Rabbi 360

The story of Noah is one of those stories that as kids is really fun and exciting, and then when you read it as an adult, it sits much more heavily on the heart.

Noah is a great story, the stuff of legend. God decides to destroy the world after witnessing humanity engaging in evil practices. Seeing Noah as a righteous person, God decides to start over with Noah and his family—Noah is to build an ark, a boat, on which he and his family will ride out the coming flood. Noah will also save the animals, as pairs of animals are to ride in the ark as well. It rains for 40 days and 40 nights, and the flood stays for another year before the waters subside. Noah releases a bird—a dove—to discover that there is dry land, the ark rests on the top of a mountain, everyone disembarks, and life begins anew.

It is a fun story to tell to kids, as we all love animals, we love boat rides, and the symbol of the dove with an olive branch in its mouth. And let us not forget rainbows the come at the end. It fits in well with songs, stuffed toys, picture books. But if we take a step back, we notice some darker parts. Not the least of which is the destruction of humanity. Or a God who is just figuring humans out and who, one might argue, overreacts to evil by doing a hard reset on the world. Or the obvious metaphor of environmental disaster, which is distressingly timely.

There are even critiques of Noah himself, going back to our ancient rabbinic commentaries, that say that he wasn’t so righteous after all since, unlike his descendant Abraham, he does not argue against God to save humanity but rather silently accepts his assignment to save himself.

But the part that has always struck me as the darkest, saddest part of the story, that I have been living with and reflecting on most recently, is the moment God calls Noah out of the Ark. The animals scatter, his family sets up camp, and Noah realizes at that moment that he is utterly alone. Alone.

We of course don’t know his emotional state at the moment, the text, the Torah, does not tell us anything. He does make an offering to God in thanks for saving his life we assume. God then makes a covenant with Noah, sealed by the symbol of the rainbow, that the world will never again be destroyed by flood. God lays out some guidelines, like don’t eat meat with blood in it and don’t murder, and then they go on their way. They go on their way, and Noah is again alone. And immediately following Noah plants a vineyard, makes wine, and gets drunk.

This last moment, this image, Noah passed out in his tent naked has struck me recently as I learned a term that on the one hand I feel like I should have known already, but I didn’t, and when I did learn it just recently, it made perfect sense.

That one of the issues we are facing right now, the plagues we are facing, one of our contemporary crises is “deaths of despair.” “Deaths of despair.” An increase in deaths by suicide, drug overdose, or alcoholism. The term has only made inroads in the past decade or so, but it talks to a phenomenon that as overall life expectancy is on the rise, mortality based on these factors is also on the rise for various demographics. Researchers have identified various indicators that are being used to define “despair”—indicators like feeling hopeless, low self-esteem, feeling unloved, worrying, helplessness, loneliness, and feeling sorry for oneself. And while there is admittingly some crossover with various mental health issues, there is not complete overlap, so that these indicators point to something different about the human condition.

Noah of course doesn’t die at this moment, he lives another 350 years according to the Torah, but it strikes me that he fits this description—someone confronted with issues of pain and loss and loneliness who turns to substances to help him cope. I could imagine Noah wrestling with these indicators: facing an empty world, no social interaction outside his immediate family, guilt perhaps at having survived, not knowing what steps to take next. Noah confronting profound loneliness because he is, according to the text, literally alone.

I think we can all see ourselves in Noah, somewhat. Some of us have probably wrestled with despair ourselves. Some of us are wrestling with various ways of coping. Some of us may have loved ones who have succumbed to these deaths of despair. I have. I have shared previously that my good friend from high school, the one who signed my ketubah as a witness, took his own life two years ago. This past year, last December,  New York to visit his gravesite. The pain is still so raw. The guilt weighs heavily. So I am committed to providing support to those in need. And know that there is both lay and professional available—and we have specifically put resources in the restrooms for those who might need to reach out, and also, please reach out to me.

These “deaths of despair” point to direct causality in the studies of emotions to death, actual deaths. And at the same time we are also learning how the epidemic of loneliness as it has been called is another modern crisis, one has a more indirect impact on our life, our health, and our mortality.

Dr. Vivek Murthy, the US Surgeon General, has made loneliness one of his signature issues and therefore a public health concern. He notes that social isolation can have a greater impact on one’s health than smoking 15 cigarettes a day, or having 6 drinks a day. Loneliness can contribute to a 29% increase in the risk of heart disease and a 32% increase in the risk of stroke, and a 50% increase in the risk of dementia, among others. Loneliness can lead to mismanagement of chronic illness. A recent study by the insurance company Cigna documents that over half of Americans report feel lonely, with the largest percentage, over 70% of them young adults, Gen Z.

And so while these are public health resources, it is not just an issue of physical health, but spiritual health. Physical outcomes stemming from a spiritual cause.  

And I would add, in addition to these labels of “despair” and “loneliness” that we are also facing a similar crisis of “dehumanization.” That when we forget or ignore the fundamental Jewish teaching that we are all—all of us–created betzelem Elohim, in the image of God. This concept of dehumanization is often talked about in the concept of war—that we are able to commit atrocities because we are able to think of others as less than human. We have seen it played out in large sweeping policy, where certain groups are treated as less than human—immigrants, for example—so as to impose xenophobic and racist policies. I would also think that failures to address climate change, or gun violence, or income inequality, or access to health care, also contributes to this dehumanization because it sends the message that certain lives are just not valued.

And I think this “dehumanization” is being played out as well, on a smaller scale, just in how we treat each other. Essentially, when we treat people as an object, rather than as a subject, we are taking away their humanity.

This is what the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber speaks about when he posited the I-Thou relationship. An I-Thou is a meeting of equals, of humans, of two people who are able to see the divine spark and the whole self of the other. The contrast according to Buber is the I-It, when one person treats another not as another fully realized human being, but as an object, as a means to an end.

This shows up in subtle ways. This is what is behind bullying, when we are able to direct scorn, or derision, or mocking language, towards others. Trolling on the internet, comments heaped upon others on social media more as a way of elevating oneself, or playing “gotcha” without concern for the feelings and humanity of the other person behind the screen.

We see it writ large in our political environment as people call each other names, undesired nicknames for people they don’t like. We are seeing a wide-scale, popularized version of I-It. And when we see this happen, when I watch the clips, I must say the thing that gets me the most when I watch is not the name-calling, the videos of the rallies are the cheers and applause. It’s not just one person, it is becoming acceptable behavior.

And I think it happens in subtle ways as well. How we speak to each other over tense topics. When we have a conflict, we tend to lash out at each other without concern for the feelings of the other. We project our stuff onto them, and make others an object of our emotions, an It. In our current political discourse, that’s what we are seeing, not only are we comfortable advancing our own views by dehumanizing groups of people, but we also dehumanize each other when in our conversations we perceive and treat others not as whole people. Here too we have the ability to see others not as a whole person with their own pains and sorrows but to reduce people to an opinion, a role, an affiliation, a “side.”

And I believe that  result of this dehumanization, being treated as an “It” is isolation, and loneliness, and despair. It is spiritual and potentially physical death.

Yom Kippur is a day in which we acknowledge death. We have our Yizkor service honoring those we have lost. We recite the Unetaneh Tokef with its evocation of the Book of Life and who will and will not make it in the coming year. And through our wearing white, our abstinence from washing and other bodily needs, our fasting—we literally rehearse death on this day.

And also on this day, we remind ourselves that while certain aspects are inevitable, we do have power to avert whatever negative decree may come. We do have power to combat and overcome these spiritual deaths of loneliness and despair and dehumanization.

One way is simply by coming together. Mazel tov all of you who are here tonight. Because one of the aspects the contributes to the epidemic of loneliness, as documented in a number of studies, perhaps most famously by Robert Putnam in his book Bowling Alone, is the decline of civic organizations and volunteerism, places where people would show up to engage in meaningful and fun activity with others. One of those is church, faith communities, and overall, church attendance has gone down, and that has contributed to increasing isolation.

But I read a recent article in the New York Times about the loneliness epidemic, there was a quote from Harvard psychologist and researcher Richard Weissbourd that made me chuckle. Because as a talk he gave at Harvard in March he said, “I’m not suggesting that we should become more religious, but I want to just suggest to you that religious communities are a place where adults engage kids, stand for moral values, engage kids in big moral questions, where there’s a fusion of a moral life and a spiritual life. A sense that you have obligations to your ancestors and to your descendants, where there is a structure for dealing with grief and loss. I feel urgently,” he says “like we have to figure out how to reproduce those aspects of religion in secular life.”

Or we can just commit to our spiritual communities. Because all of that is true. All of that is true. And the point being, of course, that connection to a spiritual community can be a benefit, for reasons having nothing to do with theology. And I think, is probably a characteristic of synagogues more than other religious institutions, due to the nature of the diversity of Jewish identity.

Synagogues like TBH have the ability to be a meaningful “third space,” the term coined by Ray Oldenberg to describe gathering places that are neither home nor work. These places that can look like a variety of things have nothing unique about them save for the fact that they allow people to gather and socialize with other people in informal and unstructured environments. According to Oldenberg they are defined by eight characteristics: they are neutral ground, they are levelers among different social statuses—everyone is the same, conversation is the main activity, accessibility and accommodation, that there are “the regulars,” it maintains a low profile, the mood is playful, and it is a home away from home.Sounds like this place, what we are trying to build in this spiritual community.

Again, in response to loneliness, author Sheila Liming wrote recently on the lost art of “hanging out,” which she defines as “spending time with others without trying to put too many expectations upon what that time has to do, or what it has to result in or what it has to produce.” Just hanging out. I think so often we are focused on what are we doing now, what is the goal, what is the result. But she argues we just need to find a way to hang out with one another. And that reminds me of that old Jewish joke: “Bernstein comes to shul to talk to God, and Schwartz comes to shul to talk to Bernstein.” And that is what we are trying to foster. The chairs in the courtyard are not an accident. The seating area in the social hall with the coffee station and phone chargers is not by happenstance. The open libraries now with their comfy chairs. These are opportunities to come and hang out, and to be and connect with other, to break down those barriers and move past our loneliness. And I invite you—I encourage you—to take advantage of them.

These are all important, but it would be too easy to say, ah, just join the synagogue. Because it is more than that. Its more than just having the space, it takes intention and responsibility to show up and engage. To make these spaces not just a place of gathering, but of belonging. For belonging. For the opposite of loneliness is belonging.

Belonging is active. Because we can feel lonely even surrounded by people. But to belong means to show up with your whole self and be received as your whole self, while at the same time receiving others who show up with their whole self. It means being in a group made up of I-Thou relationships. And as Brene Brown writes, “love and belonging are irreducible needs for all people. In the absence of these experiences, there is always suffering.” So that ultimately is our obligation in the face of loneliness and despair and dehumanization: to show up for one another.

In her beautiful book this year, The Amen Effect, Rabbi Sharon Brous addresses this loneliness epidemic and the harm it can bring, and noting that spiritual communities have a role to play by promoting belonging and by promoting care.

She shares a powerful teaching from Jewish tradition that forms the framework for her book, from the Mishnah, the Jewish legal and interpretive text that dates to the year 200 CE. In a section dealing with the practices of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, the rabbis teach:

All who entered the Temple Mount entered by the right and went round to the right and went out by the left, except for one to whom something had happened, who entered and went round to the left. They were asked: “Why do you go round to the left?” If they answered “Because I am a mourner,” they said to them, “May The One who dwells in this house comfort you.” If they answered, “Because I am alienated” they said: “May the One who dwells in this house inspire them to draw you near again,” [or, alternatively since the rabbis can’t always make up their minds]: “May the One who dwells in this house inspire you to listen to the words of your colleagues so that they may draw you near again.”

Such a beautiful image. You can imagine the scene: everybody shows up, going through a particular door doing in a particular direction, but the person going through something either grief, or alienation, or whatever they are going through, goes a different direction. Not to isolate them, not to push them aside, but to indicate to others to reach out. To check in with them and offer words of belonging, comfort, and care.

What an image. About this, Rabbi Brous writes, “There is a timeless wisdom in entering the sacred circle: this is, on some fundamental level, what it means to be human. Today, you walk from left to right. Tomorrow, it will be me. I hold you now, knowing that eventually, you’ll hold me. Every gesture of recognition marries love and humility, vulnerability and sacred responsibility.”

“Love and humility, vulnerability and sacred responsibility.” This is true belonging. This is an antidote to despair, dehumanization, and loneliness. I think the fact that these three are so pervasive is a stark reminder that it is at its very core hard to be human. And sometimes the hardest part of being human is other humans. But one of the best, and necessary parts, the redemptive part of being human, is other humans. So:

Can we show up in our full selves, and allow others to do the same?

Can we commit to treating people as a Thou, and having concern for their whole self when we engage?

Can we work to stop dehumanization by interrupting it when we see it happening? When someone treats another as an object, or casts aspersions upon an entire group?

Can we create a culture of belonging, including accepting those different from us? Can we accept those with different views, for example on Israel-Palestine as we are dealing with now, for example, by connecting over our shared humanity?

Can we address the root causes, the societal challenges, that cause people to feel less than or devalued?

Can we just hang out, be curious and empathetic, be supportive, and share time and space with one another?

Can we greet those moving in the opposite circle from us, in need of care and love and attention, and can we present ourselves when we are in need of care and love and attention?

Can we be the antidote to despair, dehumanization, and loneliness? And can we allow others, to be the cure for our despair, dehumanization, and loneliness?

Noah is not the only story in the Bible about a man, a plan and a boat. On Yom Kippur we read the story of Jonah, the reluctant prophet to at first ignores God’s command to preach repentance to the city of Nineveh by fleeing on a boat, only to be tossed overboard into the belly of a great fish. After being returned to land, Jonah completes his mission only to have the Ninevites repent, and Jonah is dejected over this ability of God to forgive.

Jonah too suffered from isolation and despair, first in the belly of the fish, later on the outskirts of the town when he lamented his own feelings of alienation. And while they both confronted loneliness, the difference between the stories of Noah and Jonah, is that promise and possibility of connection. Noah in his story was literally alone. Jonah feels isolated but with the potential of belonging. Noah stayed silent. Jonah struggled at first, but was eventually able to articulate his feelings and concerns.

We read Jonah on Yom Kippur because it is a book in part about repentance and teshuvah, the work of this Day of Atonement. But perhaps we read Jonah on this day for a different reason: to know that our condition of isolation and separation and despair and loneliness can indeed be cured.

If this day is about change, Jonah is about change. Jonah is about overcoming separation and isolation. We can do it as well.

If we see it, if we name it, if we reach out, if we connect. We treat each other as a Thou, a fully realized human being, offer care and concern.

All of us are hurting. We can see ourselves in all of this. So we can show up. Show up for each other. And make sure, that each one of us, belongs.

Because that’s what we want. We want to belong. We need to belong. And of us can make it happen for each other.

Because we all belong. We all belong.