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After first presenting the idea at a conference in Edison, Kavod v'Nichum, an organization that supports funeral and bereavement work in synagogues and Jewish communities, is now offering online training for running Jewish burial societies and mastering other areas of end-of-life halakha.

Last week, an interdenominational Kavod v'Nichum project called the Gamliel Institute launched a three-year certification program consisting of six courses: a background on chevra kadisha (Jewish burial society); tahara (ritual washing of dead bodies, and shmira (watching bodies overnight before the funeral); organizing, training, and education for chevra kadisha; nechama (visiting the sick and comforting the deceased's family), funerals and burials, and traditional aspects (a course mostly dealing with liturgy).

Rabbi Stuart Kelman of Berkeley, Calif., Gamliel's dean, explained that the course will teach about a "continuum of life" rather than just "end of life." Although chevra kadishas are often associated exclusively with tahara and shmira, Kelman said that in the classic sense -- as well as the new course's curriculum -- they deal with visiting the sick, writing wills, and other tasks that make them "pre-death, at death, and after death" institutions.

"We see the chevra kadisha movement as more than washing bodies," David Zinner, executive director of Kavod v'Nichum, said. "We see it as teaching people about life."

Gamliel "really started to take shape" at the sixth North American Chevra Kadisha Conference, held June 2008 in Edison, Zinner said. There, Columbia, Md.-based Kavod v'Nichum presented the concept for the institute and got valuable feedback on the online course's curriculum, cost, and other key elements, Kelman said.

"People were saying they really loved the conferences, but that they wanted something more ongoing and more in-depth," Zinner said.

"The input was terrific from people who were at that conference," Kelman added.

In fact, New Jersey has seen the formation of at least five new chevra kadisha societies over the last few years, Zinner said, an impressive figure compared to the rest of the country.

"New Jersey seems to be the place where there is more new chevra kadisha development going on than anywhere else," Zinner, who often spends scholar-in-residence weekends in New Jersey on the topic of chevra kadisha, said.

Ever since Kavod v'Nichum started the chevra kadisha conferences seven years ago, people started inquiring about formal training because no North American rabbinical school, chaplaincy, or mortuary program offers a comprehensive certification course on the subject, Kelman said.

"It's done by apprenticeship," Kelman said of chevra kadisha training. "People learn simply by going to a chevra and being part of a team."

Chevra kadisha volunteers might be trained well on that team, but sometimes don't gain a deeper understanding of their job, such as the meanings of the prayers they recite during tahara and shmira, Kelman said. There are tahara manuals out there, such as Kelman's "Chesed Shel Emet," but "there's a difference between reading and doing," he said.

"We're trying to provide an opportunity for people to learn this and then to bring this to their communities, and create new chevras," Kelman said.

So far, 17 people have signed up for the program, which consists of 90-minute live online sessions with video and audio, as well as a chavruta (studying with a partner) element. Kelman estimated that adults taking the course can finish in the scheduled three years if they devote one evening per week to the curriculum. Tuition is $1,000 per course.

Gamliel's training will also include a study mission to New York, Jerusalem, Prague, and possibly Spain and Italy as well; all are critical sites in the historical development of chevra kadishas, Zinner said. Studying the institution's history, he said, helps potential volunteers understand the relationship chevra kadisha has with families, rabbis, the sick, and others.

Assembling a chevra kadisha society is no small task, Zinner explained. A minimum of four to six people are needed for a tahara team, he said, then separate teams are then needed for men and women. After it's taken into account that the chevra kadisha needs to be on call 24/7, that increases the number of necessary volunteers to between 20 and 30, Zinner said.

Gamliel's name comes from Rabban Gamliel, president of the Sanhedrin court during talmudic times, who "disregarded his own dignity" by asking that his body be carried out in flaxen shrouds in order to ease the expense of death for families, according to Babylonian Talmud Moed Katan (27a-b). Similarly, some of the driving principles behind the Gamliel Institute are consumer protection and wise spending, so that any contemporary family can afford to care for its loved ones, Zinner said.

Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg, leader of Congregation Beth-El in Edison and author of both "Handbook for the Jewish Mourner" and "A Guide for the Jewish Mourner," said it's vital for all chevra kadisha volunteers to realize that they are performing sacred acts.

"It's a great mitzvah to be involved in the chevra kadisha and there is always a need for people to assist, and it's important that these people are trained in the halakhas that deal with the chevra kadisha," Rosenberg said.

For those interested in the Gamliel Institute's course, contact Kelman at stuart.kelman@gmail.com.