Each year the Richmond Beth-El Cemetery Company, Inc. has a Cemetery Service the Sunday between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This year the Kever Avot Service will be on Sunday, Oct. 6.
Throughout our lives the example our loved ones modeled for us, good or bad, simple or complex, shape our lives forever. Even when they are no longer on this earthly plane, the need to connect, remember, and honor them lives on.
One of the many ways we can express that need is through participation in Kever Avot services.
Kever Avot v’lmahot (literally, the Graves of our patriarch and matriarch) is a service honoring our departed loved ones and their memories.
Historically, Kever Avot was a superstitious occasion when Jews would take advantage of the auspicious timing before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when the Book of Life was open and God’s judgment was open to argument, to ask their departed loved ones to intercede on their behalf and make sure that their names were recorded for another year of life.
In our time, Kever Avot is not so much about soliciting heavenly intervention as about reconnecting with our personal history and honoring those who shaped it. As we look to the future, we should acknowledge the past and our debt to it, especially to those special people who helped mold our lives, who helped make us who we are.
We invite you to join us as we pray together, support one another, and honor the memory of our ancestors.
Our services are open to all members of the community. Whether your loved ones are buried with us or far away, all are welcome.
Sunday, October 6, at 10:30 a.m.
*Richmond Beth-El Cemetery Forest Lawn and Chesed Memorial Park at Forest Lawn
led by Rabbi Rachel Salston
*B’nai Shalom Cemetery at Greenwood Memorial Gardens
led by Chaplain Joshua Jeffreys
If you have any questions, please contact Bette Rose Webne at rbcc.director@gmail.com.