It is rare in this era to find a religious voice that helps illuminate not just the darkness but also a series of basic truths that, once revealed, appear so innately intuitive, so clear, they outline something we might have suspected all along, had someone simply put words to the idea. One of those voices belongs to Rabbi Sharon Brous, a founder of Ikar, a Jewish community in Los Angeles. What Rabbi Brous does in a guest essay today, and in her new book, from which this essay was adapted, "The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World," is quietly but forcefully underscore the divinity of our presence to one another, when we are joyful and when we are in pain. Showing up, Rabbi Brous writes in her book, "is a holy practice." Rabbi Brous roots her work in ancient rabbinical text. Her spiritual community's entire foundational ethos can be traced back to a sermon she gave about a lesson from the Mishnah, the rabbinical legal compendium, which described a pilgrimage the faithful took in the era of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Each worshiper would walk up to the Temple Mount, Rabbi Brous explains, enter the plaza and begin a sacred circular path. Those who had experienced grief that year would enter the same door and walk the same circle but in the opposite direction. Each person who moved with the crowd was then tasked with doing something simple and remarkable: to look directly at the grievers and ask a single question. "What happened to you?" The person in pain would answer. In turn, he or she would receive a blessing. "This timeless wisdom speaks to what it means to be human in a world of pain," writes Rabbi Brous. "This year, you walk the path of the anguished. Perhaps next year, it will be me. I hold your broken heart knowing that one day you will hold mine." This ritual, Rabbi Brous continues, offers lessons about the sacredness of presence wherever you are in your life. "Asking, with an open heart, 'Tell me about your sorrow,' may be the deepest affirmation of our humanity, even in terribly inhumane times," she writes. I first heard Rabbi Brous explain this Mishnah in 2017, when she came to speak at my synagogue. I had not gone thinking an evening talk would change me in some way; I went because Rabbi Brous went to my high school, a bit ahead of me. I just wanted to reintroduce myself, to say hello. But I found myself in awe of the text she offered, and of her interpretation: None of us are immune from pain, nor will we protect ourselves from heartbreak if we refuse to recognize it in our communities, in ourselves, in the world around us. In the years since, I have found myself returning to the power of the simple query from the Mishnah Rabbi Brous taught that night (in Hebrew, "Mah lach," or "Mah lecha" — essentially, "What happened to you?"), again and again in these hard years, particularly after I switched direction, metaphorically, in the circle we all walk. Read the guest essay:
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Friday, January 19, 2024
Opinion Today: “Do not take your broken heart and go home”
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