To Die Well is to Live Well

To Die Well is to Live Well - Part 2

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

Thu, Mar 27, 2025

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To Live Well

In Judaism, we focus on living using the Torah as our blueprint for living well in this world. A life of performing mitzvot, or good deeds, and performing tikkun olam, repairing the world, are part of our formula for living well. In Judaism, living well means growing in one’s Divine Service and working on one’s character.

In Ecclesiastes, Kohelet instructs readers to remember their G-d while they are young, “before the days of trouble come, and the years draw near when you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them’ … and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to G-d who gave it.”

The rabbis tried to remind its adherents that Torah was not solely about religion but about combining religious beliefs and observances with a way of being on the planet that is in harmony with “self” and “other.” Religion, as the rabbis taught, is at its best when its practice raised human consciousness toward compassion and the celebration of aliveness.

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