Gesher HaChaim

Y.M. Tucazinsky, Moznaim, 1983

This small, yet remarkable work is a translation into English (from Ivrit) of the last section of the classic three-volume work on the subject of death and dying. The original, published in 1960, has remained the seminal reference work on all aspects of the Jewish approach to the subject, both in Halachah and Hashkafah (outlook). While the first two parts (which remain untranslated) are purely Halachic, this third part is the author’s look at the processes of death and dying as a transition from one realm to another. (Gesher HaChaim – the Bridge of Life – refers to death as the process of transition.) Rabbi Tucazinsky deals with the existential questions that trouble all of us – particularly the painful riddles of the apparent randomness of experience, the survival of the human soul, the greatness of man and the theme of the resurrection of the dead in the future. One of the most extraordinary parts of this work is the introduction by the author’s son, in which he describes his father’s own death, how he approached it and what one can learn from it. I have always found this particularly inspiring. This is a book I lend to people who have been bereaved, many of whom have found it very illuminating.

Gesher HaChaim