Chevra Kadisha
The CBS Chevra Kadisha (חֶבְרָה קַדִּישָׁא) consists of volunteers that offer to help community members deal with their loved ones by seeing that bodies of deceased Jews are prepared for burial according to Jewish tradition. The primary activity, taharah (cleanliness and purification; טהרה), involves the showing of proper respect for the corpse (meit; מת), and the cleansing and ritual washing of the body and subsequent dressing for burial. The other service is shemira (watching or guarding; שמירה), which refers to the Jewish religious ritual of watching over the body of a deceased person from the time of death until burial. At CBS, we usually can provide limited shomrim (watchers; שומרים) between the taharah and the burial. For additional general information, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevra_kadisha.
The committee chairs are Barbara Staman Wolff and Tom Wolff. New volunteers for either taharah or shemira are always welcome. For the most part, new volunteers for taharah learn from the experienced members during the actual taharah procedure. For more information please email chevrakadisha@napershalom.org.