Janice Steinberg is the author of the book “The Tin Horse”. She has allowed us to post this blessing that she created for her mother on her mother’s 99th year. We offer it to you in this darkest time of the year (winter solstice time) as we look with hope to a new year and a mitigated pandemic. Thank you Janice.
Whatever you have lost
vision
hearing
reason
if, on your tongue, speech jumbles
or strength has leached from your bones
May the hands that bathe dress feed you
be strong and skilled
keeping you from harm
or shame
May they be kind
lingering a moment
to squeeze your hand
caress your cheek
May your hearing aids be cleaned
May your television remote work
May your soup be warm and ice cream cold
May you have ice cream!
May you take pleasure in
sunlight on your face
a fresh breeze bearing
the scent of new-cut grass
the lilt and bounce of a song you once danced to
Whatever has wounded you
may you find peace
May death
when it arrives
take you gently
tenderly
enfolding you into a
loving embrace
Rabbi Richard F. Address, D.Min, is the Founder and Director of www.jewishsacredaging.com. Rabbi Address served for over three decades on staff of the Union for Reform Judaism; first as a Regional Director and then, beginning in 1997, as Founder and Director of the URJ’s Department of Jewish Family Concerns and served as a specialist and consultant for the North American Reform Movement in the areas of family related programming. Rabbi Address was ordained from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1972 and began his rabbinic career in Los Angeles congregations. He also served as a part time rabbi for Beth Hillel in Carmel, NJ while regional director and, after his URJ tenure, served as senior rabbi of Congregation M’kor Shalom in Cherry Hill, NJ from 2011-2014.
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