A Rabbi Cares for the Dead in Surfside

Rabbi Leibel Miller, director of the Chevra Kadisha society of Florida, has been working around the clock since the Champlain Towers South collapsed on June 24, and his body is beginning to show it. During an interview with the Forward Thursday evening, he yawned and coughed and admitted his health was faltering from a lack of sleep. Miller coordinates about 60 volunteers who help prepare Jewish bodies for burial, a process that typically involves a thorough cleaning and ritual washing of the body known as tahara; constant accompaniment of the body by a shomer, or guard, who recites Psalms; and the wrapping of the body in a burial shroud called tachrichim.