Political tensions, anxiety, and loneliness are on the rise,

but problems like these aren't new, and the solutions don't have to be either.

For thousands of years, societies have asked questions about how to live, thrive, and love.

And it was spiritual traditions that offered wisdom and tools to help people find their way.

Tools that science is now discovering offer real benefits. Join me, Dave

Desteno, to explore how we can all use this wisdom, whatever our beliefs. Listen to How God

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Hello. Hello, and welcome to chutzpah, real life lived better, where each week we apply Jewish tradition and the Torah of Dr. Kavorkian to answer a letter sent by you, a listener, about an issue that is live in your life. I'm Rabbi Shira Stuttman. And I'm Hanna Rosen. Hannah, have you given a lot of thought to end of life planning? What kind of a question is that? Sorry. No, wait. Sorry. Hannah, how are you today? Yeah, that's much better, Shira. Why don't we start with hi, how are you, and then talk about my death? How's that?

Anna?

Well, in this sense, I've given a lot of thought to end-of-life planning. My mother's brother died a couple years ago, and his children, my cousins, wanted to cremate him.

And my mother freaked out.

And it occurred to me that, you know, I grew up thinking, well, I'm going to be buried because that's what Jews do.

But then I kind of went along in my life thinking, I'm going to be cremated because that's what Jews do. But then I kind of went along in my life thinking I'm going to be cremated because that's what good progressive Americans do. And I just have both those

thoughts in my head and I've never quite reconciled them. So that's where I'm at.

I have two things to say. First of all, like once again, here we are talking

about sort of the part of ourselves that's connected to Judaism and the part that's connected

to the progressive movement and where they come into conflict with each other. But also, I'm

inferring that you, because for environmental reasons, you think cremation is better? Yeah.

I just, I mean, for a few different reasons, just intellectually and emotionally, I don't consider, say, my father's grave as the place where my father is in the way that my mother does.

I consider my father to be in a thousand million other places, the way people talk about God sometimes.

Like the places where my father visits me is sometimes an elevator because he was really funny in an elevator.

And sometimes it's in the kitchen because he was always in the kitchen.

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