“What draws you to this topic?” With this question, our impressive
session facilitator, Shirli Kirschner,
began our conversation at the Sydney Jewish ideas festival, Limmud Oz. For me, mental health is very important as a prerequisite for living
my life effectively. I usually start my day with a walk in the forest. Like
most people, my work involves stress. In my case, it can feel like I am pushing
a boulder up a mountain as I do my work of fostering connections between people
of different faiths.
Imam Farhan spoke movingly about a time when he felt deeply depressed
after being abruptly fired from his first job as an Imam. He was told right
after a controversial sermon to pack his bags and leave the Mosque. The Imam
had a double message about faith and mental distress. On the one
hand, he insisted that it was ridiculous for members of his community to expect
the Imam to deal with everything. It is as ridiculous as expecting the Imam to
do heart surgery! On the other hand, Imam Farhan spoke of the solace that faith
can bring. He gave the example of the story of Moses, as told in the Islamic
tradition (1). In this telling, Moses fled Egypt after he killed an Egyptian
taskmaster, who was beating a slave. He sat under a tree and felt desperate, so
he cried out to God for assistance. The assistance came quickly with a marriage
proposal, a father-in-law and a job for ten years.
Listening to Farhan talk about Moses was delightful. Not just because I
really like him and his humour and style. There was a feeling of an additional
connection between us as Jews and Muslims by virtue of the fact that we both
valued the same story, essentially. In the Torah’s version of this story (2),
there is no mention of sitting under the tree, nor of the desperate prayer.
However, the idea of Moses feeling emotionally low is expressed in another
story in the Torah. In our reading this week, Moses’ beloved father-in-law and
mentor left Moses to return home to Midyan (3). After his departure, when faced
with complaints by the people, Moses fell into despair to the point of spurning
the mission that had been entrusted to him by God (4). He cries out: “Alone, I cannot carry this entire people for it is too hard for me. If
this is the way You treat me, please kill me (5).”
Our traditions can bring comfort for people in mental distress.
However, they can also be a source of distress. The psychologist on the panel,
Professor Amanda Gordon, reflected on her experience of the relationship
between faith and grieving. She had long recognised the benefits of traditions
of grieving, such as the practice of Shiva, in which Jewish people will
spend seven days at home after the death of a parent, child or sibling. Yet,
when it came to her own experience of grieving for her mother, it did not go as
conveniently as she might have expected. During the festivals, the Yizkor
memorial prayer is read in the Synagogue. For Amanda, who had her first Yizkor
this year, it was an alienating experience: she found that the feelings one
might expect to feel, could not be activated on demand. Amanda cautioned that
the same rituals that bring comfort to some people, can create challenges for
others.
Expectations are a source of much sadness. Acceptance can provide us
with relief. There are three important elements of acceptance: a) To accept
ourselves as we are. A large part
of the struggles people experience with mental health is tied up
with the question about whether “we are good enough”. Tanya consoles us with
the idea that אני
לא עשיתי את עצמי - I have not created myself. We cannot
blame ourselves for what we are! (6). It is God, who is responsible for our essential nature, not us. b) We need to
accept our past mistakes and let go. God has an
infinite capacity for forgiveness (7) and if He has forgiven me, I can forgive
myself (8). C) A third acceptance relates to work-related stress. We are
instructed to rest on the Sabbath, but in six days we should do “all our
work” (9). This means that on Friday, when we finish work, we are
encouraged to regard our work as complete and avoid thinking about it on the
Sabbath (10). Any work not done in the previous week, is irrelevant to the week
that passed. It is next week’s work! The psalms said it best: “It is a
falsehood for you, early risers, delayers of sleep, eaters of bread of tension!
Indeed He [God] will give sleep to those he loves” (11).
Apart from acceptance, one of the most important elements of well-being,
according to Professor Gordon, is connectedness. Imam Fahran talked about the
importance of reaching out to people. He gave the example of someone who stops
coming to the Mosque. It is important that people check if that person is ok.
He linked this with Islamic teachings about the obligations to one’s
neighbours, which “...apply to forty houses like this and
like this and like this” – and he pointed to the front, to the back, to the right
and to the left” (12). The Imam also
talked about the alienated young people he worked with as a prison chaplain,
and how they can go off in dangerous and violent directions. I shared the
experiences young people have in Together For Humanity - experiences that build
connectedness, not only between students and their peers, but with the wider
community and people of different backgrounds and faiths. In fact, when I asked
one Principal what the main benefit of our work was for her students, she said
it was developing students’ connectedness.
Notes
1. The Quran, Surah Qasas(28), Verse 22 to 28.
2. Exodus 2:11-21
3. Numbers 10:30
4. Akedat Yitzchak Rabbi Yitzchak Arama, (1420-1494)
5. Numbers 11:11-15
6. Tanya chapter 31, see story of the “ugly man” in the Talmud, Taanis 20a&b,
7. As we say in the Amida prayer. Blessed is God who graciously, forgives
in abundance
8. Tanya chapter 26
9. Exodus 20:9
10. Mechilta cited in Rashi
11. Psalm 127:2
12. Haddith, Narrated by Sunan Abu Dawood, Hasan Al Basri.
No comments:
Post a Comment