Listen as Rabbi Steve Leder shares the wisdom learned through caring for the spiritual needs of his temple members at the end of life.
My guest Rabbi Steve Leder is the senior rabbi of Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles and the author of several books including the recently released The Beauty of What Remains: How Our Greatest Fear Becomes Our Greatest Gift. His beautifully-written book is based upon his experience providing spiritual care to thousands of temple members and their families as they faced the end of life. Interwoven with dozens of stories he learned as “Rabbi Steve” are the personal stories of “Son Steve”, navigating his father’s illness and eventual death from Alzheimer’s dementia. We share a deep and thoughtful conversation about the challenges of facing death and the beautiful life lessons it teaches us. Learn more about Rabbi Steve’s work at his website:
Get the book on Bookshop or Amazon
This episode includes:
- What inspired Rabbi Steve to write this book
- The meaning of the title “The Beauty of What Remains”
- Advice for how to “show up” for the dying
- Dealing with the character flaws and secrets of the deceased when writing a eulogy
- The need for greater honesty and authenticity when being with the dying
- Why we can’t understand deep grief until we experience it ourselves
- Why funerals during COVID may actually be more meaningful than before
- How the dead speak to us through our memories
- Why we must focus on “being a good ancestor” to those who will follow us
“Dying makes perfect sense to the dying, just not to the living; the same way that breathing underwater makes perfect sense to the fish but not to us.”
Rabbi Steve Leder
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Get The Beauty of What Remains here
- Check out “10 Days to Activate Revolutionary Love” here
- Sign up for the 2021 online reading group A Year of Reading Dangerously at this link
- Support your local bookstore by buying my books on Bookshop and Indiebound: 7 Lessons for Living from the Dying and The Journey from Ego to Soul
- Subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Stitcher Radio
- Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
- Join the team at Patreon.com/eolu and get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it). PLUS get our new bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, movie reviews from 2 Doctors and a Movie, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!
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