Making Music with What Remains: Rabbi Aaron Lever on long-term facility spiritual care

Rabbi Aaron Lever serves as Director of Spiritual Care at Menorah Life in St. Petersburg, FL. He received rabbinical ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary and became a Board-Certified Chaplain through NAJC. He is a Reiki Master Teacher, a musician and a puppeteer.

Rabbi Lever is a co-author, along with Rabbi Simcha Weintraub, of "Guide Me Along the Way: A Spiritual Guide to Surgery," Jewish Healing Center, 1998. 

He also wrote this article in which he references the story about Itzhak Perlman playing on three strings. 

Here is the same story as told by Rabbi Jack Riemer, who appears on the previous edition of NeshamaCast in this feed. 

There is debate as to whether the story about Itzhak Perlman and the three strings is true or apocryphal, as discussed in Snopes.com. 

For NAJC members and Jewish chaplains considering joining NAJC, registration is now open for the NAJC Conference, May 11-14, 2025, Skokie Illinois, at the Doubletree Hotel. Click here for more information or watch this video. 

About our host:

Rabbi Edward Bernstein, BCC, is the executive producer and host of NeshamaCast. He serves as Chaplain at Boca Raton Regional Hospital of Baptist Health South Florida. He is a member of the Board of Neshama: Association of Jewish Chaplains. Prior to his chaplain career, he served as a pulpit rabbi in congregations in New Rochelle, NY; Beachwood, OH; and Boynton Beach, FL. He is also the host and producer of My Teacher Podcast: A Celebration of the People Who Shape Our Lives.

 

NeshamaCast contributor Chaplain David Balto is a volunteer chaplain at Washington Hospital Center  in Washington, D.C. and Western Correctional Insitution, Maryland’s maximum security prison. He coordinated the annual National Bikur Cholim Conference. 

 

Support NeshamaCast and NAJC with a tax deductible donation to NAJC. For sponsorship opportunities as either an individual or institution, please write to Rabbi Ed Bernstein at [e-mail]

 

Thank you to Steve Lubetkin and Lubetkin Media Companies for producing this episode.

 

Transcripts for this episode and other episodes of NeshamaCast are available at NeshamaCast.simplecast.com and are typically posted one week after an episode first airs. 
 

Theme Music is “A Niggun For Ki Anu Amecha,” written and performed by Reb-Cantor Lisa Levine.

 

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We welcome comments and suggestions for future programming at [e-mail]. And be sure to follow NAJC on Facebook to learn more about Jewish spiritual care happening in our communities.