What is Spiritual Care for the Ill, Dying and Bereaved? An Interview with Rabbi Eric WeissRabbi Eric Weiss is the Executive Director of the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center. Located in San Francisco, California, the healing center serves throughout Sonoma and Mountain View. His experience with death and dying started years back before Rabbinic school. During what is now called the AIDS Pandemic, Rabbi Eric was one of the first hospice volunteers in San Francisco working with those who had AIDS. Rabbi Eric is the author of “Mishkan R’fuah:Where Healing Resides,” a compilation of prayers and readings for facing illness, the end of life and other life challenges.
Oz: What is the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center?
Rabbi Eric Weiss. Photo credit: greendoula / Foter / CC BY-ND
Rabbi Eric: The Bay Area Jewish Healing Center is a Jewish organization that provides Jewish spiritual care to folks who are ill, dying and bereaved.
Oz: What services does the Center offer and who does it cater to demographically ?
Rabbi Eric: Our services are in the context of spiritual care. We provide one-on-one rabbinic support. We have grief groups. We have other programs; two in particular, one is one of the very few Jewish hospice care [centers] in the country. We also have a bereavement camp that we do annually, we’ve been doing it for 17 years and it’s one of the few family grief camps in the country. Anybody can come to us. Our philosophical, theological and spiritual base is in the Jewish community, but we serve people who are not Jewish.
Oz: What has your experience with death and dying been like ?
Rabbi Eric: If you’re asking me more professionally what draws me to this kind of work, then on a deeper level I am endlessly fascinated by people’s spiritual experience[s] in the world and then what they do with [them]. And in that context [of] illness, coming to the end of life and living with grief, there are universal human experiences. It doesn’t matter how old you are or how economically blessed you are, or even how intelligent you are; every person in the world gets sick, every person in the world dies and every person in the world comes to live with grief.
I really believe that illness, coming to the end of life and living with grief [can] naturally stimulate spiritual reflection. [People] also yearn for a communal response. So part of what attracts me to this work is the richness and the vulnerability of spiritual reflection.
“It doesn’t matter how old you are or how economically blessed you are, or even how intelligent you are; every person in the world gets sick, every person in the world dies and every person in the world comes to live with grief.”
On a personal level, like everybody else I have people in my life who have died. I come from a large family and we had wonderful celebratory gatherings; we’ve also had many folks in our family get sick and die in large numbers — just as we had large numbers of weddings and Bar/Bat Mitzvahs. Also, I am an openly gay Rabbi and before Rabbinic school I had lived in San Francisco [helping] what is now known as the “Aids Pandemic.” I myself was one of the early hospice volunteers [in] San Francisco working with folks with Aids.
Oz: Can you give SevenPonds readers three tips, based on your experience, for dealing with the loss of a loved one, or with a terminal illness?
- Really play with, struggle with and be aware of what your spiritual shifts are. For example, sometimes an assumption we have about the world is [it’s] broken or cracked, so pay attention to [your] shifts and try different ways of expressing your reflections on them. It is important to talk and explore.
- Try to become a bit more aware of what your spiritual experience really is — where are the places in your life that you have spiritual nourishment? How [do] you incorporate [them] into your life?
Photo credit: www.eventbrite.com
- Don’t do the exploration by yourself. Do the spiritual exploration with people, so that you’re not untethered.
Oz: Does the Center draw on the traditional gradual grief periods of Jewish mourning ?
Rabbi Eric: You mean like Aninut, Shiva and that sort of thing?
Oz: Yes.
Rabbi Eric: I guess the simple answer is yes. But, not every Jewish person feels attached to those time periods. A lot of people are not always fully aware of them. For some people they become extremely important and for some people they are more [like a] metaphor and a framework for understanding that grief can have its own process.
At the Healing Center we’re very respectful of people’s grieving processes. Many people know what is available theologically, but it’s really about supporting their spiritual experience and growth. So if something theological is helpful, then we move in that direction. But it’s not a requirement for people working with us and we don’t automatically superimpose a theological framework onto people’s spiritual experience in working with us.
Although, our assumptions are Jewish assumptions — we’re Rabbis. We’re aware [of the fact] that some very specific ritualistic elements are important for comfort; we know that they become guides and people trust us to help them through the ritual process. Not everybody relates to every aspect of the Jewish theological framework. We use them as guides, but not as mandates.
Oz: Is there anything else you would like SevenPonds readers to know ?
I would say that it’s important to realize that it’s natural for people to feel both frightened and curious when they are [facing] illness, end of life and grief. These are two important elements to pay attention to, almost simultaneously. In that context, [people] should think of spiritual support as an important component [existing] alongside medical support and psychosocial support.
Oz: Thank you!
Rabbi Eric: Thank you.
Related links:
First the Wealth Gap, Now the U.S. Has a Growing Health Gap
Our Annual Seven Holiday Gifts for Someone Who Is Grieving, 2024 Edition
