Let’s go back in time to over 2,000 years ago. It’s 400 BCE. You’re about to embark on pilgrimage. You make the pilgrimage three times a year, but this pilgrimage is different. You are different.
As you walk to the Temple, others join your path. There is an excitement in the air. Some youths are journeying for the first time. Some have not had the resources to come in a while. Yet your feet drag, dreading what awaits you at the Temple.
When you arrive, you see the people circling already. They walk around the Temple, more of a human wheel than a crowd. They walk in sync, moving together as if one unit.
Those you were journeying with seamlessly join the circle, dipping in and disappearing in the flow. But you hesitate. It will not be so easy for you. You are not the same person as you were when you came before.
Your feet heavy as stones, you force your way into the circle. But rather than joining the others, you face the opposite direction. You see in front of you the sea of people part to avoid crashing into you. Already, you have disrupted the flow. Yet you know your mission is not complete. With leaden feet, you begin to walk in the opposite direction.
It is hardly a moment before someone about to pass pauses. The stranger looks you in your eyes and asks, “What happened to you?”
You know it is their obligation to ask, you know it is what the rabbis require of them, yet the question still pierces your heart. You have not been able to talk about it since it happened. The opportunity to speak brings the tears and you sob. You have just experienced an incredible loss. You have never felt so lonely in your life. And yet all you’ve wanted is to be alone. You’ve been afraid of being seen in your heartbreak and grief. You’ve been afraid of being vulnerable.
Yet here you are, fulfilling your duty to be vulnerable. And here is this stranger fulfilling their duty to witness you in your vulnerability.
This is a real ritual that the Jewish people practiced in Temple times, which Rabbi Sharon Brous writes about in her book The Amen Effect. An ancient ritual to combat the loneliness of loss.
Sometimes I hear people speak about an epidemic of loneliness as if it is a new phenomenon. I do believe we are experiencing an epidemic of loneliness, but I also believe it is an age-old struggle. It is a human struggle.
While not the only cause, a main contributor to loneliness is loss and grief. Loss can be thought of expansively: The loss of a loved one, losing a job, an unexpected sickness or injury, the destruction of your home in a natural disaster. Two millennia ago we had rituals to respond to loss, for people to be witnessed in their grief. We don’t assume we know how or why they’re grieving. We don’t ask, “Who died?” We ask an expansive, open-ended question: What happened to you? And we give space to receive the answer.
These individuals don’t know each other. They are strangers sharing an incredibly intimate moment. Our sages understood that sometimes we can’t rely on those we are close to. Maybe it’s too hard to ask for help from family and friends, or maybe we have no one. Yet something can happen when we talk to each other; even if we aren’t close, something happens when we let each other into our hearts. Something happens when we bear witness to each other’s humanness.
Some people use the words “seen” or “heard” to mean understood. Knowing that this feeling of being understood goes beyond sight or sound, I offer the term witness. Witnessing is a deliberate, intentional action. The person in our story who pauses is bearing witness, and the person who breaks down in tears has experienced the power of being witnessed. We each have a human need to be witnessed; there are times when we must identify ourselves to be witnessed, and there are times when we will be called to be witnesses for others.
But grief does not always look like the person in our story, downcast and downtrodden. Rabbi Sharon Brous asks, What if the person is not just walking toward you, but coming at you – from the opposite direction, bumping up against you?
For some, loss does not translate as sorrow. For some, sorrow is too heavy a burden to bear; instead, it converts into anger. What if the person you encounter is angry?
During my time as a hospital chaplain, I saw a lot of loss. I saw a lot of sorrow. I also saw anger. There was a woman whose husband had cirrhosis. He was an alcoholic decades ago, but had been sober for several years. Despite turning his life around, his past caught up with him. He was dying.
The first time I visited, she insisted she did not need to talk. She said what she needed was a liver transplant. Hearing that she was not okay, I stayed with her. I listened as she complained about doctors, nurses, and most of all, insurance. I heard how she’d been in the hospital 250 days out of the last year. I heard how tired she was.
The second time I visited, she said she was okay now. Knowing that she was not okay, I stayed with her. I listened as she questioned how a benevolent God could let this happen. How could God abandon her and her family? If God believes in forgiveness, why was God punishing her husband after he righted his wrongs?
As I sat with her, I felt helpless. I wanted to wave a magic wand and make all her problems go away. I didn’t even have answers to her questions, let alone solutions. Witnessing her pain was uncomfortable and heavy, and I felt insecure under the weight of it.
I brought the situation to my supervisor, who lamented that we are not miracle workers. “As much as we want to,” he said, “we cannot fix people or their problems. All we can do is make sure they don’t go through it alone.”
The third time I visited her, the anger was gone. She was now ready to take on the extremely heavy burden of sorrow. She did not yell. She cried. She cried and cried. And as she cried, she felt relief. She felt her load lessen. Her problems were not solved, but she felt more prepared to face them.
This is the power of witnessing. We don’t have to have the answers. We don’t have to make the situation better. Sometimes all someone needs is to be witnessed in their hardship.
We call God chen v’chesed, grace and kindness, and aspire to those attributes ourselves. But these English words can’t fully encapsulate the meaning behind chen v’chesed. Rabbi Shai Held describes chen not as grace, but as love that one has done nothing to earn. Rabbi Tamara Eskenazi defines chesed as kindness that goes beyond what one would expect. Both of these definitions describe a love that is completely unconditional. Examples of chen v’chesed normally involve strangers, as one would expect love and kindness from a friend or family member. Chen v’chesed are not reciprocal, they are not expected, they are not earned by any previous deed or relationship.
When bearing witness, we not only help heal those we witness. By giving love that has not been earned, we affirm that no one needs to earn love in order to deserve it. If we ever feel undeserving, that we’ve done nothing to earn love or kindness, we can remember the chen v’chesed we’ve given others. We know then that it is impossible to be undeserving of love.
We can give and receive chen v’chesed through witnessing. But we must show up.
We live in increased isolation, but it is not a byproduct of our times. We have always had the impulse to hide when we’re hurt. We retreat away from others and into ourselves. We become a shell of what we once were. Since ancient times, we have been coaxed out of our cocoons of comfort to confront our pain in community with others.
Just as we did then, we must show up for each other. We must come together, even if our feet are heavy, even if our burden feels too great to carry. Our burdens are only too heavy if we carry them alone.
Let’s take a weight off our shoulders by coming together. We can help heal others and ourselves by affirming that we are all deserving of love simply by being human. Whether we are called to witness or be witnessed, we must show up and accept the responsibility. We must disrupt the flow when we are in pain, and we must pause when we notice the flow disrupted.
Our ancient rabbis wrote this ritual because it is not intuitive. Because our hearts may be telling us to suppress the sadness. But in our souls, we know that we cannot hold onto the pain. And we all need help letting it out.
May we embrace this challenge to bear witness and be witnessed in this year and years to come. May our love for each other increase the love in our own lives. Love has a rippling effect: love inspires love. Whether we’ve earned it or not, we all deserve love.
In 5785 and beyond, let us accept the responsibility to be there for each other. Let us accept the responsibility to reach out when we’re in need. Let us accept the responsibility to love without condition, without reciprocation, without prompting. In our holy task of repairing the world, let us start with ourselves, let us start with love.
Comentários