During one of our weekly meetings this past summer, my supervisor, Rabbi David Burstein, explained to me the concept of the three Rs. He said that when we encounter something in Judaism, three things might happen: we might resonate with the ritual, prayer, or concept; we might reject it as outdated or not reflective of our beliefs; or we might…
Month: January 2022
The Well of Memory
The look on Rocki’s face is almost comically endearing, what they might call “soft,” as they and I flip through two centuries’ worth of deeds to funeral plots. We skim through death notices together that make us frown with sympathy––stillbirths, cholera victims, strokes––and watch money change hands as Jews of nineteenth-century Cincinnati made preparations for their families to lie in…