To Die Well is to Live Well - Part 1

By Hope Lipnick, MA, LPC, CHTP, Director, Velva G. and H. Fred Levine Jewish Chaplaincy Program

Thu, Mar 27, 2025

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A Good Death

‍In Ecclesiastes, we are taught, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die …” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2). While Jewish tradition acknowledges death as a natural part of life’s cycle, it remains a subject we often avoid.

Death is difficult, even scary, and not typically the topic of a joyful Shabbat worship service. However, although Judaism has never denied the reality of death, it certainly has strived to understand and combat it.

The Talmud, for example, mentions death, dying and the dead more than 5,000 times and identifies 903 types of death – ranging from the gentle, described as a kiss, to the most difficult, like pulling a thorn from wool.

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