Jewish Wisdom for Living and Dying

Numerous ritual manuals from the Jewish tradition have been written outlining the prayers and ceremonies that can be offered to the sick, the dying, and the dead. Two of the most outstanding of these manuals are Maavor Yabok and Sefer HaHayiim from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, respectively. This is the first book to analyze and compare these two important works, showing how they differ and compare. Emphasis is placed on the analysis of the prayers and rituals presented in Maavor Yabok and their spiritual underpinnings taken from the tradition of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism. This book can be useful to those individuals who are sick or dying and looking for help and comfort from the Jewish sources. It is written, however, as a challenge to those in the Jewish community today, especially workers in Jewish burial societies, the Chevra Kadisha, to take these manuals and re-write them for the twenty-first century, including the spiritual directives to make these rituals and prayers more meaningful not only for their recipients but for those offering them.