Over the course of my tenure as editor, the journal changed: What began in 1970 as a
stand-alone 8-page biweekly print publication became, in 1998, a 16-page monthly; and
then in 2016, a 4-page insert in The Forward. And since April of this year, it has been
published as a digital-only edition on The Forward’s website.

And now, in its 50th year, Sh’ma is ceasing publication. With changing reading patterns, and shrinking readerships, the rich Jewish conversations Sh’ma has sought to ignite have become more accessible and widespread in newer digital formats. Which is to say: our days, too, have been numbered. My “Farewell to the journal” can be read here. And an article from the foundation that has supported Sh’ma for the past ten years, Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah (LKFLT), can be found here.

For this final issue of Sh’ma, I asked my friend Rabbi David Ellenson, former president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and a close student of Sh’ma founder Dr. Eugene Borowitz, to write a brief eulogy to the journal. Ellenson writes that the “traditional Jewish notion of machloket l’shem shamayim, principled argument for the sake of heaven” inspired Borowitz’s thinking about Sh’ma. That inspiration to create, in Borowitz’s words, “a dialogue in difference,” and a continued commitment to open and civil discourse coursed through each iteration of the journal. As Ellenson writes, this “may well be the single most important legacy Sh’ma has bequeathed to our community.” Read more.

To dig into the theme of “limnot yameinu,” I asked Rabbi Elliot Kukla, director of the Bay Area’s Kol Haneshama: Jewish End-of-Life Care/Hospice Volunteer Program, to share his favorite texts about dying with dignity. He offers us the story of Rabbi Elazar’s final days. “As he lies dying, his friend and study partner Rabbi Yohanan comes to see him and finds him weeping.” The story serves as a prooftext for exploring what, in Kukla’s words, it means “to stay present in each of our days and the days of our loved ones, until the very last breath — even when that life is no longer the life we imagined.” Read more.

I invited the pioneering Israeli feminist activist and writer Alice Shalvi to reflect on the relationship the psalmist suggests between coming to terms with our finitude and attaining wisdom. At 93 years old, Shalvi shares her thoughts about the arc of her life with dignified honesty: “I confront decisions made in great certitude of taking the right path — decisions that now seem to me more questionable. The self-righteousness of youth is replaced by a realization that there might well have been a different path to follow, one in which duty replaced the fulfilment of my own desires.” Read more.

Rabbi Avi Killip writes about how our understanding and thoughts on the afterlife inform our approaches to life and death. Of course, none of us know whether there is an afterlife, but Killip helps us unpack what Judaism teaches us about this mystery. Jewish texts of every genre and generation offer wide ranging and diverse and sometimes contradictory images of life after death. Killip explains that the quest for answers about the afterlife leads us back to one universal, central, and eternal question: “What are you hoping for in an afterlife”? Read more.

In NiSh’ma, our simulated Talmud page, the Pulitzer Prize winning poet Philip Schultz, Vered Shemtov, a professor of Hebrew literature, and Jeannie Blaustein, founding board chair of Reimagine End of Life, reflect on an extraordinary stanza of the poet Yehuda Amichai’s poem, “Open Closed Open.” The three commentators reflect on how the lifespan influences our non-linear movement between states of openness and closedness as we grow older.

“Open closed open. Before we are born, everything is open
in the universe without us. For as long as we live, everything is closed
within us. And when we die, everything is open again.
Open closed open. That’s all we are.”

(Translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld, and used with the permission of the estate of Yehuda Amichai)

Shemtov writes, “We tend to think of life as closed, open, closed. Birth is often seen as a transformation from the closed womb into the open world, and death and the grave are perceived as closure. Yehuda Amichai reverses this convention… Amichai’s poem, written towards the end of his life, asks us to consider the transition to death, and challenges us to focus on what it is that death opens up.”

Our digital PDF of the issue includes “Consider and Converse,” our study guide with prompts for conversations with friends and family. Print out the PDF and let it inspire you to have a conversation with friends and family about end of life matters.

If you would like to stay informed about the Sh’ma archive and celebration of its 50 year print-run, please sign up for updates. And feel free to send me your feedback and stories about Sh’ma. Over the past 21 years, with the release of each new issue, I’ve enjoyed the incomparable pleasure of holding in my hands the work of my heart. That is, I know, an extraordinary way of measuring one’s days.

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B’vracha,