The Huffington Post: Amy Katz, rabbi of Temple Beth El in Springfield, Massachusetts, says she has been trying to sway her congregants on pivotal social, emotional and spiritual issues through her sermons for years. But none seems to have caught their attention — and prompted action — more than her recent Yom Kippur sermon on the importance of family members having a conversation about their end-of-life wishes.
“One man told me that he was sitting next to his 82-year-old father, who leaned over and whispered to his son, ‘Okay, we have to have this conversation,'” she recounts. She heard from the wife of another member of the audience, a former temple official who had never spoken to his family about end-of-life issues. “Apparently, he’s been calling all his children and saying, We need to have this conversation,'” the rabbi says….These conversations are beginning — and must continue — to rise to the fore in family and public dialogue (one excellent website that is doing its part is The Conversation Project).