CCAR

By Rabbi Laura Geller and Rabbi Beth Lieberman
Foreword by Casper ter Kulie

Moments That Matter: Marking Transitions in Midlife and Beyond offers a fresh perspective on life's later chapters, transforming them into opportunities for personal growth, meaning, and renewal. With warmth and wisdom, Rabbi Laura Geller and Rabbi Beth Lieberman explore the unique challenges and joys of midlife and beyond, from launching children to launching oneself anew, navigating retirement, downsizing and moving, facing illness and caregiving, and embracing love at any age. The chapters weave Jewish wisdom with practical rituals, interspersed with personal stories and ways to adapt each ceremony for a communal setting. Moments That Matter empowers readers to embrace these milestones with creativity and intention, offering tools to craft personalized and deeply moving rituals that honor the complexity of this rich stage of life.

This book is beautiful, tender, and insightful---filled with new/old wisdom on endings and blessed beginnings. At the heart of it all, Rabbis Geller and Lieberman invite us to honor the deep connections that sustain us as human beings, pay attention to the in-between moments, and find a ritual language that speaks directly to the heart. I could imagine no better guides through the landscape of loss, love, and renewed life.
-- Rabbi Sharon Brous, author of The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World

Moments That Matter is a beautiful and practical guide, rich with wise and poetic passages and stories pondering the power of the "third chapter" or "encore years." I found myself lingering on many pages, reflecting and finding inspiration. With skillful guidance, this book offers meaningful rituals to honor transitions, empowering readers to embrace life with grace, purpose, and renewed vitality.
-- Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar, author of Unfolding: A High Holy Day Companion

Why should our later years be a time of diminishment and loss? Why not discovery, engagement, and fulfillment? This marvelous book of celebrations, markers, and rituals reveals all the poetry and power of these years. Moments That Matter is a gift to all who truly believe, along with Robert Browning, that "the best is yet to be, the last of life for which the first was made."
-- Rabbi Ed Feinstein, Senior Rabbi, Valley Beth Shalom, Encino, CA

Deeply founded in Jewish tradition, Moments That Matter is also inviting to people of many other places of identity, religious or not. The deft combination of sacred text, accessible action, and clear instruction is a valuable guide for all who are faced with life's inevitable progression. Clergy and laity, communities and individuals, will all find it a great gift.
-- Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Nordquist, Presbyterian pastor and spiritual director