Yom Kippur Morning 2021 A Jewish Response to Loneliness

 Boker Tov, Good morning, Gut Yontif.

Don’t you hate doing laundry?

I do. But sometimes, when I’m tossing a heap of pillowcases and underpants into our clunky old GE washing machine, I feel a spasm of gratitude. How lucky I am to have a washing machine -- even an old *GE* washing machine -- to do the hard work of laundering for  me! When I think of how people (women, mostly) have had to do laundry with nothing but washboards and elbow grease, I feel tremendous pity for them -- rachmones, as we say in Yiddish.  

But recently, I heard a story told by sociologist Brene Brown that made me reconsider. She spoke about a village where, by long tradition, the women would gather on the banks of a certain river and wash clothes together.

Well, time went on in this village until a wonderful thing happened: All the women got washing machines in their homes!

And then, something not so wonderful happened:  An epidemic of depression broke out among the women. [beat]  And no one could figure out why. 

Well, to us, it’s obvious why --  I hope. The washing machines that saved the women tremendous amounts of time and labor, inadvertently took away their community, -- the small talk, companionship, mutual care, and the wonderful feeling we get when we’re able to harmonize, literally or figuratively, with those around us.

Does any of this sound familiar?

The covid quarantines have exacerbated and laid bare the washing machine phenomenon.  The statistics are staggering: in June of 2019, about 11 percent of Americans reported symptoms of depression or anxiety disorder; by December of 2020, that percentage had risen to more than forty percent.

 And that’s not the half of it. According to the Centers for Disease Control “social isolation significantly increased a person’s risk of premature death from all causes, a risk [that may prove as dangerous as] smoking, obesity, and physical inactivity.” For instance, studies show that lonely Americans are 30% more likely to suffer a heart attack or a stroke; and, once a heart attack occurs, they are four times more likely to die from it than those who have the presence of families and communities.

Studies of human evolution have proven that we survived as a species not simply because we can run fast or are strong, but because we can connect in social groups.

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors could share tasks – like taking turns guarding against saber toothed tigers. They could pool the food they hunted, making it less likely that any individual would starve.  Teaching and protecting children became a tribe’s work, not just an individual’s. 

Humans are wired to associate belonging with the sharing of stories, feelings, memories, and concerns. We are biologically primed not just to feel better together but to feel normal together.

We also evolved to find the experience of being alone aversive. If one was stranded from their tribe the sense of acute danger elicited an anxiety response – this is likely why people who are lonely have more trouble sleeping...depression and anxiety make it harder to connect with other people, and this can deepen the pain of loneliness, which can bring more depression and anxiety.

I think we at TBA have tried hard to bridge loneliness during the pandemic. Members of our leadership telephoned everyone in our community repeatedly to check in: we’ve delivered meals to those who are sick or in mourning; and our Sisterhood, as always, gave out sacks of goodies, reassuring you that this community is alive and well, and is your home.  But we need to do more -- much more. One place to begin is to recognize what has been happening in our modern society, long before covid, even as I spoke about last night, naming the existential vertigo that covid has brought upon us all, changing our experience of the world and us forever. And making us realize that how things were before are not necessarily what we want to return to.

We Americans value nothing more than independence. In fact, America began by declaring a “War of Independence.”  We believe in individual liberties, individual control, and individual style. We are, you might say, collectively proud of our belief in individualism. But perhaps this is why we’ve so often taken our communities for granted.

Twenty years ago, in his best-selling book Bowling Alone, Harvard professor Robert Putman documented America’s alarming decline in communal groups, from bowling leagues to religious societies. Indeed, experts began warning of an epidemic of loneliness as early as the 1950s, when television sets began appearing in American living rooms. “The remarkable thing about television,” observed the poet TS Eliot, “is that it permits several million people to [simultaneously] laugh at the same joke and still feel lonely.”

God knows, the problem was bad enough before the pandemic. Perhaps worst of all is what is happening with our children. For years, as I’ve gotten to know b’nai mitzvah kids, I’ve been concerned by the amount of stress they are under. We know that childhood stress can be extremely toxic; and according to Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy, the most important factor in helping our kids deal with that stress is, and I’m quoting, “ healthy social connection” -- precisely the thing that this pandemic has prevented.

On the plus side, the pandemic taught many of us that we are tougher than we thought. We can survive if we have to, ordering groceries from Instacart and everything else under the sun from Amazon.  Grubhub and Ubereats bring almost any restaurant to our doors. There’s always something to watch on Netflix or Hulu and the football season has started and, hey, it turns out there are a lot of advantages to working at home, while the roombah scoots around the floor, vacuuming, and that GE washing machine may make annoying hissing and belching noises, but the clothes still come out clean as a whistle.

These things have helped a lot of us make it through quarantine. Problem is, in the long run, this go-it-alone lifestyle lacks . . . well, almost everything human beings need in order to have fulfilling lives. Surgeon General Murthy, writes, “Quite simply, human relationships are as essential to our well-being as food and water … just as hunger and thirst are our body’s ways of telling us we need to eat and drink, loneliness is the natural signal that reminds us when we need to connect with other people.”

I can tell you, the loneliness signal is coming through loud and clear throughout our community. Let me share just a few conversations I’ve had recently.

 I asked a gentleman whose wife was having major surgery how he was holding up. With a trace of anguish in his voice, he replied: “I just wish there were more family around.” Another gentleman whose father had recently died told me that while it had been comforting to be surrounded by friends and relations at the funeral, he afterwards found himself sitting at home by himself and feeling a depth of loneliness he’d never experienced. A college student told me that her sense of isolation had grown so deep, she’d fallen into a full-blown depression and had lost the will even to leave her room. Families who are new to the North Shore have had little opportunity to meet neighbors or make friends; some are new parents who have no extended family nearby.

As Jews, we cannot tolerate this; it goes against all that our ancestors believed in and handed down to us.

The problem we face is made plain in a chasidic tale.  It seems a man awoke one day and found himself in the depths of mental anguish. He wrote to his Rebbe for advice.  “I am so depressed, Rebbe!” he complained. “I am so lonely. Life has no meaning for me. I try to pray, but no words come. I keep mitzvot but find no peace of mind. I need your help, Rebbe!”

To the man’s surprise, the rebbe responded almost immediately. The man hurriedly opened the envelop but found no reply. Then, looking at his own letter, he realized that the Rebbe had circled the word “I” everywhere the man had written it. His letter was covered with circles. Too much “I” makes people lonely and it’s not a Jewish way to live.

In Genesis, we read that, at the end of each of the days of creation, vayar Elohim ki tov – God saw that it was good. But on day six, God regards Adam, wandering naked around the Garden of Eden alone and God says: Lo tov heyot ha’adam l’vado – It is not good for you, human, to be alone. And therefore, E’eseh lo ever k’negdo –I will make you a partner.

The simple phrase lo tov, “not good,” is significant, because in only one other place in the Torah is it used again: After leaving Egyptian slavery and leading the people through the desert, Moses’ father-in-law Jethro wisely counsels him not to take on the burden of leadership alone. He sees that Moses is working way too hard, enduring far too much stress and tells his son-in-law: “Lo tov ha-davar asher ata oseh: The thing you are doing is not good.” Lo tov -- It is not good to live alone; it is not good to lead alone.

Throughout the Torah, “God’s response to loneliness…is partnership,” writes Rabbi Sharon Brous. “But partnership [can take many different forms]. For instance, Genesis teaches us the importance of an ezer k’negdo -- someone who helps a person (an ezer) by standing opposite them (k’neged lo), facing them when no one else will . . . , someone who steps into our darkest moments, often without saying  a word, just offering presence. [An ezer k’negdo may be] a friend, a sister, a partner, a rabbi –someone who can, even if they cannot understand you, at least reassure you that you are not alone.”

Mind you, it is by no means easy to be an ezer k’negdo.  Martin Buber, one of the greatest Jewish voices of the twentieth century, understood that deep intimacy and mutual compassion are key to human happiness. What he called I -Thou relationships.

Do we think of people as a “thou” or as an “it”? Because too often, especially in American society, obsessed as it is with material things and feeding the ego, we look at one another without seeing a thou.

So for those of us walking a lonely road in a culture of lots of “I’s”, the Days of Awe have much to teach, if we recognize the power of teshuvah -- a word often translated as “repentance” but which really means “turning and returning.” We who are lonely must try to return to the relationships that have been stressed and strained, neglected, or even severed.

Teshuvah calls on us to examine ourselves scrupulously: How much loneliness have I brought upon myself? How much of my loneliness was derived from my own obstinateness or my lack of self-awareness? Was I abandoned, or did I withdraw? Have I shunned others in my need to be right, to be recognized, to see myself as “strong and independent”?

Above all, Torah teaches us to care for the widow, the stranger, the orphan, all of whom have at least one thing in common. Can you guess what it is?  

Yes, loneliness.

So on this holiest of days, let’s ask ourselves:  Have I failed to show up for those in my family or community, who bear a burden of a loneliness they never chose?  Do I know anyone who might need an ezer k’negdo?

Even on the phone or Zoom, you can put your virtual arms around someone. Any of us who’s spent an hour making a shiva call, delivering food to a mourner, serving guests at the Monday Night Supper, or volunteering in some other way, knows how it can help the receiver, and us, too.

Dr. Merthy helps us understand why loneliness is so harmful to our entire society: “Right now, the world you are inheriting is locked in a struggle between love and fear. Fear manifests as anger, insecurity, and loneliness. Fear eats away at our society, leaving all of us less whole... Love shows up as kindness, generosity, and compassion. It is healing. ...The most meaningful connections may last for a few moments, or for a lifetime, but each will be a reminder that we were meant to be a part of one another's lives, to lift one another up, to reach heights together, greater than any of us could reach on our own.”

The Talmud tells us the following remarkable story: Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba fell ill and Rabbi Yohanan visited him. ...Rabbi Yohanan said to him: Give me your hand. He gave him his hand and Rabbi Yohanan healed him.

The Talmud continues with the following, almost exact, tale but this time it is Rabbi Yohanan who is the patient.

Rabbi Yohanan fell ill and Rabbi Hanina visited him...Rabbi Hanina said to him: Give me your hand. He gave him his hand and he healed him.

The Talmud then asks in light of the fact that Rabbi Yohanan, one of the greatest scholars steeped in magical and healing powers, why could he not just not use his powers and abilities to heal himself.

The Talmud’s response is beautiful and poignant: The prisoner cannot free himself from jail.

So do this please, a moment to feel the experience of freeing each other from the jail of loneliness and despair - put your hands on your heart. If you want, you can close your eyes. And just for a moment I want you to think of a person or people who loved you, who truly saw you. An ezer k’negdo. People who believed in you, even when you lost faith in yourself, the people who stretched out their hands and lifted you up. Feel their warmth and their kindness surrounding you, filling you with comfort, with happiness. Know that as much as this means to you, so too for all who give and receive. We are all in this together, after all.

Now, open your eyes. Look around. This is your community. Together, let us go forward into this new year, with open hearts, and open hands.

May you be blessed with health and comfort.

Gemar hatimah tova.