Post by Rabbi Neil on Sept 15, 2021 17:18:16 GMT
Where last year’s High Holy Days were filled with feelings of resilience and hope for a better tomorrow, I think that the second year of pandemic High Holy Days has affected us all differently, eliciting feelings of loss and grief in many of us. Instead of pretending that such feelings don’t exist, or shouldn’t be addressed during this time, I feel that exploring the journey through those emotions can help us as we also journey through the High Holy Days. With that in mind, since Rosh Hashanah, I have compared the five stages in the journey of grief as suggested in the Kübler-Ross Grief Cycle to the stages of repentance in our Jewish tradition. On Erev Rosh Hashanah, we started the journey by looking at Denial, at the way of holding onto the past by refusing to accept change, or by refusing to accept the harm that we do to others. That act of denial is a perfectly understandable reaction to change that is brought upon us – whether it’s change outside ourselves in terms of the pandemic, or inside ourselves in terms of repentance. On Rosh Hashanah morning, we looked at the second stage of the cycle – Anger – and at how we often instinctively respond to loss through anger, often directed at others – including God - instead of at ourselves. In the outside world, I often see anger expressed at those who limit women’s reproductive health, at climate-change deniers, and at anti-vaxxers. In the inside world of t’shuvah, of repentance, that anger is expressed as a tendency to blame others for their mistakes so that we do not have to focus on ours. On Shabbat Shuvah, we saw how the third stage – Bargaining – plays out in both the external and internal worlds. Externally, bargaining is seen in “if” statements, for example, “If I get the vaccine then I should be protected from harm.” or “If everyone in services is masked, vaccinated, and if the air is flowing and if we have a small number of people present, then we should be protected from harm,” both statements of which are demonstrably likely to be true, but are not total guarantees. In the inside world of t’shuvah, of repentance, we saw that the liturgy openly acknowledges our psychological need to bargain at this time through metaphors that imply that if only we engage in enough repentance, prayer and charity, then God will write us in the Book of Life. We don’t have to literally believe the metaphor, but we can understand what it’s trying to do – it’s acknowledging our feelings of powerlessness and our hope to strike up a deal in order to improve our chances of success.
The fourth stage in the cycle of grief, the one we look at this evening, is Depression, perhaps the most challenging of all the stages of grief and of atonement, although if we can address that challenge, I believe then we can truly move forward to the final stage in time for the end of Yom Kippur. Before we explore this stage, we need to define our terms carefully. Depression is not despair. Despair is the total loss of hope. Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav apparently said on his deathbed, “Assur l’hit’ya’esh – It is forbidden to despair.” Elie Wiesel often said that “despair is never an option.” Despair is the loss of belief that anything can ever get better, which is necessarily debilitating because if a person truly believes that, then there’s no point in trying to make anything better. True despair means giving up. Despite some Jews expressing a prohibition against despair, though, even Biblical characters experience it from time to time. Moses, for example, turns to God in the book of Numbers and says, “I cannot carry this whole people on my own. It is too heavy for me. If this is what You are doing to me, then, if I have found favor in Your eyes, kill me now, and let me not look upon this my evil.” That’s not just depression – that’s despair. When you can see no way out of the trials and tribulations of life other than death, that’s despair. And Moses wasn’t the only figure to despair to the point of death – Elijah prays to God “Take my life for I am no better than my ancestors,” Jeremiah curses the day he was born and asks why he ever came out of the womb only to experience constant trouble and sorrow, and Jonah prays to God to kill him saying that it is better that he die than live. This is why it seems ridiculous to me to forbid despair – just as it was ridiculous to forbid anger as we saw on Rosh Hashanah. We cannot forbid a feeling. What we can do, though, is not give in permanently to that feeling. Rabbi Sylvia Rothschild interprets the line from the Al Chet prayer – interestingly, a line that was removed in this Mishkan HaNefesh machzor – that says “Al cheit she’chatanu l’fanecha b’tim’hon ley’vav,” which she interprets as “For the sin we have committed before you by giving in to despair.” Contrary to Nachman of Bratzlav and Elie Wiesel, it is not the feeling of despair that is forbidden, but living continually in despair that is anathema to a Jewish way of life, which is predicated on tikkun olam, on making the world a better place. We are allowed to despair, but only temporarily. While despair is the loss of hope, depression is different - depression is a temporary emotional low point in an upward journey, whereas despair is the denial that the journey can ever go upwards. Depression is an immediate emotion that is evident in a feeling of emptiness once we lose something or someone. Depression manifests in many differing ways – withdrawal, numbness, confusion and a feeling of being overwhelmed are four common expressions. Although depression can be long-lasting, it is by its very nature more temporary than despair. Indeed, during a pandemic, it’s very easy for feelings of depression to linger, especially among those who are isolated. A pandemic and social isolation or risk of death from an invisible virus would be enough to depress most people, but with the increasing awareness of the severity of anthropogenic climate change, with the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the recent assault on women’s reproductive rights, and other national and international politics as well, it’s not surprising that so many people are struggling, and demonstrating signs of long-term depression. Coming to Kol Nidre with those feelings is totally understandable and can in fact be very helpful because of how the journey of grief mirrors the journey of repentance. It’s okay to be depressed at the state of the world just as it’s okay to be depressed at how we’ve behaved in the past year… in fact, it may well be healthy, so long as we don’t dwell on it for too long.
On Shabbat Shuvah, we saw that the desire to bargain, especially through the metaphors of the Book of Life, came from a feeling of loss of control and a subsequent attempt to regain control even where it is not possible. Once we move beyond the point of realizing that we cannot bargain and cannot control, depression can easily set in because depression often appears at the point where we realize that our vision of the world and the reality of the world do not match. Despair sets in when we believe that our vision and the reality of the world will never match, but we do not need to go that far. If our vision and the reality around us are different, in that moment of depression, we are left with three possible courses of action – to change our vision, to change the reality around us, or to change both. I believe that changing our vision and changing the world are profound acts of repentance. But how do we do that?
During depression, we feel further from others, isolated. Thus, Hannah prays by herself from a place of deep depression and, interestingly given what we’ve already seen of the Kübler-Ross Cycle, immediately bargains with God with the pledge that if God provides her a son, she will give him to God and ensure that a razor never touches his head. King David, who himself clearly experiences depression, also calls out from a lonely, isolated place in the Book of Psalms – “Eli, eli, lama azavtani – my God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” He isn’t despairing, he hasn’t given up, he just doesn’t understand why his vision of the relationship with God does not seem to match the reality of his relationship with God so he prays to understand the difference and reconcile it. Calling out in confusion at the difference between vision and reality is a profoundly Jewish thing to do – as David says elsewhere, “Mi-ma’amakim karaticha, Adonai – From out of the depths, I call to You, Eternal God.” Bargaining has failed, all our pretensions, all our hubris, all our assumptions that the world should match our vision are now gone. Now it is just us, and absolute reality. We reach a dark stage, but a stage that is latent with potential for transformation. If we reach that place, we are ready for change, we are ready for atonement. We cannot deny who we are any more – we can no longer pretend that our goodness is as great as we thought. We can no longer get angry at ourselves because that achieves nothing, and we can no longer get angry at others for their faults in order to detract from our own. We cannot even bargain anymore because that is not real atonement, that’s just an attempt to bribe God. We go through those stages through Rosh Hashanah and the Ten Days of Penitence and now, on Kol Nidre, we stand and face the darkness within us, the depressing reality of who we really are. We can no longer hide from reality.
And yet, in Judaism, we are not held in depression. This moment of darkness is the moment of gestation of the new person, the enveloping richness that nourishes and protects the seed of the future. In Judaism, this is the moment of reaching upwards spiritually, as the seed does physically. We call to return to our fullest potential, we call to grow beyond the darkness in our own souls, we yearn to bask in the light. We cry out “Hashiveinu Adonai eilecha, v’nashuvah – Return us to You, O God, and we shall return.” “V’atah, Adonai, choneini v’hakimeini – And now, O God, be gracious to me and raise me up.” We call out “Raise up all who are bent low. Bring us out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and set our feet upon a rock to make our footsteps firm.” We reach out to God not to bargain but because we know that we have nothing, that we are but dust and ashes while also being special and unique in this universe and deserving of love. We look back honestly and see where we have failed, we lament our failure, become depressed by it, and then we look upwards to a better time. This is true atonement – acknowledging the darkness within but refusing to give in to despair by reaching out for help, either from others around us or from God. We hold in our hearts that the darkness of the night sky of Kol Nidre eventually gives way to the light of Yom Kippur, of the Day of Atonement.
This Kol Nidre, then, let us truly embrace the darkness within us, let us confront it, and do so knowing that that very action nourishes the seed of personal growth. That is the essence of t’shuvah, of atonement. Let us see the troubles of the world around us, appreciate their challenges, and not give in to despair, but rather learn how things got the way they did so that we might change them. Let us be depressed at how we got to this point in ourselves and the world and then resolve to change. Let us learn how we became who we are so that we might transform ourselves for good. Let us let go of our hubris, of our self-righteousness, of our previous visions of ourselves and of the world. Let us be depressed that they are not better, healthier, happier, but only depressed to the point of wanting to bring about profound change, not to the point of despair. And most importantly, let us reach out for support in our dark times, and let us also be there to support others through theirs. Let this, the most challenging stage of teshuvah, be short-lived, that we may indeed truly atone. And let us say, Amen.
The fourth stage in the cycle of grief, the one we look at this evening, is Depression, perhaps the most challenging of all the stages of grief and of atonement, although if we can address that challenge, I believe then we can truly move forward to the final stage in time for the end of Yom Kippur. Before we explore this stage, we need to define our terms carefully. Depression is not despair. Despair is the total loss of hope. Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav apparently said on his deathbed, “Assur l’hit’ya’esh – It is forbidden to despair.” Elie Wiesel often said that “despair is never an option.” Despair is the loss of belief that anything can ever get better, which is necessarily debilitating because if a person truly believes that, then there’s no point in trying to make anything better. True despair means giving up. Despite some Jews expressing a prohibition against despair, though, even Biblical characters experience it from time to time. Moses, for example, turns to God in the book of Numbers and says, “I cannot carry this whole people on my own. It is too heavy for me. If this is what You are doing to me, then, if I have found favor in Your eyes, kill me now, and let me not look upon this my evil.” That’s not just depression – that’s despair. When you can see no way out of the trials and tribulations of life other than death, that’s despair. And Moses wasn’t the only figure to despair to the point of death – Elijah prays to God “Take my life for I am no better than my ancestors,” Jeremiah curses the day he was born and asks why he ever came out of the womb only to experience constant trouble and sorrow, and Jonah prays to God to kill him saying that it is better that he die than live. This is why it seems ridiculous to me to forbid despair – just as it was ridiculous to forbid anger as we saw on Rosh Hashanah. We cannot forbid a feeling. What we can do, though, is not give in permanently to that feeling. Rabbi Sylvia Rothschild interprets the line from the Al Chet prayer – interestingly, a line that was removed in this Mishkan HaNefesh machzor – that says “Al cheit she’chatanu l’fanecha b’tim’hon ley’vav,” which she interprets as “For the sin we have committed before you by giving in to despair.” Contrary to Nachman of Bratzlav and Elie Wiesel, it is not the feeling of despair that is forbidden, but living continually in despair that is anathema to a Jewish way of life, which is predicated on tikkun olam, on making the world a better place. We are allowed to despair, but only temporarily. While despair is the loss of hope, depression is different - depression is a temporary emotional low point in an upward journey, whereas despair is the denial that the journey can ever go upwards. Depression is an immediate emotion that is evident in a feeling of emptiness once we lose something or someone. Depression manifests in many differing ways – withdrawal, numbness, confusion and a feeling of being overwhelmed are four common expressions. Although depression can be long-lasting, it is by its very nature more temporary than despair. Indeed, during a pandemic, it’s very easy for feelings of depression to linger, especially among those who are isolated. A pandemic and social isolation or risk of death from an invisible virus would be enough to depress most people, but with the increasing awareness of the severity of anthropogenic climate change, with the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the recent assault on women’s reproductive rights, and other national and international politics as well, it’s not surprising that so many people are struggling, and demonstrating signs of long-term depression. Coming to Kol Nidre with those feelings is totally understandable and can in fact be very helpful because of how the journey of grief mirrors the journey of repentance. It’s okay to be depressed at the state of the world just as it’s okay to be depressed at how we’ve behaved in the past year… in fact, it may well be healthy, so long as we don’t dwell on it for too long.
On Shabbat Shuvah, we saw that the desire to bargain, especially through the metaphors of the Book of Life, came from a feeling of loss of control and a subsequent attempt to regain control even where it is not possible. Once we move beyond the point of realizing that we cannot bargain and cannot control, depression can easily set in because depression often appears at the point where we realize that our vision of the world and the reality of the world do not match. Despair sets in when we believe that our vision and the reality of the world will never match, but we do not need to go that far. If our vision and the reality around us are different, in that moment of depression, we are left with three possible courses of action – to change our vision, to change the reality around us, or to change both. I believe that changing our vision and changing the world are profound acts of repentance. But how do we do that?
During depression, we feel further from others, isolated. Thus, Hannah prays by herself from a place of deep depression and, interestingly given what we’ve already seen of the Kübler-Ross Cycle, immediately bargains with God with the pledge that if God provides her a son, she will give him to God and ensure that a razor never touches his head. King David, who himself clearly experiences depression, also calls out from a lonely, isolated place in the Book of Psalms – “Eli, eli, lama azavtani – my God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” He isn’t despairing, he hasn’t given up, he just doesn’t understand why his vision of the relationship with God does not seem to match the reality of his relationship with God so he prays to understand the difference and reconcile it. Calling out in confusion at the difference between vision and reality is a profoundly Jewish thing to do – as David says elsewhere, “Mi-ma’amakim karaticha, Adonai – From out of the depths, I call to You, Eternal God.” Bargaining has failed, all our pretensions, all our hubris, all our assumptions that the world should match our vision are now gone. Now it is just us, and absolute reality. We reach a dark stage, but a stage that is latent with potential for transformation. If we reach that place, we are ready for change, we are ready for atonement. We cannot deny who we are any more – we can no longer pretend that our goodness is as great as we thought. We can no longer get angry at ourselves because that achieves nothing, and we can no longer get angry at others for their faults in order to detract from our own. We cannot even bargain anymore because that is not real atonement, that’s just an attempt to bribe God. We go through those stages through Rosh Hashanah and the Ten Days of Penitence and now, on Kol Nidre, we stand and face the darkness within us, the depressing reality of who we really are. We can no longer hide from reality.
And yet, in Judaism, we are not held in depression. This moment of darkness is the moment of gestation of the new person, the enveloping richness that nourishes and protects the seed of the future. In Judaism, this is the moment of reaching upwards spiritually, as the seed does physically. We call to return to our fullest potential, we call to grow beyond the darkness in our own souls, we yearn to bask in the light. We cry out “Hashiveinu Adonai eilecha, v’nashuvah – Return us to You, O God, and we shall return.” “V’atah, Adonai, choneini v’hakimeini – And now, O God, be gracious to me and raise me up.” We call out “Raise up all who are bent low. Bring us out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and set our feet upon a rock to make our footsteps firm.” We reach out to God not to bargain but because we know that we have nothing, that we are but dust and ashes while also being special and unique in this universe and deserving of love. We look back honestly and see where we have failed, we lament our failure, become depressed by it, and then we look upwards to a better time. This is true atonement – acknowledging the darkness within but refusing to give in to despair by reaching out for help, either from others around us or from God. We hold in our hearts that the darkness of the night sky of Kol Nidre eventually gives way to the light of Yom Kippur, of the Day of Atonement.
This Kol Nidre, then, let us truly embrace the darkness within us, let us confront it, and do so knowing that that very action nourishes the seed of personal growth. That is the essence of t’shuvah, of atonement. Let us see the troubles of the world around us, appreciate their challenges, and not give in to despair, but rather learn how things got the way they did so that we might change them. Let us be depressed at how we got to this point in ourselves and the world and then resolve to change. Let us learn how we became who we are so that we might transform ourselves for good. Let us let go of our hubris, of our self-righteousness, of our previous visions of ourselves and of the world. Let us be depressed that they are not better, healthier, happier, but only depressed to the point of wanting to bring about profound change, not to the point of despair. And most importantly, let us reach out for support in our dark times, and let us also be there to support others through theirs. Let this, the most challenging stage of teshuvah, be short-lived, that we may indeed truly atone. And let us say, Amen.