Episode 034: Answering Your Epic Life Questions
Sep 01, 2018•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode description
Isn’t it true that cancer brings home the reality that you’re not forever and so you ask yourself, what happens if I die? Have I been the person that I’ve always wanted to be? How are people going to remember me? Joseph answers these huge existential questions every single day. He’s a rabbi who does some unbelievable work in a hospice helping people who are facing cancer to bring out life and make peace with it. Here are some things we cover today:
Universal questions about life and death
Surprising path to forgiveness
What happens after we die (according to Judaism)
The right way to say sorry (and why we mess it up)
How to reconcile heritage and modern life
Why every new day is a second chance
and much, much more!
Links
Never Long Enough by Rabbi Joseph Krakoff
The Jewish Hospice and Chaplaincy Network
Episode 011: Who Is Going To Stay With You Through Cancer
Full Transcript
Joe: Joseph, I’ve just read up on all the incredible work that you’re doing in the hospice, how did you get started?
Joseph: I was a congregational rabbi for about 16 years. I found in the course of doing that work that I was spending a lot of that time in end-of-life care. I was really drawn to the people that were so much in need. There was a lot of vulnerability to that end-stage time period, end stage illness, both from the patient’s perspective as well as the family’s perspective. I’ve really spent a lot of time in the hospital holding people’s hands, just really helping them reconcile relationships that they wanted to reconcile before they died.
After 16 years of doing this over and over again and really feeling like I was making a meaningful impact, I decided to do this full-time. In the summer of 2014, I joined the Jewish Hospice and Chaplaincy Network here in Detroit. The work that I do every single day, we manage almost 200 patients a day that are facing end-of-life illness. Some in Hospice care, some not yet in Hospice care, some in palliative care.
Treating them, their pain and their symptoms, getting them all aspects of help from social work care, to spiritual care, which is what I do, to bringing the music and art and all kinds of different enrichments that will uplift their dignity.
Joe: Joseph, that’s so fantastic. I don’t have words to describe it. Cancer is such a really tough time for someone, you’re confronted with so many things, you’re confronted with ultimate questions about life and death and your place in the world. I guess do any themes come up over and over that you see it for yourself?
Joseph: Yes, a lot of times, I think a common theme, a common thread, is people are really reflective about the life that they lived, the values that they lived. If they have children or not even children, but family members, nieces, nephews, do they pass those values onto their loved ones? That’s a big piece in terms of values and did they live their values? That’s number one theme. Another theme is the reconciliation of relationships. Are there relationships that need to be reconciles or at least an attempt at reconciliation before they leave this world, so that they can leave this world with a sense of purity of mind and spirt and soul? It’s also a time for honesty too.
A lot of times, what I find is family members don’t want to admit that their loved one is dying because of course, it’s very hard to deal with emotionally, psychologically. What I find is that more often than not, a person that’s dying wants to be honest about it, so that they have a chance to say goodbye. Giving that person an opportunity to say goodbye, together their family, together their friends, together to say goodbye is really an important meaningful ritual I think that transcends religion, I think it’s part of the human spirit.
A lot of people die suddenly and don’t have the opportunity to say goodbye. If you have an extended illness,
