When Our Grief is Collective

How did we get here? Our nation is so divided, and a majority appears to have chosen the politics of grievance and of anger, anchored in “othering” millions – including many of us, and many of our neighbors. A tremendous number of Americans fear the loss of our democratic norms; the abrogation of our own rights as well as the rights of others; a rejection of our determination to dismantle systemic racism and to combat antisemitism; and an abandonment of rational, fact-based decision-making, let alone basic civility. We are anxious about the fates of people and nations around the world.

The ground on which we were standing has shifted and we are in unfamiliar, unstable territory. We are shaken, we are scared. I often use this metaphor of constantly changing topography when I am talking to someone in avelut, who is grieving. Every person’s path through mourning is different but one thing that they all share is that the landscape of grief tends to shift suddenly and that mourners find themselves without maps, unaware of landmines and bogs and the edges of cliffs. 

I think that for many of us the metaphor of grief is apt. Jewish wisdom teaches that we should make space for mourning and releases us from obligations for a set period so that we may feel our losses deeply. It further teaches that we mourn in community, with others to offer us comfort—to hug us, hand us a tissue, make a cup of tea, to pray with us, side by side. This remains powerfully true even when our grief is collective.

And our millennia-old tradition also encourages resilience and pushes us toward action. Even as we make space for mourning, it cannot be our only response. Judaism teaches that, when we are ready and sometimes even beforehand, we engage. We learn together, pray together, feed each other, visit the sick—and work to repair our broken world.

We engage while drawing on and raising up Jewish values that nourish and sustain us. For me, these include: 

• Tzelem Elohim, the idea that every individual is created in the image of God.
• Ki gerim heyittem be’eretz mitzrayim, remember that you were strangers in Egypt.
• Ahavah rabbah, we are all loved by a great and sustaining love.
• Ol malkhut shamayim, we act in humble partnership with our Creator to bring about a redeemed world.

Never has Reconstructionism’s mission been clearer or more needed. We need to model, we need to advocate, we need to build communities reflecting our values, we need to show up as allies, we need to love. In keeping with a core mitzvah of Judaism, we need to do all this together, in community.

I am happy to share this beautiful prayer of comfort by Sybil Sanchez Kessler found on Ritualwell. For other prayers and poems, click here. For Evolve’s symposium on safeguarding democracy—a set of Jewish reflections on Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny—click here.