In 2009, Reb Zal­man Schachter-Shalo­mi asked N.Y. Times best-sell­ing author Sara David­son to talk with him about ​“The Decem­ber Project.” He want­ed to help peo­ple not freak out about dying, and show how get­ting ​“up close with mor­tal­i­ty” quick­ens our abil­i­ty to rel­ish every day. Davidson’s mem­oir of the two years they spent meet­ing every week, The Decem­ber Project, will be pub­lished March 25 by Harper­One. She will be blog­ging here all week for Jew­ish Book Coun­cil and MyJew­ish­Learn­ing.

In the spring of 2009, Reb Zal­man Schachter-Shalo­mi spoke at the Boul­der Book Store to a jammed and eager audi­ence. I was sit­ting on the floor, so charmed by his singing and sto­ry telling that when I greet­ed him after­ward, I impul­sive­ly said, ​“I’m between writ­ing projects, so if there’s any­thing I could do to sup­port your work, let me know.”

I did not expect to hear from him. We’d met in the 1970s, when I was revis­it­ing the Jew­ish tra­di­tion I’d walked away from at sev­en­teen. Reb Zal­man, who turns 90 this year, had escaped the Nazis as a child, been ordained a Hasidic rab­bi in Brook­lyn, then began look­ing for wis­dom out­side his com­mu­ni­ty. Break­ing with the ortho­dox, he found­ed the Jew­ish Renew­al Move­ment to infuse Judaism with spir­it and rel­e­vance, and encour­age peo­ple to have a direct expe­ri­ence of God. 

As a reporter, I’d often called him for a quote over the years — I could count on him to say some­thing col­or­ful or out­ra­geous — but we’d nev­er real­ly come to know each oth­er. So I was star­tled, after our meet­ing at the book­store, when he called at eight the next morn­ing. He said he want­ed to have a series of talks with me about ​“what it feels like when you’re in the Decem­ber of your years. What is the spir­i­tu­al work of this time, and how do we pre­pare for the mys­tery? It could lead to an arti­cle or a book, I don’t know.”

I jumped at the chance to spend time with him. I’d long feared that death would be a com­plete anni­hi­la­tion while Reb Zal­man felt cer­tain that ​“some­thing con­tin­ues.” He said he didn’t want to con­vince me of any­thing. ​“What I want is to loosen your mind.” 

For two years, we met every Fri­day morn­ing, record­ing our ses­sions. From the begin­ning, he wan­dered so far from the stat­ed top­ic that I began to lose hope that I’d ever find a way to shape and tame our inter­ac­tions into a nar­ra­tive. But we both looked for­ward to our talks, and despite his con­stant stray­ing from the sub­ject, there would always come an unex­pect­ed zing — a dis­cov­ery, an insight, or a new thought that shone like a jewel. 

In March of 2011, I rent­ed a stu­dio on the ocean in Hawaii for a month to deter­mine: could I find a way to con­struct a book out of what seemed a sprawl­ing mass? If not, it was time to move on. I went into total immer­sion, shut­ting off the phone, lis­ten­ing to the record­ings and going over all my notes. By the third week, I real­ized I had a lion by the tail. A rare cap­ture of Reb Zalman’s sto­ries and mem­o­ries, his earthy knowl­edge and daz­zling flights. 

An out­line quick­ly emerged, and I wrote the first chap­ters in a few hours. The book moves for­ward on three tracks: our con­ver­sa­tions, his life sto­ry, and my sto­ry dur­ing the years I spent with him. Dur­ing that time I was near­ly killed by a sui­cide bomb in Kab­ul, and Reb Zal­man suf­fered a steep decline in health. We cre­at­ed strate­gies to deal with pain and mem­o­ry loss and to cul­ti­vate fear­less­ness and joy — at any age. 

Most impor­tant for me was the bond that grew between us. Every Fri­day, no mat­ter how trou­bled or dis­tract­ed we were when we sat down to talk, at some point a cur­rent of warmth and appre­ci­a­tion would move between us. We sang and laughed. We expressed our most vul­ner­a­ble feel­ings and received from the oth­er uncon­di­tion­al accep­tance. At one such moment, Reb Zal­man looked at me and smiled. ​“Who said that peo­ple only make love with their bodies?”

To read more about the Decem­ber Project, click here.

Relat­ed Con­tent: Rab­bi Zal­man Schachter-Shalo­mi Read­ing List