What

At Kimah we believe that, just as life is for the living, so, too, is death for the living.

Far from morbid, this embrace of death can be profoundly life affirming. Though rooted in the Jewish traditions around death and dying, we feel that Kimah is for anyone who seeks to deepen their understanding of, and connection to, what it means to be mortal.

One of the few celestial bodies mentioned in the TaNaKh (the Hebrew bible) Kimah is generally taken to refer to the Pleiades star cluster. Related to the Arabic word for accumulation and the Assyrian word for binding, Kimah is a symbol for who we are: rooted in the earth, with our eyes to the stars, we are bound together by our shared condition. It is our hope that by helping to facilitate an awareness of that condition, we can, together, nudge the world closer to compassion—both for ourselves and others.

Who

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Hi. The "we" in Kimah is me, Matt Harle. I live in the city of Beacon in New York’s Hudson Valley. In addition to making ritual objects, I am an artist and musician. I am also a "Jew by choice": growing up Presbyterian, I converted to Judaism in 2016. Since then I have pursued many avenues of Jewish spiritual and intellectual practice, finally finding my true home in the chevrah kadisha.

A chevrah kadisha, literally "holy society," is an (often anonymous) group within a Jewish community that cares for the dead and prepares them for burial. Traditionally, chevrot (plural of chevrah) have also been responsible for visiting the sick and comforting mourners, functions still performed by many chevrot today. In 2018 I founded the chevrah kadisha at Beacon Hebrew Alliance in Beacon, NY.

My connection to this work has proven to be profoundly life-affirming, and I am grateful to all those who helped me find that connection, as well as to those who travel with me, particularly the fine folks of Kavod v'Nichum. It is my hope that Kimah will help others to discover the ways in which an acceptance of death can lead us to a richer, more compassionate appreciation of life.

Find out more about Jewish end-of-life practices here.