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Chesed shel emes
It is called the truest kindness because it is the only one that cannot be repaid, thanked, or even known about by the person who receives it. That is not a figure of speech. It is a description of the job.
Four or five people, an hour or two, working in near silence but for the verses that are said. The person is washed, purified with an unbroken flow of water, and dressed in plain white shrouds. The body is kept covered throughout. At the end, forgiveness is asked of them for any indignity caused in handling them. Men attend men and women attend women, always.
Sitting with the person between death and burial, reading Psalms, so that they are never left alone. Taken in shifts, often through the night, sometimes as little as two hours. It is the easiest way into this and it matters just as much.
Driving. Sewing and preparing tachrichim. Setting up a shiva house. Making up the tenth for a minyan so that a mourner can say Kaddish. Meals. If the room itself is not for you, all of this is needed and all of it is the same mitzvah.
Money, a level of observance, membership of anything, a commitment to a number of calls a year, or an explanation of why you want to do it. And no experience: nobody has any the first time, and for your first few you are learning rather than leading.
Call 408-910-2034, write to info@jmemorial.org, or use the form below. Somebody will talk it through with you honestly, and nothing is decided in that conversation. The women’s team is almost always the one short of people.
The form is not loading right now. Please call 408-910-2034 or write to info@jmemorial.org.
You need to be Jewish, and you need to be able to treat what happens in that room as private for the rest of your life. Beyond that, the teams here include people across the whole range of observance. Nobody is examined.
None. Nobody arrives with experience. You are taught, and for your first few you are the extra pair of hands rather than the person leading — you watch, you help, you learn the order of it.
Both, on separate teams. A man is attended to by men and a woman by women, without exception. The women’s team is almost always the one short of people.
It depends entirely on the size of the team. With enough volunteers it is a handful of times a year; with too few it is much more often, which is exactly why we are asking. You are never obliged to say yes to a particular call.
Usually somewhere between an hour and two, and it is often at an awkward hour, because a Jewish burial does not wait. Shmirah — sitting with the person and reading Psalms — is scheduled in shifts and can be as little as two hours.
It is serious, and the first time is a great deal to take in. Almost nobody describes it as upsetting afterwards. What people describe is quiet, and being surprised by how much it stayed with them. Very few people do one and never come back.
Then it is not for you, and that is a completely fine answer that nobody will think less of you for. Sitting shmirah is a gentler way in if you would rather start there.