Taxes and Tahara

What are life’s only guarantees?

 

On Sunday, I dealt with both of them. I spent the bulk of the afternoon assembling all of the various 1099’s, W2’s, etc. and in the evening went to perform a Tahara as part of the Chevra Kadisha.

 

The Chevra Kadisha is the Jewish burial society which has the solemn duty of ritually preparing the deceased for a Jewish burial. The Tahara means the purification process.

 

I’d done it once before, but in a billion years, I never would have thought I would do it for a former teacher of mine. He died of a sudden heart attack in his 50’s and was ostensibly in good health. He was svelte and was an active basketball referee.

 

Anyway, it sure makes you think. Not only that no matter what you do from a health perspective are you not immune from the inevitability of death, but as we spend so much time focused on the day to day banalities that there are much larger forces at work and you never know when your time is up.

 

Balancing the need for accomplishment on a day to day basis with the looming inevitability of certain death…at a time which no human predict, now that is a worthwhile life goal.