What can death teach us about truly living?
Bestselling author and spiritual leader Rabbi Steve Leder joins the conversation to share what he has learned from standing beside hundreds of dying people, officiating more than a thousand funerals and eventually experiencing the devastating loss of his own father.
Rabbi Leder explains why professional experience with grief could not prepare him for the moment he placed his hand on his father’s chest and confronted his own mortality. That experience changed the way he understood death, memory, compassion and the preciousness of time.
Together, they explore why grief is not a linear process, but an ocean of waves that can return without warning. Rabbi Leder shares why we should stop trying to overpower those waves and instead allow them to wash over us until we are ready to stand again.
The conversation also examines parenting through crisis, addiction and recovery, imposter syndrome, mental health, gratitude and the people who leave permanent fingerprints on our lives. Rabbi Leder offers a powerful reminder that suffering is never worth it—but we should not allow it to become worthless.
Most importantly, he reveals what he has learned from holding the hands of dying people: they are often not afraid of death. Their greatest concern is usually whether the people they love will be okay after they are gone.
This is an honest, comforting and unforgettable conversation about grief, purpose and learning to live before our time runs out.
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00:00 Meet Rabbi Steve Leder
00:32 When Grief Became Personal
05:05 Confronting His Own Mortality
08:05 Why Pain Changes Us
10:36 How Loss Changed His Work
13:15 Grief Comes in Waves
16:40 Carrying the People We Lose
20:46 Finding Meaning After Suffering
24:41 From Troubled Teen to Rabbi
31:12 The Power of Gratitude
34:02 What Makes Someone Unforgettable
38:35 Parenting and Imposter Syndrome
43:10 You Only Have 1,000 Sundays
47:17 Why the Dying Aren’t Afraid
