As we prepare our wicks and count our candles, each day adding another level of light, do those numbers hold another special meaning for you? 

Project Coordinator: Rachel Bachrach

One Last Chance

By Binyomin Yudin

The most incredible conversations I’ve had in my career have been with people who know they are close to death. Replete with a focus on long-ignored priorities and a deep desire for life so rarely extant in everyday interactions, these conversations always leave an impression.

In my early 30s, I helped start a hospice program at the Jewish retirement facility where I was a chaplain. Although I had already worked with this demographic, my new role would bring with it experiences I never could have imagined.

One of my responsibilities was to be at the facility for Shabbos to perform my duties as chaplain — leading davening, directing discussion groups, visiting with residents. My family and I stayed in a house nearby. We had a guestroom, and one winter Shabbos, we hosted a young woman who was visiting her extremely ill grandmother in the facility. Our guest had grown up thousands of miles away in a chareidi town in Israel, but her savta was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a secular family with no Jewish upbringing.

That Friday night, we ate the Shabbos meal while our guest, who had come with her two-year-old son, spent time with Savta. After the meal, I prepared to go to the facility, and on my way out, I noticed our guest, who had since returned, starting her meal. She stood at the dining room table, her little boy on a chair at her side, holding a silver cup of grape juice. I was closing the door behind me just as she concluded the brachah in her strong Israeli accent.

“Borei pri hagafen,” she said, and I muttered, “Amen.”

I should visit her grandmother, I thought as I walked down the path. She isn’t doing well, and she’s probably anxious.

Although illness had ravaged her body, cognitively Savta was 100 percent lucid, and I was certain she’d appreciate help processing what she was experiencing.

I entered the room and beheld Savta, tiny in her bed, her eyes mostly closed in the low light. I moved slowly, not wanting to wake her if she was sleeping, but not wanting to miss her if she was awake.

“Hello, Rabbi,” she said weakly. “How are you?”

“Doing well, thanks, but I came to see how you are, not to talk about myself,” I responded with a gentle smile.

She chuckled softly.

“Well, Rabbi, I’m dying.”

“We both know this, Savta,” I inclined my head and replied. “How do you feel about it?”

“To be honest, I’m worried. Frightened,” she replied instantly.

This response, while not uncommon, means different things to different people.

“I’m sure. What is it exactly, though? What are you scared of?” I asked.

“Rabbi, I grew up completely secular,” Savta began. “I remember a little from my childhood, but my parents didn’t teach us anything. I just remember my zeide saying Kiddush on Friday nights. What if I was wrong my whole life? What will happen when I get Up There?”

A woman more than 50 years my senior was asking me the prime existential question: What is life after death, and how does G-d judge us? You know, simple stuff.

There are times when you feel Divine intervention in your bones. There are times when the words find their way into your throat and travel out of your mouth before you even have time to think them through.

“I want to tell you what I witnessed when I left my house a few minutes ago,” I said. “There was a young woman there with her toddler. She was emulating your zeide.”

Savta looked confused, so I continued.

“I saw your granddaughter, holding a cup of grape juice, making a blessing — making Kiddush. Her little boy was standing next to her on a chair, taking it all in.” I took a breath. “It reminds me a little of a scene described to me by someone just moments ago.”

Savta’s quizzical expression transformed into a grin.

“Your granddaughter was giving the experience of Kiddush to your great-grandson, just as your zeide gave it to you.”

I expounded on the concept of a Yiddish legacy, of Kaddish, that the world will be left with a vacuum of holiness after her death, and so we sanctify G-d’s name daily in her stead. And that even after those 11 months are up, the holiness of her ancestors that was passed down through her and from her to her children, her grandchildren, and even her great-grandchildren, will continue to be passed down forevermore. I assured Savta that although she made different choices in her life — choices she may regret now — those she leaves behind are a tribute to her.

“Cherish the fact that you’re leaving this legacy,” I encouraged Savta.“Talk to G-d, thank Him, and feel the warmth and comfort of knowing that your work on earth is being continued by your progeny.”

Savta grinned again. Clearly the young rabbi waxing philosophical was entertaining — but then she teared up, and in the tiniest of voices, she thanked me.

The Gemara tells us that there are those who acquire their portion in the World to Come in one moment, and one of the examples the Gemara gives is that of moments of intense revelation attained by exposure to the ultimate Truth. These final conversations, when they expose us to what is important, afford us the opportunity to pay attention, to make the most of the clarity with which we have been gifted. For some, it’s the chance of a lifetime.

Binyomin Yudin LISW-S is a psychotherapist and lecturer in private practice in Cincinnati, Ohio.