IF A book about death sounds depressing, think again; in Living with Our Dead, Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur offers us stories that are only on the surface about death. In truth, each story is a rich celebration of life.

In the course of 11 short chapters, Horvilleur tells beautifully crafted stories of her congregants and their funerals. Each chapter is named after an individual who has died: such as “Sarah”, the Holocaust survivor; “Elsa”, otherwise known as the “Charlie Hebdo psychoanalyst”; “Isaac’s brother”, who is only eight years old when he has a few theological questions for his rabbi after his brother’s sudden death; “Miriam”, who is so obsessed with her death that she plans and attends her own funeral — while still alive!

While we hear about each of these funerals, what captivates us most are the human stories of these individuals and their relationships with their beloved rabbi, who resists offering them pat answers to deep questions about where we go after we die or why people suffer in this life. Instead, she gently shares (with both her congregants and with us, her readers) wisdom from Jewish tradition along with deep compassion for the human condition.

Horvilleur is an exquisite storyteller. Into each chapter, she weaves not only the story of the individual, but also biblical references, philosophical questions, and a rich drawing on Jewish tradition. While this book can be enjoyed by people of any faith (or none), it is deeply Jewish in its outlook, and non-Jewish readers may be surprised at how differently Judaism approaches death and funerals.

For example, Jewish tradition places little emphasis on heaven or what comes after death. But, instead of lecturing us about this, Horvilleur points to Judaism’s emphasis on life with a brief lesson on the Hebrew word for cemetery: beit hayyim, literally “house of life”. She suggests that this represents Judaism’s insistence that, despite the heavy presence of death in a cemetery, it is ultimately Life that must remain the focus of human attention.

In that sense, this is a very Jewish book — emphasising the stories of 11 lives rather than focusing on their deaths. And, in the process, we also gain deep insight into the life of the rabbi who loves them during their lives before guiding them to their final resting place.

Living with our Dead will therefore be relevant to clergy and lay people, Jews and Christians, feminists and traditionalists. It will resonate with anyone who has mourned and anyone who will die — in other words, all of us.

Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand is a Visiting Scholar at Sarum College in Salisbury and vice-chair of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations.

Living with our Dead: Stories of loss and consolation
Delphine Horvilleur, author
Lisa Appignanesi, translator
Europa Editions £12.99
(978-1-78770-427-5)
Church Times Bookshop £11.69