This year ‘Mental Health Awareness Shabbat’ falls on Parashat Va’eira where Moses tells the Jewish nation that their woes have ended and that redemption is at hand. This should have been a time of elation, but the Israelites were too overwhelmed by their own stresses to absorb this message. They had lost hope and could not imagine a positive future for themselves. Stresses in life may be inevitable but it is comforting to have hope that the future can bring our own personal redemption and in turn can bring us from darkness into light.
I have sadly encountered a lot of mental illness in my personal as well as professional life. My grandfather saw a psychiatrist for 9 years. In that time he was never asked & never mentioned that his parents, siblings & entire family died in the Shoah. When I was very young, my grandfather died by suicide. That event has had a traumatic impact on my family, rippling through the generations.
I have lost close friends and almost lost friends due to the impact of mental illness on their lives. In the almost 14 years I’ve been a rabbi, I have obviously encountered many & various congregants in deeply traumatised emotional states. I am talking about this today because I don’t think there should be shame around mental health. I am trying to speak for those unable to speak for themselves.
However, I don’t claim to be an expert. Each person is a unique individual and deserves to be treated asuch. There is no one size fits all. There is no ‘right’ way to speak about mental health & wellbeing.
We know the current UK system is failing in many ways & is deeply underfunded. That is why I will be sharing a list of resources for obtaining help at the end of the service.
Mental Illness is such a broad topic, covering a multitude of feelings and conditions. I’m not going to name them all today. I cannot speak for everyone & I do not know everything, precisely because everyone is different with their own unique experiences & needs.
Mental health refers to our cognitive, behavioural and emotional wellbeing – it is all about how we think, feel and behave. It helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others and make choices. Mental health also includes a person’s ability to enjoy life – to attain a balance between life activities and efforts to achieve psychological resilience.
A medically diagnosable illness can result from a number of factors, including biological, external or developmental. It can affect the way we feel, act and think. And disrupts our ability to work or carry out other daily activities and engage in satisfying personal relationships. It can be managed through prevention, diagnosis, treatment and mental health recovery.
Mental health recovery means being able to live a good life, as defined by the individual, with or without symptoms. It is a unique and personal experience that can have its ups and downs. Mental health recovery focuses on what a person CAN do rather than on what they can’t. It is not necessarily easy or straightforward. Many people describe the need to persevere and to find ways to maintain hope through the most trying times.
Parity of esteem is the principle by which mental health must be given equal priority to physical health. As someone physically ill, I’d say that’s a low bar to set! However, parity of esteem was enshrined in law in 2012. The government requires NHS England to work for parity of esteem to mental and physical health through the NHS Mandate. This has still not yet been realised.
For centuries Judaism has understood depression to be part of life, from Moses who cried out to God, ‘I can no longer bear the burden of this people alone, it is too heavy for me, please kill me, let me no longer see my wretchedness’
Despite medical advances in treating mental illness, so many misconceptions still exist. We all need to be clear, mental illness is not a moral failing, it is not a weakness or a character flaw.
In Leviticus 19:18 is klal gadol, the greatest principle of the Torah, at the very centre of the Torah scroll, it says ‘V’ahavta I’rechah kamocha’, ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’ Love can be an act of defiance against oppression. Love is part of the covenant between God and the Jewish people which binds us to God and to one another. However, on the flipside of this famous verse to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ is the obligation to love ourselves the same way we’d value someone else. The word ‘kamocha’ ‘as yourself’ gives us the internal energy to love others. Kamocha tells us that each of us have self worth, that we are deserving of love.
Even the Talmud discusses depression and how best to offer support. In Berakhot, we read the story of Rabbi Eleazar who is ill, suffering from deep despair. When his friend, Rabbi Yochanan, visits him, he finds Eleazar alone in a darkened room, facing the wall.
He cannot bear to see the light; even the light from Yochanan’s arm is too bright for his eyes and his soul. When Yochanan sees his friend crying he asks, “Why are you crying?” Then Eleazar finally answers, “I weep because all light fades into darkness, because all beauty eventually rots.” Yochanan, sitting beside his friend replies, “Yes, ultimately everything does die. So perhaps you have reason to weep.” Then Yochanan sat down with his friend and wept alongside him. After a while Yochanan asked, “Does darkness comfort you? Do you want these sufferings?” “No,” Eleazar says. “Then give me your hand,” replies Yochanan,and he lifts Rabbi Eleazar up from his bed and out of his darkened room. Sometimes, the Talmud teaches us, the best way to help people who suffer is to just be present with them and accompany them in their darkness and into the light of day. Sometimes, the Talmud teaches us, the best way to help people who suffer is not to talk them out of their pain or tell them they will get better soon; it is to just be present with them and accompany them in their darkness.
‘Social capital’ is a phrase that has been bandied about by politicians and lay leaders in recent years and refers to the value of social connection. It encapsulates how we feel about where we live, as well as those we meet. Capital is usually understood as the ability to use wealth to leverage privilege. However, social capital is not measured by finance but by people power.We can leverage social capital through our connections – by being with other people we trust and who respect and value us.
Because of society’s poor attitude to mental health, people may feel a multitude of negative feelings. Part of the aim of Mental Health Awareness Shabbat is to stress our community’s responsibility to shake the stigma & make ourselves approachable, inclusive and wellcoming without fear of judgement.
Hanistarot, the hidden things, belong to God. But our Torah teaches us that the v’haniglaot, the revealed things, belong to us. If we feel able, I encourage us, to make what is hidden revealed, for our sake, for our loved ones’ sake and for the sake of our whole communty.
I pray that we all have courage and strength as we wrestle with our mental health & illness and that we are met by love, understanding and support. May we be embraced by community.
