Yonah and the Mikveh Fish

To Die In Secret

by Haviva Ner-David

To Die in Secret is a quiet build into a redemptive roar of a story that illuminates history, ethnicity, and spirituality into one beautiful weave.

When we first meet Nomi, she is gazing out the window of an airplane taking her from the kibbutz that’s been home all her adult life, to Massachusetts, which she has not seen since she left after a traumatic fallout with her parents in high school. Her only sister and nephew were found mysteriously dead in their big farmhouse on the outskirts of Salem, and her widowed mother is suffering from dementia in a nursing home nearby.

Recently widowed herself, and childless, Nomi, at sixty, still grapples with the consequences of the event that sent her into exile as a teenager. She hasn’t seen her mother in forty years and fears it’s too late to heal wounds that have festered far too long. She simply wants to settle her sister’s estate, make sure her mother’s safe, and return to her safe kibbutz life. What seems like a straightforward mission is complicated by the mystery of her sister’s death, the plight of a pregnant teenager rejected by her Orthodox Jewish parents, and John, the sympathetic police officer who befriends her. The old farmhouse Nomi inherits from her sister also holds mysteries, and maybe a ghost, of its own.

To Die in Secret weaves interlocking threads of a richly complex tale of trauma, parenting, and forgiveness, as succeeding generations face horrific situations and unimaginable choices and struggle to find the hope and faith to carry on.

To Die in Secret is full of complex, beautifully rendered characters who win your heart, settings that pull you into the New England countryside, and mysteries that keep you guessing.
But more than that, it’s a book that addresses the morally fraught issues of abuse, reconciliation, and the impossible goal of trying to be a perfect parent in an imperfect world.

To Die in Secret is a quiet build into a redemptive roar of a story that illuminates history, ethnicity, and spirituality into one beautiful weave.

Suspenseful and emotionally engaging, To Die in Secret is a compelling novel that considers the aftermath of tragedy and the cost of family secrets.

About the Author

Haviva Ner-David is a writer and rabbi. In 2006 she became the first woman to publicly receive Orthodox rabbinic ordination, only to leave Orthodoxy and call herself a post-denominational rabbi. Ten years later, she received interfaith ordination from the One Spirit Interfaith-Interspiritual Seminary and now goes by post-denominational inter-spiritual rabbi.

She writes both fiction and non-fiction and is the author of three spiritual journey memoirs, a novel, short stories, essays, a blog on Times of Israel, scholarly articles and a guidebook for engaged couples. Her short story, “Blame,” won the 2016 Lilith Magazine short fiction contest.
Link to short story.

Her rabbinic specialties are spiritual companionship, water immersion rituals, wedding and marriage preparation, coming of age ceremonies and other ritual and ceremony creation and innovation. Founding rabbi of Shmaya: A Mikveh for Mind, Body and Soul on Kibbutz Hannaton in the Lower Galilee, she officiates and helps create on-site personalized immersion ritual ceremonies and facilitates group mikveh workshops. As a spiritual companion, she works with individuals and couples and specializes in dreamwork, inner child work and nature soul work, as well as general sacred listening.