and large people had to be taken to Brooklyn for Tara when it was requested which was very infrequently in those days and so uh they were starting kadisha and they went to the V of Flatbush which had already begun with kadish they had a for the community and they asked them how they should start and it happened to be that the person who ran the kadisha in flatb a grandson learning in who suggested that they start with some of the students of the Yesa and since he knew them I had once seen a tahara because I had mentioned it to him and he was involved with his grandfather doing tahara every so often they came to me would you start the Kad and queens so at 19 I said no um I said but if you get a few other people to uh be involved I might consider joining and so I did and so I was one of about 10 students at the Yesa that became the founding members of the kadisha of the V of Queens for the women they had the Ritson doing it but I guess the rabbis were just too busy so they basically handed it off to us the students and the Yeshua and so that's how the v b of Queens uh was founded uh again fast forward 10 years later um actually 12 years later I was married and still doing tahara every so often that we asish for the entire Community actually were paid for our services was not a volunteer kesa was a small amount of money but being in Co it augmented my income but as I got there was a crisis within thead they were looking for someone to take over just as an interim person so I was I had a Shool at the time in Queens I was a RV already and I was looking for a specific job and so it was perfect I figured I'd take this on for a year while I was looking and then uh you know I would go to what I wanted to do which was to be a r or a teacher or a combination thereof and so I took over for a year and then it became two years and that time I had begun giving lectures to Funeral Directors uh to try to explain to them how to present the tradition in a more appropriate way how to explain to Hara and Shira and why it was important for them to do it and how they could really grow their business and improve their service by doing this uh and and I really became very involved and then I found the perfect job and I handed in my resignation and V AB of Queens uh took the position that I can't leave because I'm providing a service to the community and uh you know they don't know anyone else who's going to be able to do this um and so how could I leave the community uh high and dry and so was very strong in his belief that my calling was to go out to the Midwest to a local Yesa affiliated with with us it was witz actually I don't mind say where it was uh you Wisconsin Institute of tourist study and I um I very much wanted to go so we compromised or Lavar compromised with him and they uh all agreed that I would go to speak toov keski who happened to have been in Florida at the time it was winter time and so they were he was staying in uh Miami Beach and um I went down for two days and we I spent six hours with him w six of the best hours of my life without any question um and we had very long discussions about first whether I have a responsibility to stay and his answer to me was uh you have a responsibility to stay if you can't find anyone that will take this on uh whether he says you don't have to find someone as capable not even as dedicated but someone that will be dedic dedicated to doing this job and someone capable and so uh I looked for a few months and finally um I gave up and here I am you're you're a little bit like Yona trying to run away from your destiny and Hashem said nice try Rabbi Zone but this is the difference you're meant to make in this world this is your legacy yeah absolutely I I was swallowed up by know something else but it was a it was a a calling that really needed um needed someone to get involved and to uh dedicate themselves to it there was a lot that needed to be done and frankly I think it's a it's something that still needs kizo it's one of those things that really needo people don't always want to get involved in and in smaller communities it's a struggle and in larger communities there's still a struggle different struggles perhaps but uh to maintain cover hes I mean today is New Year's okay and um it was a time till very recently in New York where you couldn't get a burial on New Year's Day and even today in New Jersey uh we worked for two years to try to get the cemeteries in New Jersey to agree to open at a very Hefty price we would pay them almost anything to do it um absolutely refused many many cities today across the country you can't get a burial on on a holiday uh even minor holidays if they Union holidays you can't get a burial you you can get a Starbucks coffee but you can't get a burial oh absolutely you can yeah you can get almost anything but you know it's uh but you can't get buried and to some people that's a very big SAR and sometimes it can make a huge difference it could be a y for coming up or or for whatever reason that could really make a very big difference and of course Hally we know for the for the soul the best thing is to be buried immediately so uh it's something that I always said when a person dies uh we have uh our tradition is very much to focus on the needs of the of the family and the those who are Ming we provide so many services so much empathy and and support but when the the immediate focus is on the needs of the person who died and that means getting them buried immediately because that's what their the Sha desires they want to go back and you have a famous pukin Calis that says the dust returns to the Earth as it was and then the sh of the spirit returns to God it's a two-part process the the Sham the body first needs to return to its source before the the Shan can go on and find its uh it its rest and so it's it's a very important thing but that's still something that we need to work on uh there are a lot of areas that we can work on in this regard so that's what we want to get into because we have a lot of I want to get R by Broan but one one technical question you were you were 18 years old when they first got you involved just for people listening who don't know you can be single do do you have to be married to volunteer can you do it while you're single is there a difference between men and women in that do we prefer married people is there any any age is there is there is there a limit the minimum age that you have to be it's an excellent question R Goldberg and something that people don't really think about much the answer to that question is when there's a need like there was uh in 1970 in Queens uh you can be uh Bar Mitzvah I guess if there's no one else they'll they'll get you involved uh there are communities around the country where people get involved at a very early age simply because there's a need so there is no real uh requirement is it healthy for these people at that age to be doing this I'm not sure uh but but Hally is it okay yes uh there are that being said kadisha in many communities even for the men would not allow anyone to participate unless they were married and that's actually the present uh policy of our in Queens and many her uh not an age Factor but a marriage Factor once someone was married we generally will allow them to stay on even if whatever reason that status changes for the women uh it's different for the women actually marriage is also a consideration and our has the policy that we will not accept women who are not married but for women in many communities was actually uh after the age of menopause that PE women were permitted to uh be involved with and until that time they were not permitted and that still exists in some mainly communities that has some validity for Purity reasons or whatever that might be but uh but marriage is a factor uh I would say today most do not have that as an absolute requirement unless it's a strong and for whatever reason that's what they chose to got it R Brody wow so first of all it's a real honor and I know that any day of the week to to interview you for this program would be uh exciting but this week happens to be my bar mitzvah par it's par and I understand that this is a very timely paraa and it's uh it's something which which uh the organization right now wants to make sure we get a message out and I'm just curious the message that we're trying to get out you mentioned before Kiva trying to get the word out and building communities All Over America and doing it so successfully is there an element to this that that that is kir related so it's not only the message we're trying to get out to the from Community to try and and and and and get them to to do things maybe Hally better if whatever maybe they weren't aware but there's an element of of of Outreach here of kiru to say you know there's a world of of taharas that maybe you never even heard of this maybe you're looking at a at mums you're looking at cremation but there's a world of of of traditional burial which people today maybe they're shying away from but maybe now they're looking at it again because of October 7th I don't know is there is there Resurgence of people looking at a traditional burial I haven't seen the Resurgence but there's certainly a key ofev elopment uh in reaching out to people who are uh not aware not knowledgeable of Judaism and it's the Beauty and the meaning of its tradition um I think there's nothing more meaningful in Jewish tradition than then K the being buried K goes the very core the very source of how we view people the respect that they are to be given as as just as people just as being created in the image of Hashem so yeah there's a tremendous amount of kir of Outreach that can be done and that's really part as you mentioned of our shabas Campaign which is to reach out it's been one of our strongest messages um for shabas shabas actually in its first iteration was called team chabas uh it was a traditional end of life awareness move movement um and it was really it was Broad in its many uh on many different topics and levels and it really began because of Outreach and it really began as an outgrowth well I should say that in in the 1980s one of the things I did in Queens that made me so indispensable so to speak was to uh start a shabas program literally my first year when I took over I put ads in the newspapers shabas encourage your community to do things traditionally and do tahara just as Yakov ainu made sure that he was buried appropriately make sure your people are bued prob I went through tarir and we listed all the different things uh so that was the beginning but then when we became more sophisticated we would uh we were under the National Association Banner if you will um we started out with this uh chabis because of a couple of incidents that happened one of the main areas of my work is always been uh to a try to make sure that if a person dies any Jewish person dies that they are not forced to have an autopsy for whatever reason okay so stopping the autopsy which is seen as a terrible desecration of the body uh the Torah tells us that we ought to be buried it's in our entirety every drop of blood needs to be buried and there's a strong emphasis on this in um and so uh that was that was an important part of it um but the idea was that uh in that process um we began trying to have people uh leave some kind of a clear uh clear um directive stating that I do not want to have no autopsy that I object to the autopsy of my of my remains on religious grounds actually do Fisher uh sent a letter to the Young Israel I believe to Rabbi ham sent him sent a letter asking that everyone should uh sign such a letter in every Young Israel in every Jewish Community because uh California had just passed a law that if there was something in writing from that person uh directly that said they object to autopsy they would honor that objection but they would not necessarily honor of families of Jud don't they sometime but isn't often the autopsies because uh they want to confirm the cause of death meaning or Foul Play or someone passed I know in our cases someone passes away at home that's when we have to you know use the effort to depending on their age and their health and the last time they saw a doctor to work to prevent the autopsy yes but that was that was that's generally when the medical examiner gets involved because the Mandate of the medical examiner is to see that there's a cause of death for any death so if someone dies with that a clear cause of death and the doctors not willing to sign because they hadn't seen them in six months then they will technically be permitted to do an autopsy but it varies from medical examiner to medical examiner as to whether they will enforce that or they will do an external examination if they will accept what the doctor says what the family says if there's no foul play in evidence and so they'll maybe take some blood but yeah that's where the issue becomes where there is Foul Play or where there is a health hazard uh they will always do an autopsy and actually one of the things I I created years ago was uh the direct Ives that can be given to a funeral director uh I'm sorry to a medical examiner how to do an autopsy with the least amount of desecration to the body so that all the blood will be saved that the incision will be as small as possible also to expedite it to have someone even from the kadisha there to be able to clean the instruments make sure that every drop of blood gets buried so that was our goal at that time and so we were looking how people make that uh de ation and and to write that somewhere that they object to autopsy because it could make a big difference when fighting an autopsy in a case where no autopsy need not be done um but at the same time they will um you know agree not to have autopsy and spare the person from that desecration so we were looking to get that done we were also looking uh to get someone to sign that they are that they object to cremation and this came about through a number of cases where we fought very hard to have people uh not be cremated uh in some instances against their will but there was nothing in writing that said that they did not want to be cremated for whatever reason someone in the family decided that they were going to cremate them uh most uh best known case of that was a woman by the name of Ethel bar it was about 200 10 uh she was a woman whose father learned by the for whom yiv University is named for and um she was born in 1905 her father and Uncle were the r and the sh in the community and um she left for New York in the early 20s to find her fortune in New York and she was going to be an actress and she ended up marrying someone uh they were not at all traditional and he wanted to be cremated and he died 30 or 4 years before her they had a pack that they would both be cremated and their ashes would be sprinkled in Israel which they both loved okay and she lived to be 105 and in the process some of her great nephews uh became Bal Chua became FR and one of them particularly who had lived with her was very close to her decided that he would have conversation with her and convince her to be buried and after many years of trying he walked in one day and she says Isaac you're gonna be so happy I agreed to be buried and so he said great um we'll figure out where her husband obviously they never bought Graves where we'll bury you we'll figure it all out but he said who is the person in charge and she mentioned that her nephew was her lawyer and that it was in her will to be created so he called this nephew who happened to be a a a cousin of his and uh said you know Ethel agreed not to be cremated can you change the will he said don't worry we'll take care of it and that was the end of it two years later she dies he never changed the will uh he figured you know she's 103 uh Isaac somehow Bamboozled her uh to be buried rather than get Prem you know he's the Orthodox fellow and so um sure but that's not what she wanted it's in her will to be cremated and she even had a pre-need to cremate the funeral home so here she's lying in a funeral home and when Isaac called the cousin he says don't bother me I'm I'm headed to Europe for a two week vacation uh you know will cremat when she comes back so for two weeks this was put on hold in the meantime the goodth Israel got involved and actually there was uh something filed with a court to stop the cremation uh make a long story short this thing went to court twice we had people who were witnesses to the fact that she wanted to be buried uh people the chaplain in the nursing facility where she lived was aware of it the court and the second time on appeal refused to let anyone even testify question was is there anything in writing the answer was no that's all I need to hear we have a will and we have a preed stating pration and so it became at that time I realized how important it was to get things in writing when we want to help someone it's not enough just to convince them we have to get in writing especially if there's family that's coming from uh different places uh you know on the spectrum of observance and so that was what that was what U that was how shabas really came to be because I started promoting halic living wills or medical Advanced Medical directives that both the good with Israel and the RCA had at that time Amai an organization that you know now has its own version of that same thing are now the three that have it and in the RCA and on Buddha living Wheels there is actually something that designates the healthc care proxy to also be the agent to take care of their afterdeath uh you know after death decisions and so it was very important to get that signed so that we would have a way in which we can get make it very clear that another person has the power to do so and can actually override a will and a pre-need Arrangement if that's what's in that H you know directive so important because that's exploding the statistics of people cremation we have a newspaper in South Florida I actually haven't seen it in a while I hope that's a good sign it was a supposedly Jewish newspaper um but would advertise cremation among other uh among other things entirely inconsistent with Judaism you know so you have a Jewish newspaper advertising cremation you have Jewish funeral homes you even have Jewish synagogues or temples who are endorsing cremation obviously it's irreversible and it's and it's so it's so um anti- what what we believe in and and it's hard for formulating those arguments I know I've been called BR I'm sure you've been called a few times with I have a parent I have a cousin I have I have a sibling who wants to be cremated how can I convince them what's the language to use what are the arguments to to use to try to convince them to not be I know one of the biggest issues with cremation was the expense of Jewish burial so maybe you could talk about how you've tackled that here in South Florida together with with r Lions founding a cemetery making it affordable taking away that excuse that it's just uh it's not affordable for people oh absolutely I mean creation was really where shavas began through this case um it's Outreach of the greatest kind to be able to reach out to people who are not observant um very often as you say it's as simple as helping them find a u a way to do so way to bury in a reasonable unexpensive way and we have created that Cemetery in South Florida south Florida Jewish cemetery uh where we will bury at no cost if someone has no money and at whatever cost they can afford we will give them years to pay it out uh if necessary um at least certainly before death to pay it out before NE you know as long as it'll take them and the price the regular price is about a third if not less than what is the average cost in South Florida to bury but pration goes uh Beyond cost uh sometimes it's just uh the progressive thing to do it's what people are doing today um and it's you know why environmentally friendly they think it's more they that was the one of the very strong original arguments that that was until we became aware of how carbon is like the worst thing for the environment and uh nothing spews more uh carbon into the air than does a cremation okay it's a it's a terrible desecration of the environment uh but they still sell it as being uh sparing a loss of land okay like a person isn't worth the dollar almost almost the little piece of land that they own uh we once there was a fellow who wrote a book um about you know burial versus discrimination a Jewish View and uh you know um and he writes that if we took all the people in America for the next 10,000 years were to be buried it would use up less than 1% of the land and probably less than the parking lots of home the Home Depots and a couple of other large stores in the country so it's it's ludicrous but that has been still the The Cry of those promoting pration but it's it's not that the use of fossil fuel tremendous amount of fuel that's used in the creation of of everybody so it's a misnomer it's fake uh it's fake news if you will it's a fake it's advertising and its most deceptive uh but it's it's not only that you know people live all over the place uh people take a position we're never going to visit the grave no one's gonna come visit I I think there's a lot of guilt involved on the part of some people who never visited the graves of their own loved ones and somehow they feel it's they won't do it it'll somehow mean it was okay uh because you know they're going to forgo that visit uh so they don't want to burden their children to have the burden that they somehow felt in not visiting those Graves the fact is the most celebrated kurur in the in in Torah the most celebrated kurur in history is the kurur of Moser rabenu Moses was buried by Hashem himself by God himself on the mountain the last act the last story in the Torah and the PK Ends by saying is no one knows where he's buried so to assume that the reason we bury that people will visit is a complete misnomer it's just we as human beings deserve the respect that uh burial provides and there's no greater respect we don't burn the things that we love a little child will not burn its pet it'll put it in the ground in the backyard that's just the natural thing to want to do and so it's uh it's I mean I tried to use the argument that you know the evidence that we should want to be buried is that our enemies cremated us I mean The Cremation of the Holocaust if that's what the Nazis chose to desecrate our remains then that we shouldn't be their accomplices by making the same Choice absolutely and and I will tell you that it it used to work um years ago much more so I think people have become the further we moved the less sensitive we are to that the fact is cremation is really the total Destruction of that which we really dislike which is why you know that which we want to eradicate completely and that's been true not only that people burned at the Stak a nimro through aam into the K okay into fire that was the way of destroying those we we wanted to eradicate um but it doesn't work that much anymore in fact it was a rabbi I believe in Florida about 30 years ago who wrote an article about cremating oneself as a way of identifying with those who died in the Holocaust how you can pervert wow something and I I myself remember being uh giving a lecture in New Orleans um and uh at the end of the lecture the lecture was titled what happens when we die and it was very well attended uh there were actually priests and uh there was an Imam in the audience uh it was a very interesting uh lecture but at the end of the lecture woman comes over to me says Rabbi Zone can I speak to you privately and she pulled me over to the side she says I'm a holocaust Survivor I lost my mother and my twin sister uh to the crator in asz she says and I have it in my will to be created because I wanted to be identified with them and I said to her um I said will you traditional um way back she saids yeah I came from a religious home and she said uh I said to her what do you think your mother will say to you after 120 years says what do you think your mother would have given when she was on the way to the guest chamber if someone would have offered her and said you know we have to kill you we're going to kill you uh but we will allow you to be buried in this Jewish cemetery outside the uh you know outside of ashz what would she have given she looked at me she said probably would have given her right arm but she had nothing to give and I said so do you think that she's she Saidi want to be with my mother right I said do you think that's what your mother is going to uh you know appreciate your identification with how she was desecrated and she says started cry she says Rabbi you're right I gave her my card if you lose your resolve call me back again never heard from I hope she changed her mind but you know people don't think things through and it's the way in which things are presented to them it's an emotional issue and it touches on so many things so the need bottom line is the need to reach out and yes it's Outreach to reach out to people in our Circle whether it's family distant family or or friends childhood friends co-workers open the conversation it can be open in so many different ways just when someone in the community is cremated uh there's a cremation Joan Rivers chose to be cremated some would say why would a Jewish woman like Joan Rivers who had so much love for Israel and saw herself as a Jewish woman why would she want to be cremated just open the conversation and get into a a discussion we have a website called end creation. org which is geared to the from Community to the Orthodox Community the people who really know little about creation as to how they could open the conversation that what the arguments are that they could make and then we have another website called last kindness.org which is dedicated to people who have absolutely no Jewish knowledge totally secular um as to why they should consider burial uh rather than cremation and making the arguments from a uh just really human uh a human uh logic Common Sense uh argument uh as to why burial is really so much more important than uh than cremation and why they should do so and recommending that they sign something so that it's it's there in writing very important part of the process those two two important websit can you repeat the websites again yeah end creation. which is really geared I would not send someone secular there because it's geared to the from community and the other is last kindness one word L kindness.org um and we have a last kindness guide which you can download literally on any page of that uh website that also we'll send it to you in a hard copy uh we have webinars we just started a very strong social media program where we're trying to get people to come to lectures and to uh just give them uh you know visuals that will help them uh think about pration once they think about it there's a very good chance of getting them to reconsider but once someone dies very very difficult to get family to go against what their last wish was uh sometimes it can be done sometimes families are looking for an excuse some of his families want to know it's not an absolute requirement whether it's legally or religiously um but uh after the fact it's very difficult the time to discuss this is really good people are well I always say the mace Mitzvah uh in America taking making sure the Jew gets buried in America it's not when they die it's when they're 60 and jogging every day and at the prime of their life but they're visiting their lawyer to write their will and in that will they are putting in to be cremated that's really when that's the mement so that's when we have a chance to get them uh to make the right decision to bury what's it what's it like a life of of dealing daily day in and day out with death with dead bodies I hate to be so blunt does it take a toll on your on your Psyche on your nsh how how do you uh deal with the the mental health of having such contact with such morbidity all the time keeping very busy helps I'm just kidding but like everything else we want to avoid thinking about so we just keep running but no it's uh it's it's really been the thought I the truth is I often say that we wake up every morning as Jews and the first thing we say is we thank Hashem give praise that you gave me back life we recognize our mortality every single morning it's the first thing we do we go into and we say it more clearly that you gave me is pure you fashion it you created it and you're gonna take it away from me you're gonna give it back to me H and so uh you know I try to recognize that our mortality can be used in a very positive way I think we we're meant to wake up this way not to uh you know sober up in a certain sense just to become serious but rather to become inspired that uh you know we're here for a journey we're here for a purpose we're not here forever and every day is uh is is is a gift and every day is an opportunity to to Really create our Eternal World which mosha Feinstein writes uh every minute of Life a person is kitus he acquires eternity with a smile to a Strang with with a word of with recognizing hashem's presence in whatever it is uh you know so it's it's a gift so I try to channel that as much as I can uh you know to but of course there are days that are difficult especially when it's someon close uh and there are days that there you deal with families that have loss uh sometimes of young people of of even children or or you know uh a still birth especially for people who are trying to conceive for many years very very difficult uh times and uh you know you need to maintain your own strength for for the people around you and for yourself on the other hand you know the gorah tells us that if someone sees a MCE someone sees a body being uh taken for burial and you don't follow along you don't join the uh the procession uh to give honor to that person uh you transgress a concept called Low Rush which means you're making light of making fun of the person who died just somehow minimizing their predicament and the question is what's the connection RAB says so beautifully in one of actually Zia speech that he gave at kadisha meeting where he was inspiring them he says the reason is because the only thing a dead person has is the ability to inspire others that's the one thing a dead person can do in a way that no one else can that's his gift to to humanity and the idea is that uh if we don't recognize the gift of uh of the reminder of the reality of our mortality uh then that's that's making light of of of of that inspiration that that person can provide at that very uh you know sad moment of their of theiry life cycle and so uh yeah on the one hand it it needs work on the one hand you need we need to strengthen ourselves I think the fact that we're doing helping others and uh we're filling a need for others it's chalus um it's true kindness I think it's true in the sense that it underscores a lot of the truths of our belief soov keski one of those six hours that we were meeting defined for me as being a that is defined and directed by the truths of Judaism the fact that we we pass on in this world is just a passing world it's a world of to a world that is eternal it's a transition there all of our Traditions that we do reflect those beliefs so uh yeah it's it's hard um but uh on the other hand I mean but there is so much to be taken from it that is very positive that uh you know I I don't think in retrospect I would uh you know um I can't say I wouldn't have I I wouldn't have prefer doing something else perhaps maybe been less involved maybe have had time for some other things uh because it was kind of my my work became very all consuming but on the other hand uh it was really a very big Brock in many many ways W are there things that you when you travel to communities around the country that you just wish that they would do right now like is there something that the organization is trying so hard but the community is not picking up on the message or not it's not doing something it's it's interesting that you asked that question um yeah I think communities um don't fully recognize um how much more they can do uh in certain ways to strengthen uh the standards of their own kadisha just as a as a basis in many communities um the number of people who are actually being having tahara even if they are being buried is minimal the quality of the tahara sometimes because the community is not that strong in its observance the quality of tahara is is less than it should be the Jewish so-called Jewish funeral homes many of whom are not Jewish but are Jewish in name only and owned by large companies or or owned by people who have no uh you know real appreciation for Jewish tradition and will cremate as easily as they bury okay the ability to be able to raise standards within those facilities to work with cemeteries and get them to be more sensitive to the need to bury on a holiday all of those things just to really raise the standards and I would love to see kis kadisha have websites have Outreach have K kadisha not only take care of the dead but also to strengthen the whole concept of cover of cover of what it means to see every Jewish person as and really every person as aimim being created in the image of of God which by the way is the reason the Torah gives us for burial Torah tells us bury that man who is hanging out on The Gallows because to leave him hanging is a desecration of the name of Hashem he Kim tot that's the P so to recognize that each of us are Salim and to uh you know try to get that message across to every part of the Jewish Community it would probably filter through to so much of how they live as well not just how they die keep it we keep it very quiet and secret it's a secret society right meaning oh yeah a a might list who are the members of The Men's Club or the sister or the N or the and when it comes to thead we don't list who that is where did that develop and is that something that should change if we want more people to get involved so I I would say that that need not change I think it comes from a medish that says that says okay that says is talking about okay that even the most public things that we have are meant to be done in sne so on the other hand the people who bury the person physically they're out there at the cemetery but the people who do the things that are behind the scene were always kept quiet it was part of theis concept that we don't want to be rewarded we don't want to be given recognition we do it quietly um but I think that that being said I think the kadisha should be applauded I think you know the fact that should have a dinner every year should be something that every Community does it should be uh it doesn't necessarily mean that anyone knows exactly what you do in the kishu you might be the people who arrang for the Min and you might be the people that arrang the food at the house of the Shiva or that will uh you know notify uh when the Lev will be whatever it might be but the fact is that kadish as an institution needs to be brought more out into the open um I think it's important that the Kish itself reach out to the broader community and and uh you know get out there and teach the meaning and the beauty of uh of our tradition at this time which is so much focused on to the family and to the Greater Community but at the same time to the person who died seeing them as to what they really represent which is the greatest uh creation the purpose of creation every single person Hashem created the world Witham as by himself to say the entire creation was worth it for just you the one individual Jew the one individual person and again Adam wasn't Jewish every human being is is isim and to use that to deliver a message that is so extremely powerful that could really uh be very very transformational but we need to get out there so yeah from within and without to be able to reach in and reach out uh and and make kadisha a much more important part of the of every Jewish Community I think is is what I would love to see shabas is you know a good way of beginning that process and it's one of the things we actually highlight this year is strengthening kadish and that's really what I mean it's not just more people joining the tahara group but it's strengthening the uh the kadisha concept the organization the institution what it stands for getting that message out to the entire Community Rabon we can't thank you enough for joining us by the BMA for the work that you do Hashem should give you good health and strength uh to and and some time for yourself to be able to continue to be such a resource I know our our kadisha um both from when we were writing the original manual to questions today about complicated medical issues or or even questions in the tahara itself and when people walk out of a tahara room and have a question remove this or how do you seal that or should we touch this or do you leave that r z is on our speed dial so we are forever grateful for that and please God for for many years to come in good health continue to inspire all of us to to help Jews um leave this world with with dignity and with honor and in a Jewish way thank you thank you very much and thank you for all you do for your community for Claus Royal uh it's a pleasure to have you as part of the network to bring uh the message to all of to the ready to retire so looking