House Calls Podcast

The Power of Showing Up for Each Other

With guest Sharon Brous,

Rabbi & Author 

Hello and welcome to House Calls. I'm Vivek Murthy and I have the honor of serving as U.S. Surgeon General. I'd like to introduce you to Rabbi Sharon Brous. Today, we talk about the power of showing up, in good times and hard times, and the healing effects of community. How do we accompany our loved ones, and even strangers, through difficult times? And if we are hurting, why can it be so difficult for us to ask for help? How can we trust that our hearts will be met with tenderness? I've been pondering these weighty questions, especially in these times, which can feel despairing and lonely. In Rabbi Sharon Brous, I have found a kindred spirit. I think about these questions of what it means to be human from the lens of a doctor. She thinks about them as a faith leader. Rabbi Brous is the founding rabbi of IKAR, a Jewish community in Los Angeles, created in 2004 to reinvigorate Jewish practice. She's also the author of The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and the World, in which she guides readers towards ways we can show up for each other in grief and sorrow and in joy and celebration. In this conversation, we talk about what it looks like to meet another's pain with compassion. Our culture sometimes looks at pain as a sign of imperfection, vulnerability as a sign of weakness. As Sharon and I talk about our own experiences, we share how the opposite is in fact true. Vulnerability and pain can be extraordinary sources of strength and healing. The simple acts of going to the funeral, going to the birthday party, of being there for moments of joy and grieving, these matter. These simple acts are powerful. It's not always about fixing other people's problems. It's about showing up and making them feel that they're not alone in their pain. I hope this episode helps all of us recognize the intrinsic power we have to heal by meeting our loved ones and those we don't know by just showing up.

Well Sharon, I am so excited that we are talking today. I've been in preparation for this just reading through and listening to some of the interviews and sermons that you've shared, reading excerpts from your incredible book, The Amen Effect, which I'm excited for us to talk about today. And I just can't think of a better time, not only for your book, but for this conversation because, you know, as you've spoken about so eloquently, there is a lot that people feel is dark in the world right now. We're looking at major conflicts around the world, whether it's in Israel, Gaza, or the Ukraine, other parts of the world. Even at home here in the United States, we're seeing many challenges that we're faced up against. Young people talk about the challenges of climate change, certainly across the world, which has been a profound challenge. And in the midst of all this darkness, though, you've been talking about the importance of finding and focusing on moments of light as well. So I wanted to actually start there, but just by asking you about your own life over the last week, can you think of a moment of light that stuck with you that you might wanna share with us?

Oh, there have been so many. And I want to say last night, just before I fell asleep, I actually pulled out a pen and paper and started writing down moments that I was grateful for, tiny moments just from the last couple of days that I didn't want to forget. So yeah, we had an incredible Shabbat service Friday night with about 700 people packed into this high school gym that you know well, because you've been in there with us. And we, it was the, the music and the spirit was transporting. And I had a moment, it's been 20 years since we built the community, but I had a moment as we were singing together, I just closed my eyes and I felt like I was connecting back to all the times that we had sang the same melodies for like years and years and years back. And literally to, you know, holding my oldest who's 20 years old in my. arms as I would sing and lead the services to now, you know, she's off out in the world living in New York City and just watching the progression of time and noting the way that the that each individual human in that room has impacted my life and helped me understand the world differently and that each person has had a similar impact on each other and I just I felt this incredible moment of I felt like I was time traveling and also witness to kind of the invisible threads that connect people that we can't see, but we know exist.

Oh my God, what a beautiful experience. I had chills as you were describing that, to feel community, but to feel community across time is particularly powerful, and it sounds like you had that experience. And you're right, when we were together in Los Angeles, when you were kind enough to invite me to join you for Yom Kippur in 2023, it was such a powerful experience of being there in a shared sacred space with so many people, and just to feel their energy to feel the power of your words during your sermon. And I just can't imagine how much it has meant to people there to have that space, especially during times like this. So, Juan, thank you for creating that, for the community there and for giving me a chance to be a part of it.

Thank you. It was truly one of the great moments in the history of our community to have you there. Our community was so deeply touched by your words and by your spirit, just the beautiful spirit of generosity that you bring. You embody your message in just the way that you speak. It was very touching. People are still talking about and quoting you from that day. So thank you so much for being with us.

That's so kind of you Sharon. And speaking of actually spirit, which is a word I've been thinking about a lot lately, if you think about the spirit of our society right now, of our country in particular, how would you describe the state of our spirit?

Well, part of the reason that I started the community in Los Angeles that we built 20 years ago was because I felt that we were experiencing a spiritual crisis and that it was an existential crisis. It was a different spiritual crisis than the one that we're in now. Different but related. I mean, I felt many years ago in 2004 when we started that it was a crisis of apathy and indifference, that there was so much human suffering in this country and in the world, and that too many people had gotten too comfortable. And as soon as people were able to kind of detach from the acute pain, they would choose the path of detachment. And so the spiritual crisis that I identified at that time was that we had to, in many ways, afflict the comfortable. We had to make people, we had to wake people up. to what was going on and the ways in which we're all connected to one another and therefore responsible for one another, both spiritually and morally. And now I think we have a different set of spiritual crises. I mean, something that you and I both care so deeply about, which I think is defined in many ways the last decade, as opposed to the first decade of our community, but really the last 10 years. the intersecting crises of loneliness, social alienation, isolation, and also political division and ideological extremism, which make it so that we literally dehumanize one another. We cannot see the humanity in each other. And so we've moved from kind of apathy toward aggressive adversity. We see one another as opponents in a way that people pose an existential threat to our way of life. And so we dehumanize one another and it's incredibly dangerous. And so now the message of my rabbinate, the pastoral message is we actually have to rehumanize ourselves and one another because we are fundamentally, obviously deeply connected to one another and the only way that we survive this time is together. The only vision for a future, a just future, a healthy planetary future, a future of wellbeing and thriving, is if we're able to reclaim our own humanity in one another's. That's, I think, at the heart of the spiritual crisis that we're experiencing today.

So Sharon, I like how you describe that, particularly the spiritual crisis element, because it does feel like what we're dealing with is really deep, that there are the issues we read about in the paper every day, which are contributing to that crisis. But there's something that has happened deeper underneath the surface, where, to your point, it does feel like we become disconnected from one another, distrustful of one another, and that somehow we have become separated in a way that I think is is directly contradictory to our aims of addressing some of these bigger challenges that we see on the outside. We can't do that alone as solo actors. And this is something that I think is so important and why your book is so timely. You know, you've been talking a lot recently just about the importance of us showing up in each other's lives, of overcoming some of that distrust and disconnection that we have perhaps built up over recent years. and coming back together, re -entering one another's lives. The power of showing up, I find to be incredibly compelling, and the way you've talked about it has been really compelling. It feels like such a simple act. It's so simple, in fact, that it often belies, I think, the incredible power that it holds. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about this, about what does it mean to show up in other people's lives, and why does it have so much power?

Yeah, I will. The heart, the best paradigm of this is actually rooted in an ancient text and which describes an ancient ritual that has really been my north star for the last many years and especially the last few months. But it's a ritual of pilgrimage at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. And the way that it was described is that hundreds of thousands of people used to ascend to Jerusalem, ascend the steps of the Temple Mount, this holiest site. and then turn to the right and circle around the perimeter of the courtyard of this space and then exit. Except it says for someone with a broken heart, that someone with a broken heart would go up to Jerusalem, up the steps, but they would turn to the left. And so you would have this encounter of the people who that day were a little bit okay, and the people who that day were not okay. And they would pass each other in this circle, but instead of walking on, the ritual called them to actually look into each other's eyes and the person who's coming from the side of the people who have a little bit of strength that day would look at the brokenhearted person and say, what happened to you? How's your heart? Tell me your story. And the person who's not well would say, my loved one died or I'm sick or someone I love is sick or I just feel so alone in this world. And then the person who's walking from the right would offer a blessing. May you find comfort in this place. May the one who dwells here comfort you. And the reason this ritual lives so deeply in my spirit is because I realized that It is completely counter instinctual for all the parties that are involved. So the person who's not okay does not want to get out of bed and show up in this place and be seen by all of these people. And the person who's okay might be having a peak spiritual moment of their life and does not want to stop to see someone who's brokenhearted, who's kind of dragging, walking at a different pace, walking in a different direction, leave the flow of people to actually stop and say, hey, what's going on? I can see that you're not okay. And yet that is precisely the sacred work of this place. And so I've been thinking about how in moments of crisis, we tend to retreat from one another. when we need exactly the opposite. What we need is to reinforce connection, but every instinct in our body tells us to pull away, both the person who's actually in acute suffering and the people who could and should be there to support them, but who feel terrified by the brokenhearted's pain. And there are lots of good reasons why people pull away in moments when they should show up. They don't think that they're wanted or needed there. They don't know the right words to say. They're afraid that the pain is contagious, that divorce is contagious, that the cancer that somebody is fighting is contagious. And so instead they pull away. And what the ritual is reminding us is no, you stop and you look at one another and you engage each other and you actually ask the question and see one another's humanity. That is the greatest gift that we can give each other. And I realized something so powerful about this ritual that… When the people who are brokenhearted go up to the Temple Mount, this holy site, they're not going there to get blessed by the priests. It's the people who bless them. In other words, we all have the power to see one another, to show up for one another, and also to bless each other. But we don't think we do. And so we turn the healing power over to the doctors, and we turn the caregiving power over to the clergy and to the psychologists. But actually, we all have the power to simply show up for each other, to see each other in suffering and enjoy, and to simply say, I see you, I can see your humanity right now and I can affirm you. And what we know is that when people are hurting the most, often that simple act of sacred presence, of sacred accompaniment is precisely what the heart needs in order to begin to heal.

Beautifully said and what a powerful ritual that you're describing one that goes back obviously Thousands of years but has incredible power and applicability to today. I think the reasons you describe why people Don't approach and show up for others who are in pain. I think that those are really spot -on I think it can be intimidating frightening scary for people who feel like hey, I don't know how to fix their problem And I think the point you're getting at, which I think is so powerful, is it's not about fixing other people's problem. It's about showing up and making sure that others know they are not alone. This is something obviously you, as a rabbi, obviously do a lot. You know, you people I know come to you often in moments of great pain and in moments of great joy. And you have to find ways to sit with them and to guide them or comfort them, even in the absence of knowing how to fix all of their problems. I was wondering if there's something from your experience that you can share here that might empower or teach people how to confront those moments when they feel scared, when they realize, okay, I've got a friend who's struggling, but I don't know what to do. What advice would you have for people that may enable them to find the courage or resources to actually show up in those moments?

I’ll tell you two stories. One, there was a tragic loss in our community of a young, beautiful young man in the community, 20 years old, died in a freak skiing accident. And as his parents were grieving for him, his father shared with me that so many people were showing up, but they were showing up to try to make… to try to make the family feel better. And he said, I don't want to feel better. I want to grieve because my son just died and I want to just be, I want to be allowed to be in the grief. And he said, I don't want you to fix me. I just want you to be with me. I just want you to bear witness. And so this idea of bearing witness really struck me because it's at the heart of what we learn in pastoral care that our job, we can't, we're not mechanics and we are not surgeons at like you are. We cannot actually fix somebody, but we can be with them through the darkness. And I think we spoke about this when you came to, on, Yom Kippur, the story of the end of the first day of creation, when the first day that human beings were created on the sixth day of creation, when the sun starts to set and Adam, the first person, has never seen darkness before. And so he starts to cry and then he starts to wail and scream and cry. He's terrified that the whole world is ending. He's catastrophizing the way that we do when we encounter darkness and especially when we encounter real darkness for the first time. And he blames himself. He says, this is my fault, according to the ancient rabbinic texts. And the only thing that gives him strength is that Eve, his partner, comes and sits across from him and just cries with him through the rest of the night. And so I think very often that the great, question that we're called to ask ourselves through life is, who will weep with you through the dark night of the soul? Because there will be darkness. And Eve's job was not to convince him that it wasn't his fault and not to convince him that there would be a new dawn, because she didn't know either that there would be. It was just to be with him and to cry with him. And I think that's very holy work. And so the first story is, the family that lost their beautiful son. There's another story in the community of another young man who died tragically from by suicide. And I only found out years later that two beloveds in my community decided to call the bereaved mother on the Friday after her son died because they discovered his body on a Friday. And they just thought, God, Fridays must be really hard for her. And so they called on Friday. and then they called the next Friday, and then they called the next Friday, and they only found out about it literally three years later, because neither of them told me about it. But they engaged in this act of showing up that was designed to, I don't even know if they meant this at the outset, but what it ended up doing was it created this container of love and relentless presence that essentially said to her, we're here, we're here, and we're gonna just, a small touch point, a simple phone call, sometimes five minutes, sometimes 20 minutes, every single Friday, because we know that Fridays are hard for you. And now she credits that with part of what helped her survive in the really grueling days after this loss. So that's the kind of presence that I'm talking about. Not trying to fix someone, just simply saying, I am here and I will be here and I know I can't make you better, but I'm witness to your grief, to your loss and to your love. And I'll be back next week.

That is so powerful and it rings true for me deeply as well as somebody who has been on both sides of that. I think like all of us have moments where I've been in pain and moments where I witnessed pain. And I remember that there were times where I was around people who were in pain where sometimes I wondered, gosh, do I really, not only can I not fix, you know, can I really fix their problem, but also do I need to cheer them up? Do I need to distract them from their problem? What if I don't know how to do that? What I hear you saying, which is so powerful is we don't have to do any of those things. We don't have to solve, distract, cheer up. Our goal is to be present because one of the extraordinary accelerants of pain is to go through pain alone. And that's something I saw a lot as a doctor in the hospitals with people who were in pain, both literally and physically that is, and emotionally, at a profound level. Yet some of them had people who were with them. during those times, and others were profoundly alone, and presence makes such a difference. You know, there's one story that you're reminding me of in my own life, which is, you know, I recently developed this frozen shoulder on the right, and I suspect you may know something about this, but I, you know, I think you may have experienced this yourself, but it's quite painful, you know, it's a sort of thing that can develop over time, and sometimes the pain just comes. like when you're reaching for something that's close to you and you're like, I didn't think that was going to be painful, but all of a sudden you're, you're yelping in pain. And so I happened to be reaching out to give something to my son and daughter when they were at the, at the dining table. And all of a sudden my arm caught and it was such excruciating pain, like lancing through my shoulder that I literally had to get down on the ground and I was like holding my shoulder. And at that moment, when I got down on the ground, I felt a hand on my shoulder. and a head resting on my head. And I thought it was my wife Alice who had heard what was happening in the kitchen and had come out to see what was going on. And she had come out, but it turns out that that hand and that head were actually that of my seven -year -old son who had gotten off the office chair, had quietly just come up to me and held me. And I still like, you know, I'm sort of tears thinking about that in that moment because what he called upon in that moment, was a deeper human wisdom that we're all born with, that tells us that our presence can heal, that calls us to show up in each other's lives during moments of pain. And he did that instinctually. Like he's not old enough where things have, you know, messages have come to him or other factors have layered on top of his instincts that tell him, no, don't do that. You know, like he's following his instincts. And I just, I think about that often because I want to actually learn from him. Yeah. And do that more readily in my own life, because I think, like you said, we all have the power to heal.

I love that so much. And I had a similar experience with my son when he was about 10 years old. The family was biking together and I lost my balance and fell off the bike and landed on my knee. And I had that terrible feeling when you feel like you're going to throw up and you can't get your bearings. And I just sort of stumbled to the grass on the side of the road. I just needed to lie down on the grass and just get my bearings again. And my son just threw his bike down and came over and just cuddled inside my arms. Like he climbed inside my arms the way he did when I would like, you know, help put him to bed. And I just couldn't believe it. Like that he didn't say a word. And I was crying in pain and he just climbed right inside. And I just was so moved by that. And I think there is something about our children innately understanding that human need. And then think about all of the layers of disconnection that we learn as we grow up that distance us from that sacred instinct to just hold each other in the pain. And it's not because your son thought that his hand would heal you or my son thought his little body would heal me, but… but on some level they did. And it's kind of astonishing and it's also devastating because if we think that that is instinctive, then how do we reclaim it? And I mean, what has removed us from that instinct and how can we get back to that sort of sacred core? There's a story in the Talmud that I think often about one of the rabbis, Rabbi Yochanan, who… These rabbis, by the way, I mean, when we study in seminary, they become like our best friends. And so we get to know their stories, like not just their wise quotes, but really their life stories. And Rabbi Yochanan, he suffered a lot of tragedy in his life. He lost his parents very early. And so he became this incredible support to bereaved children whose parents died young. And then he lost his children, all of them. And it's a story of incredible tragic loss, but it… It seems like that those exceptional losses made him an exceptional healer because the stories that are told about him are that when somebody was unwell, Rabbi Yochanan would show up at their house and he would just touch them, hold their hand and help lift them up. And we don't know if that means lift them up physically or lift their spirits up. And then, of course, one day Rabbi Yochanan himself gets sick. And the lesson of the story is that he needs someone else to lift him up because he, he, it says in the text, a prisoner cannot free himself from prison. So here you are, the Surgeon General and you know, a doctor who cares for everyone, but you need your son to put his tiny hand on you to help you feel that you yourself can, you know, can move through this pain. And then in the coda to the story, um, he's up again, back on his feet and. there's another person gets sick and he goes to their side. But this time in the story, he starts assuming that he knows what the patient needs. He says, I'm assuming that it's because of this, this, this, this, and this, and none of it's working and all of his sacred healing power seems to have dissipated. And finally, the patient says to him, I'm just, I'm broken because I understand how fragile we all are in this world, including you and including me. And when Rabbi Yochanan hears this, he just bursts into tears and he sits down on the bed with the patient and they cry together. And then they're able to rise together. And so it's this incredible, this journey of a healer who through his own loss, develops the capacity to see people's brokenness, cannot heal himself, and also reaches the outer limits of his own ability to heal because every patient, every, every… congregant, every human needs something different and we are as healers have to remember to listen and to listen deeply in order to hear what people actually need and then make ourself allow ourselves to be vulnerable with the people that we are guiding on the healing journey, which for me has been an incredibly important model as a pastor, as a rabbi.

What a powerful story about that rabbi and what tragedy he endured. And I think sometimes we might assume that if we are in pain that we can't help others. And this is actually a point I wanted to ask you about because I do think that for there are many people in our world right now who are feeling brokenhearted and who are feeling like their spirits have cracked and who are feeling like they're in deep pain. And that could be because of personal loss of a loved one. It could be because of how events in the world are unfolding and affecting them at a deeper level. It could be for a variety of reasons. But how do we show up for others when we ourselves are feeling like we are in pain?

I think we can only really show up for others when we are able to tap into our own pain. I think that that's part of the failed model of this rabbi in the final story that he's going to come in as if he's a healer who has all the answers, but he actually had to tap into his own heartache. A few stories, like one after there was a really terrible loss in our community. a family was driving on a family trip and they were hit by a drunk driver and the two children died. And the parents who are beloved friends and members of our community survived this wreck but lost their children. And it was, I mean, obviously just horrific, unthinkable loss. And about six months after that loss, there was another tragic loss in the community. And after speaking with the the family of the second loss, I knew I had to get to the family that had experienced this first loss, because I couldn't have them find out about it from a word of mouth or community email. And I called them, and they were only a few months from the loss of their own children. And when I told them the news that another young person in the community had died and this horrific tragedy had unfolded, they took a moment and then they said, really, I mean, this was their instant response: please tell the parents that when they're ready, if they want to talk, we're right here and maybe we can help them. And I just realized this is the fellowship of suffering. This is the way that in our own vulnerability, we can meet each other in vulnerability because if we don't admit that we are vulnerable and that we don't have to experience the same kind of loss as someone else to be able to be present for them, but we have to tap into our own vulnerability in order to be truly present. We have to understand that our lives too are precious and precarious and that we have no idea what the future might hold. That's how we can be really spiritually present for one another. And I have seen that a thousand times in the work. I've seen people who literally get up from Shiva, from the house of mourning and go into someone else's house of mourning because they have a little bit more strength that they can offer right now. and they understand how powerful and meaningful it was when someone showed up for them. So now they're going to show up for the next person. I have one moment that happened to me more than 20 years ago that I remember like it was yesterday after a terrible loss that happened when I had just become a rabbi. It was actually my first house of mourning that I ever went into as a clergy person. And the mother who had experienced this loss was just, inconsolable and all of her loved ones were around her, but nobody could reach her. And then I witnessed a stranger come through the door and look around this room packed with people and find the bereaved mother. And she made her way over and I was standing right next to the mother. So I witnessed this sacred moment where she just, she kneeled down on the ground and she held the hands of this bereaved mother. And she said, I read about what happened to your daughter in the paper. She said, my daughter, my child died a few years ago and I want to tell you that you will survive this and one, it's a hellscape, she said, but one day you will help other parents who've lost their children too. And the women wept and held each other. And that, that is the fellowship of suffering. That's what it means to be willing to hold our own broken hearts and go toward another person instead of retreat from them. Because we understand that only through connection can we actually help one another survive the worst nightmares of our lives and maybe, maybe find a new dawn that emerges in the morning.

Oh my god, what a powerful story. You're reducing needed tears here. This is incredibly moving. I think what you… what you're helping us understand, I think is so incredibly powerful, which is that… our pain and our vulnerability can be extraordinary sources of strength and healing. And I don't think we always look at it that way. I think we look at our pain as a sign of imperfection. Sometimes we look at our vulnerability as a sign of weakness. But in the story after story that you share, it is clear that that's not the case, that it's our, it's those, perhaps our brokenness. It is our ability to be open about that. and honest about that, that allows us to connect deeply with other people. I'll share in the spirit of openness, just something that I was not proud of that I experienced very early on in my medical career, which is, I remember this, I think this was like right after I finished training. I had to go to the doctor myself and I can't remember what exactly was wrong, what I needed to get checked out and I needed to see the doctor. And I remember going to the clinic, And this is the same outpatient clinic that many of my patients that I was taking care of inside the hospital went to. And I remember feeling uncomfortable about sitting in the waiting room where everyone would see me. And I remember, I was like, why am I feeling uncomfortable? Like sitting in the waiting room to get care for my own health. And I talked about it with a friend who gave me the succinct diagnosis, which was, she said, Vivek. That's messed up. That was her conclusion. But she helped me dig through it. And I realized that what was going on there is that, and I didn't know this consciously, but this was what was going on. I was worried that by being seen in the waiting room, I would be seen as potentially being sick and being broken, and that that would make a patient think that I was less able to help them. because I couldn't help myself somehow and keep myself healthy. And there's like so much going on like in that like way of thinking, but it took me like recognizing that and working through it to realize that actually that's exactly the opposite, that things happen to all of us. And sometimes if we go through a difficult experience, rather than hiding that from the people who are who we love or the people we're trying to serve in the case of our patients, we could draw upon that as a source of connection, a way to relate to what they're going through, but also a way to make ourselves better healers and better human beings. But I was thinking about that when I was, because it's a moment I actually, I don't think I've shared with anyone outside of my friend, actually, who I talked to many, many years ago about this, but you're reminding me of just such an important lesson, and that as much as I thought I was learning medicine and… you know, had the skills to like be a healer, I realize now that they were important pieces of the puzzle I did not have, despite having finished medical school and residency.

That's an incredible lesson. A few weeks before you came to IKAR for Yom Kippur this past year, my father died. And I had a similar experience to what you're describing, actually. There's so many parallels between the way that we see and experience the world. So I really cherish this opportunity to connect with you. But my father died and I learned so many lessons around being a mourner, being a person who needs to be taken care of instead of being the caregiver. But one of them was that in the house of mourning, the responsibility is on the community to hold the mourner. I mean, the mourner stays in Jewish tradition, stays in the house for a full week, doesn't go to work, doesn't really leave the house. And the community comes and feeds you and takes care of you and sits with you in the silence, hears stories, looks at pictures, et cetera. And we had a lot of people come for Shiva, the house of mourning. Just my dad was beloved in the community and my mom, people love, my mom's like the mayor of Ikar, so she knows everyone's name. So, but also just the rabbi of the community and wonderful people came and I was so grateful. But honestly, the house was packed with people. And I was the worst mourner because I was supposed to sit and let people come over and engage me. But I was jumping up and running over and thanking people, which you're not supposed to do, and asking how their surgery went and asking how their mother was and asking how, and, oh, it's so great that you're kind of you to be here and tell me how your child is doing. And finally, literally my husband and Melissa, my partner in the work at IKAR, literally, they're like, you need to sit down now. You're being a bad rabbi. You are modeling for the community. You're being a bad model for the community now of what it means to receive love. It's okay to not take care of everyone tonight. And I was really angry about it. And I'm like, no, but I'm seeing I can I'm okay. I can ask them how they're doing and how the surgery went and how every they said, no, you need to sit down. And they literally by the third or fourth night had me just sitting on the bench, at the mourners bench and people were kind of walking by and then asking me how I was. And I started to understand this, there's a power to these rituals. There's a power to receiving also the care. And it's so counter instinctual for some of us. And for those people, it's even more important that we receive it because it's a total reorientation. It's a spiritual reorientation and it's really essential. So I'm so glad you learned that lesson early on. I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't learn that lesson until, you know, after 20 plus years in the field. It took me, because this was the first time that I was really a mourner from in my immediate family. And so I knew the rules and I helped other people live those, those rules and practice those rules. But I myself failed to do it until I was literally forced to do it by my beloveds.

Well, Sharon, I don't think there's anything to be embarrassed about there, because I think that we're all having to be reminded over the course of our lives of how to be human. And we need people around us to remind us of that. That is very hard to do on our own. If I didn't have that friend who sat me down and said, Vivek, that's messed up. Let's think this through. Why are you feeling this way? I might still be operating the same way. But I think we all move forward and we move backward. But what allows us to, I think, move forward are the people around us. And… That's where I, you know, I actually want to ask you about one other thing related to this, which is up until now we've been talking about how we can show up in other people's lives, right? People who are hurting. And when you shared the story about your father, the loss of your father, which I actually remember that time when your father passed away and I'm so, so sorry, you know, for that painful loss that you went through and experience your family went through. But the way you put this is that that was your experience of having to turn left, right? To use the analogy of the ancient ritual from Jerusalem. And this is a moment, previously that you were turning right, you were the one offering the care, inquiring about others, and now you were the one turning left and moving in a circle in that direction in need of care. And I think that for a lot of people, it is incredibly hard to ask for help. Yes. You had friends who sat you down and said no except to help But I think for a lot of people they either don't have those folks or even if they do it just it is a very difficult. I'll share with you one story actually that just happened this past weekend for me, which is I have a family member who I don't see all that often but my wife and I were able to to get together with him this past weekend and he is a just an incredibly incredible human being, you he's a father. He's a just incredibly kind, generous human being, and we're just so blessed to have him as a member of our family. But he's also been struggling, you know, in different, you know, over the years, you know, in his life. And we were never 100 % sure where the struggle was coming from. I think we worried maybe it was work -related, maybe it was family -related. We weren't always 100 % sure. But I remember coming home on many occasions and saying to my wife, I'm worried about him, you know. And this past time when we got together this past weekend, he… He said to us, he said, you know, I think I've had a breakthrough. And we're like, oh, what happened? And he said, well, I finally realized that I was really good at performative vulnerability, where I sort of made it seem like I was sharing and being open with other people. But the reality is that I was never comfortable with asking for help. I never actually. requested it or I wasn't very good at accepting it also when it was offered. And he said, I've realized over time that that has meant that I'm sitting with more and more pain. And I now realize that I need to be better about asking for help. And it was such a powerful thing for him to say. I think whenever people have those moments of openness and honest sharing, I think it is such a service to the people around them. Because like for me, that pushed me to also think about, wow, Am I living my life with the kind of honesty that he's living his life with in this moment? But it also helped me realize that, ah, there's an opening here for me to be better at showing up for him. My wife and I love him. I don't know that we've ever said that to him. I think we should say that to him more often. But I realized that I could do better in showing up for him. But his breakthrough reminded me of how many people are out there who are struggling with this difficult question of, how do I accept? help, how do I open myself up to support in a world that constantly seems to tell us that being independent, not needing other people is a source of strength. So I'm curious if you have, like both from your own experience when your father passed and from experiences counseling others, how do you, would you suggest that people get more comfortable asking for that help?

Yeah, that's an incredible breakthrough that he had and could be a life -saving breakthrough. I mean, the realization that real vulnerability can be, that our broken hearts can be entrusted in a community of care, even if that community is just you and your wife, right? That it's so hard to trust that you'll really be held. And so the idea of performative vulnerability is so powerful. I'll tell you, we enacted this on Friday night, this past Friday night. I told you it was this incredible Shabbat experience because there were so many people there and there was such a beautiful spirit and the music was incredible. And I spoke about the ritual because we were, it was, I was speaking about the book and kind of celebrating the entry of this book into the world. And then I invited the community to do the ritual and I've never done this before. because really I'm using the ritual as a metaphor that, you know, can we see each other when we're okay and when we're not okay, can we be honest about that? Can we meet vulnerability with vulnerability? Can we meet sorrow with sorrow? So I said, I'm just gonna ask everyone to engage in this exercise with me for a moment. And I asked everyone to stand up and I said, folks who are really… feeling okay today, like you're in a good moment in your life and you've got some strength in you and I hope that that's most of the people in the room. I'm just going to invite you to go to the outer edge and start to circle around this room counterclockwise. And then I said, I'm going to, I'm going to circle in the direction of the mourner because I'm in my year of mourning and I am inviting anybody who's not okay today to walk with me in this direction. And the promise that we're gonna make to each other is that nobody who's coming clockwise is gonna make it around the circle without having at least someone stop, see them, ask them what happened to you, and then bless them. That's the sacred promise we're making to each other. And then literally hundreds of people got up and we did the ritual and it was incredibly powerful. And I found myself… just walking the path of the mourner, remembering the lesson from the house of mourning, saying, I am not gonna check in on the person who's coming toward me right now. I am just gonna let them hold me because I'm grieving the death of my father. And I haven't really grieved Vivek. I mean, he died right before High Holy Days. This is like tax season for rabbis. And then I said, I'll grieve after the holidays. And the holidays ended and sent us into even more grief, collective grief. And so I felt like I need to grieve my father. And people blessed me. People who I didn't even know who were there that night, there for the first time. And they gave me beautiful blessings. And lots of people were crying. And several people said to me afterwards, I never would have walked to the left. I wouldn't have had the courage to do it if you hadn't said, I'm walking to the left I invite you to walk with me if your heart is broken like mine is. And so I realized even another dimension of this, which is, I mean, it takes so much courage to say, I'm not okay right now. And everyone in the community knows about my loss, but not everybody knows about everyone else's loss. But having one person who says, I'm not okay, and I invite you to be not okay with me, that we can walk in the same direction together was actually so powerful. And many, many people walked to the left in this clockwise direction, and then were held by community. So what needs to happen for us to trust that our hearts will be held with tenderness, that we will be cherished even in our brokenness, even in our not okayness. And then how can we root in communities of that kind of care where we actually know that we will not be abandoned or mocked or degraded in those moments, but will actually be held with love. And when we're going that way, who can we bring along with us who we know also needs to walk the path of the mourner, the path of the brokenhearted.

What an incredible example of leadership by example in you telling people that you are going to walk in that direction to the left and encouraging them to come with you. And I think there's a lesson there for all of us, which is that as we walk this journey, if we can bring someone with us, someone who we may know is in pain or is going through a difficult time, then we can do a lot of good. You know, and I think, and I just love what you shared there. I'm also just wondering, you know, so much of what you've talked about is rooted in your experience as a rabbi. And you've not only been a rabbi who is providing guidance and care and love to so many, but you've also built this community, which I think is something that's very unusual and unique about you, that you were the one who helped create IKAR, that you have, and can you do inspire it. But I was curious if you could say a little bit more about your, this calling that you have are living so beautifully of being a rabbi, being a community leader, being a healer. I think in the deepest sense, like, when did you know that this is the path you would be walking now?

Actually had an epiphany. I had a calling and I remember exactly where I was when it happened. I was actually in Jerusalem studying there for a year during college and I really had intended to be a civil rights attorney. I felt from the time I was young that there was this just profound brokenness in our country and in the world and I thought, I could try to do my part to fix that, to heal that through the law. And I would have pursued that path except that I ended up going on this spiritual journey that led me to Jerusalem to study for a year. And I fell in love with the study of Talmud. These rabbis who I've been talking about in these rituals became my kind of constant companions. I felt a void in my Jewish tradition because there were no voices like mine that were coming from the pages of these sacred texts. And… I just felt like, what a loss. There were women there, but nobody recorded what they were saying or thinking. So when do we start the healing process, where we start to include the voices that were excluded from these dialogues? And so I felt this kind of sacred pull, but then all of this was the kind of growing underneath the surface. And then there was one moment. where it occurred to me that the agents of social change, the people who I admired most in the world, who were leading movements of social change, most of them were people who had faith in some way, who had spiritual lives, who had faith narratives that led them to believe that human beings were created in the image of the divine, that led them to believe that all people deserve to live with dignity. and that there was some kind of redemptive arc to history. And as soon as I had that realization, I thought, my God, I also have a Jewish tradition that believes that we are called to help move history along this redemptive arc from enslavement to freedom, from darkness to light, from narrowness to expansiveness, that we are called to build a society that is a counter testament. to the society of oppression and injustice and human cruelty that our people suffered from. And when we were enslaved in Egypt and throughout history in many different places, persecuted and oppressed throughout time, I thought, God, I have a faith narrative. And I never thought that that was the fuel of my desire to build a just society, but I think it is. And I realized in an instant, all the pieces kind of came together and I thought I want to be a rabbi. I want to excavate sacred texts and traditions. I want to hear ancient voices that help us articulate a vision of what a truly just and loving society could look like and that help us heal. I mean, the first thing I said after I had this realization was, I want to understand how Torah, how ancient texts and tradition can help us heal when we are most broken. That's what I really hungered for. What is our source of spiritual sustenance in the dark of night? And it took me many years to figure out what that spiritual sustenance was. And in fact, that core text that I keep referring back to of the circling, clockwise, counterclockwise, I encountered that text when I was a seminary student and I did not understand it. I mean, I saw the text and I thought, there's something powerful here. I have no idea what this is trying to say to us. And only as I grew and had babies and had miscarriages and stood under the chuppah, under the wedding canopy with people and then helped those same people through divorce when some of those relationships turned out to be unhealthy relationships and helped people through economic collapse and wildfires and personal triumphs and failures. Only then did I say, oh, I can see now how the ancient wisdom. that's actually calling us into a different kind of connectivity, that's calling us to be present and to rehumanize each other. So for me, it really was an epiphanous moment. I thought, all the pieces of my life are coming together now to call to me to say, this sacred tradition needs to be translated into a language of our time. And it's a language of love, it's a language of healing, and it's a language of justice. And I believe it's a language that our time desperately needs. And so when we set out to build the community in 2004, my core question was, how can we excavate our sacred tradition to live lives of meaning and purpose? And then a few years passed and I added a second question, which was, what does our sacred tradition and our history demand of us in a time of moral crisis? meaning once the world is on fire, it's not just about me living a meaningful life, but actually about us collectively building a response to this world of brokenness that will help us bring more love into the world and hopefully find paths toward justice and toward healing, not only for us as individuals, but for all of us as a collective.

Do you, I wonder, every time I've seen you speak, whether it's virtually or in person, there's such a force that emanates from you, a force of goodness, a spirit of hope, a sense of possibility. Do you ever have moments when you despair, when you feel down? and I'm wondering what you do during those moments.

Thank God for Shabbat, for the Sabbath, because as deep as I might go into the darkness during the week, I know that on Shabbat I have to stand before the community and I have to reveal both how afraid I am and how brokenhearted and anguished I am, and also I have to reveal a tiny glimpse of hope, at least. And so if it were not for the demand of that, of clergy to be in that role of people who give hope in the darkest times, I worry that I myself would continue to spiral into deeper and deeper anguish. And I do, like you, I feel the world very deeply. And I really believe that every human being is created in God's own image. And so I feel the death of any person as a… like significant blow to my heart. I mean, I feel in profound anguish from the loss of human life. And so with that reality comes the imperative to also find the path toward hope and the path toward a different kind of future because otherwise I would just be dwelling in the deepest darkness. And I was speaking a couple of weeks ago, we encounter the beginning of the book of Exodus in Jews all around the world. We read the same Torah portion each week. And speaking about the plague of darkness, a couple of weeks ago, because we actually also experienced another suicide in the community, and what the rabbi said made the ninth plague, the plague of darkness, so terrible that it was the penultimate plague. I mean, second only to the death of children, right? The plagues were presumably worsened. Each one was worse than the one before it, but darkness doesn't seem like so bad, except for the fact that the rabbis say that the plague of darkness meant that the world was impenetrably dark, so dark that no person could see each other, another person, even if that person was just a few feet away. could not touch each other and therefore could not help one another. And so the people who were suffering from the plague of darkness felt impotent to help one another in their pain. Your son sees you in pain and it's terrifying to see a parent in that moment of vulnerability when you're weakened to the point that you're on the floor, but he could do something to help you. He could bring his love to you and it helped heal you. But imagine experiencing that kind of pain and knowing there's absolutely nothing I can do. I cannot reach you. And the rabbis say that's what made that plague so terrible. It's the plague of impenetrable darkness when we can no longer see each other and we can no longer help each other. So we all suffer from a sense of total powerlessness. And I think in these times when there's so much loss and there's so much just human cruelty and, and the, that we might just feel like we are living under the plague of darkness. We might feel completely impotent and powerless. And I feel it. I feel it hour to hour with every news alert that comes in on my phone. And then I have to remind myself that we are not powerless, that this might not be the plague of darkness. This might be just the dark of night. And in the dark of night, like Eve, we can go to those who are suffering in the darkness and just be with them and help them because we're not completely impotent. And even in the dark of night, there's stars and there's moon and there is a little bit of light that can penetrate the darkness and the dawn does emerge. And so I think we make a mistake in the most acute moments of trauma and grief and fear, which I have experienced, especially in the last four months. And many of us have. We make the mistake of thinking that we're suffering through the plague of darkness. when it's possible that what we're suffering through is the plague of night, which is penetrable. And we can respond to that through, as you said early on in this conversation, really simple acts of love and care for each other through actually showing up like Eve did for Adam in that night, through going to our neighbor who's just suffered a loss and bringing a lasagna, through seeing the people who are walking to the left and just saying, tell me about your heart. How are you holding your grief today? I'm just checking in. You know, just want to see how the kids are doing. These very deceptively simple acts can actually help us differentiate between the plague of darkness, which is the plague of true impotence in the face of so much human suffering, and just the dark of night, which is a hard time, a painful time, a time of anguish and grief, but not one that's impenetrable, where we can't actually reach each other. And that's how I keep pulling myself out hour after hour, week after week, because Shabbat for me as a rabbi calls me to find the light and the blessing even in the dark of night. And I always find the blessings there. There are always blessings there. Even in the hardest times, there's always something extraordinary that happens. It's usually love. It's usually some kind of human connection. Someone whose presence lifts my spirit. even in the face of so much loss or anguish, there's always something there and usually it's something that we can actually give each other.

I've noticed that sometimes I think people feel like that it may feel indulgent to think about moments of happiness or joy when there's so much pain in the world around us. But I actually don't think it's indulgent. I think it's absolutely necessary for us to help ourselves not only heal and to fuel our own spirit, but to remind us that there is still goodness in the world. To your point, that distinction, which I love, between the plague of darkness, on the one hand, and the night, which still has light, on the other hand. Like, it's not always easy to tell, you know, which one you're in, but I think it is those moments where we remember those points of light, people we love, the moments of love that we have been blessed with in our life, the things that inspire us, encourage us, bring us joy. I think these are what help us distinguish that plague of darkness from a temporary night from which a new day can be born. And you mentioned so many of these simple things that people can do, which I love, and you've spoken about this eloquently before, the power of just simply going and meeting your neighbors, of going to the funeral and going to the wedding, you know, going to the moments of joy and mourning, of looking for small ways to serve other people, of being honest and telling the truth about what you're going through, about not feeling like you've got to put it all behind a wall and just bear with it. To me, this is about fundamentally being real. That's what vulnerability is about. That's the word that comes to mind. And I think a lot of people are walking around with masks on, really, really good at pretending things are okay. And if we could all just be a little bit more real with each other, I think we would find strength in that it would be, I think, less exhausting, because it's exhausting to try to be someone you're not or be in a state that you're not, which I think people often find themselves in. So you know, I know our time is coming to a close. I want to squeeze in maybe a couple of last questions. I could talk to you certainly all day, but I'm thinking about a lot of this work through the lens of my own kids, thinking about what kind of world they're going to grow up in. And in our quest to create the kind of world you're describing, one where we do show up for one another, where we do respect every living being as having value and worth, and where our kids see that in themselves. As we want to journey toward that world, I find myself also asking the question, how did we get here? Was there a time when we were actually better at showing up for one another, at respecting and caring for one another? And what happened between then and now that led us to where we are?

Well, I tend to think that some of those fantasies of a better past are just fantasies, but I do think that, I mean, we have to be honest about the role that technology plays in disconnecting us from one another. These devices that were ostensibly created to help people connect with one another and the ways that they so often contribute to just a kind of dissociation of people from their own families from their own. I mean, you see people on dates where both people sitting across the table are on their phones instead of talking to each other. And it's so interesting because as you well know, and, you know, thank you for I mean, we need connection. We are fundamentally relational beings. That is a biological, psychological, spiritual truth. And yet, we are addicted to devices that actually disconnect us from one another. We hunger for connection and yet we engage in these practices every hour of the day that make it harder for us to actually connect with one another. So, I mean, in the old days in the shtetl, did people show, you know, my great -great -grandparents, they didn't have the devices, so they probably were better at just showing up with the lasagna or a kugel probably back then for my people. But I mean, yeah, I want to, what I really encourage us to do is figure out what are the devices that are getting in the way of connection. And then how can we boundary those things in our lives . Can we put them away so that we can actually engage each other? And somebody told me the other day that he was sitting on the, on the subway reading my book and he was crying and a stranger came over to him and said, hey, are you okay? And he said it was the most incredible experience because usually he's on his phone and the stranger would be on his phone. But instead he was on a book instead of a phone and actually was enacting in that moment, the stranger was enacting the lesson from the book, which I think it's such a precious moment. And so what do we do? Maybe we can try to create a little bit of distance for us from the things that make it harder for us to connect with one another so that we can look at each other and notice the person on the subway who's crying. And imagine just having a human encounter with another person. Can I tell you a story? I know our time is short.

No, no, no, of course.

I had to run to the supermarket to pick something up a few weeks ago and I was late to a meeting and I didn't have a lot of time, but I ran into the supermarket, grabbed what I needed, and then there's the self -checkout, you know, now, the kind of, the robot checkout, and then there's the human, there are the human people who check us out. And I was late, and so I thought, I'm just going to the self -checkout, and then I had this moment where I thought, oh, my grandparents would be so disappointed in me right now if I went to the self -checkout. because my grandparents, they love to schmooze people. I mean, they would schmooze everybody and they knew, my grandfather knew the name of every waiter. He knew about their family. He knew about, like, he just loved human beings and loved to connect with them. And I thought, I don't want to disappoint my grandparents. And so I went to the line where there was an actual human checking me out. And as the person was bagging my things and I said hello, and we had a little moment and then he said, wait a minute, I think I know you from somewhere. And it turned out that he went to the camp where my kids go, and I used to go up to the camp and teach a little bit there. He asked his manager, can I take a break for a minute? And he walked outside with me and he said, my cousin is going through a time of terrible darkness and I'm really worried. Would you pray for her? And I said, of course I'll pray for her. And he said, would you ask your community to pray for her? And I said, yes. And then we hugged and then he went back inside and I went to the community on Shabbat and I said, don't go to the self checkout. I'm sorry, but like this human being needed to share what was on his heart. And now I'm asking all of you to pray for his cousin. And we all prayed for his cousin. And I just thought like we can make a choice to have a human encounter. And you know what? I was a little bit late for my meeting and I'm so glad. that I did that. I'm so glad and I really pray that his cousin's okay and now she's in my prayers and she's in the community's prayers and he felt held for just a moment. So we can make a choice to move away from the things that make our lives faster and easier and instead slow down a little bit and actually see one another, take the slow walk around the block and encounter our neighbors and say hello. Do the things that actually put us into relationship with people instead of putting us into retreat from those relationships.

What a powerful thing you did. And what a simple life lesson, I think, for all of us, which is to choose a path of human interaction, to take that extra moment and check in on someone and say hello. And we just never know what people are going through, right? Just never know. It's so hard to tell from the outside. But when we show up in the way that you did so beautifully, sometimes we can make a really big difference in people's lives. So I'm… So grateful for you sharing that. I'm wondering if there is maybe a blessing or a hope for the world, Sharon, that you might leave our audience with today.

Well, you mentioned joy. And so maybe we should close with joy because there's so much that's hard about the world right now. And there's so much that's broken and so much anguish. And I really, I believe that joy is an act of justice. I believe that allowing ourselves to experience joy gives us the spiritual nutrition that we need in order to really be present and navigate the darkness and the hardship. And so, I want to bless you and I want to bless your listeners, all of us, that we allow ourselves to experience moments of joy and moments of pain, of celebration and of sorrow with an open heart, with true vulnerability and with an ever -present hope that we can together build a more just and loving world. I believe it from the depths of my heart and I know that the only way that we can do it is together.

Well, what a beautiful way to send off our listeners. And I want to thank you for that beautiful blessing. I also just want to thank you for your voice and for your heart and for your friendship and for all the inspiration that you have brought to so many, not just through your book, but truly for years before that, through the sermons you gave and through the example that you set. It's clear to me that, as you mentioned, there is a deeper. crisis that our world is experiencing right now, the roots of it do seem like they're nested somewhere in our spirit. And if we can experience the kind of spiritual revival that you are talking about, that comes from our ability to see each other more clearly for who we are and to love each other more deeply and to show up for one another, that I do think as deep as the wounds are that seem to be affecting us, as painful as the tragedies are that seem to be just engulfing our world, I do think we have a good shot at healing those, if we can start with each other. So thank you, Sharon, for all of your inspiration. I'm so grateful for you and so grateful we had this time together today.

I feel the same way and thank you for your brilliant and soulful leadership. It really is making a difference in the broader conversation. I'm so grateful for you.

Thank you for joining this conversation with Rabbi Sharon Brous. I hope you'll tune in to our next episode of House Calls with Dr. Vivek Murthy. Wishing you all health and happiness.