Transforming Grief into Action

by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen

I was looking through boxes and boxes of old photographs, not just for fun, but as part of a larger project of bringing to fruition the many years of effort my mother had put into writing her memoir. She never finished the project, now she is gone, and the Holy One of Blessing is breathing down my back and leaving me no choice but to finish the work she had so intensely devoted so much of her time to for so many years. 

My mother was a master photographer, an artist through and through, and the best of her work speaks deeply what words cannot convey. She knew she was a gifted artist, but she was never able to admit that she was also a gifted writer. She tells the story of her life – her unusual childhood with many long trips into the wilderness and to remote places of the world, her family's history, her college years, her emotional breakdowns and hospitalizations, her learning, always, always her learning, her teaching, and then her poetry and her philosophy, and at the end, her old age – all of this she tells with skill and wisdom and writing both adept and beautiful. And interspersed throughout her text are her photographs, taken mainly in the second half of her life as she slowly and painfully learned how to live in this world, but also from her youth. Also included are photographs take by her father on his many trips around the world, some from before the turn of the 20th century. 

But it is not the exquisite photographs of my mother’s later years that strike me this particular day. Rather, it is the many photographs from my childhood home in rural southwestern Wisconsin. My father was a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and when I was seven years old, my parents bought an old farmhouse and part of a farm – 70 acres – half an hour west of the University. There I spent my formative years, there I lived with my mother’s breakdowns and extended hospitalizations in the psychiatric ward of one or the other of the Madison hospitals, and there I lived close to and fell in love with the land. 

So much of my childhood was spent outdoors! In grade school, I often walked home with my brother or one or more of the neighbor children, frequently pausing at the culvert over the stream to search for tadpoles and other signs of life. With a neighbor, a brother, a parent, or a friend, and frequently happily by myself, we explored every nook and cranny of our 70 acres, and often went further afield into the neighbors’ land as well. We sledded and tobogganed down hills, between trees, and over mounds of snow that sent us flying. We raised a variety of animals – mine were the chickens and the goats. 

We played in the barn, the loft sometimes full of hay, sometimes empty. We played in the neighbor’s barn and beside and in their pond. We watched the storms roll up the valley. We climbed to the top of the windmill, no longer functioning, its pump having been wired for electricity. We fashioned a make-believe home on a tiny island in the stream. We waded the stream in search of pretty stones and water striders. We examined and identified flowers. We gardened. We opened our home for walks, wood-cutting, hearty food, and fellowship. We struggled to get out of our driveway during snowy winters. We lived close to the land.

 

As I thumbed through picture after picture from my years on this land, longing and grief welled in my heart, and I felt tears in my eyes. How I miss that close connection to the Earth! And then, as the days went on, and I realized that I could not functionally remain in that place of grief for long, I began to understand. I began to understand that it is the deep love of the land that developed in me during my childhood and young adulthood that fuels the fires of so much of what I am passionate about in my later adulthood: Ma’yan Tikvah – a vehicle for praying outdoors with others; Wayland Walks – a program designed to get people outdoors onto the trails in our own community; working on climate campaigns – I do so desperately want for our children to inherit the Earth. 

Those photographs helped me better understand, they helped me see the depth of my passion and my commitment to the Earth. They helped me better understand why I am pushing forward with all that is closest to my heart. They helped me better understand just why the things I do are so close to my heart. 

I think of Aldo Leopold, who spent his most famous years in Wisconsin, his land ethic for our time, and the efforts of the Aldo Leopold Foundation to keep his legacy alive. Closer to home, I read Changes to the Land: Four Scenarios of the Future of the Massachusetts Landscape, and I know that although there is hope, there is also a recognition that so many of the decisions we make today will determine whether or not it will be possible for future generations to have even a taste of the experiences I had as a child. Looking back on my mother’s life, I know she must have thought something very similar, I know she mourned the possibility of experiencing the places she had cherished in the same way that she had. And when I consider the impact of climate change, the urgency of the issues regarding our planet can set my heart to racing and disturb my sleep at night.

One Earth, and only one. That is all we have. What will we pass on to future generations? The answer is up to us, to you and to me. We are the ones who make the decisions that determine the future. And so I continue to do the work I do, each passing year with a greater sense of urgency. This is how I channel my grief. This is how I assuage my guilt. This is how I keep my head and my heart above water and maintain the faith needed to go forward day by day.

 I invite you to join me and/or others in doing the passionate work l’ovdah u’l’shomrah, to serve and to protect (Gen. 2:15) this One Earth that is sacred to us all, crucial to our physical, spiritual, and emotional wellbeing, and threatened by the very ones who depend upon it.

 May we find the strength and the courage and the fortitude to truly guard and preserve this land and all that lives upon it.

Hanukkah Day 8 - Treasuring Grief and Moving Forward with Peace

by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen

And so we arrive at the last night of Hanukkah, we fill the hanukkiah with candles, eight candles for eight nights, plus the shamash, or helper candle. Once again we kindle the shamash, and then we kindle all of these eight candles. Our homes and our hearts fill with the light from so many candles. Shining together, the light of each individual candle multiplies and is magnified by the others around it; "Many candles can be kindled from one candle without diminishment;" (Sifre B'haalot'kha 93) after saying one prayer, another is always available from the same place from which the first one came. An eternity exists, of which we can touch one tiny corner.

Hanukkah Day 1 - Dispelling Fear and Finding Courage
Hanukkah Day 2 - Acknowledging Greed and Encouraging Generosity
Hanukkah Day 3 - Eviscerating Guilt by Responding with Action
Hanukkah Day 4 - Diminishing Despair and Growing Trust and Faith
Hanukkah Day 5 - Understanding Anger and Cultivating Compassion, Contentment, and Joy
Hanukkah Day 6 - Resisting Jealousy and Strengthening Gratitude
Hanukkah Day 7 - Healing Hurts and Promoting Well-being
Hanukkah Day 8 - Treasuring Grief and Moving Forward with Peace

Grief - we all experience it. We experience grief when we lose someone, when we lose some thing, when we lose an ability, when we lose a relationship, when we lose a hope, when we lose a vision of the future, when we lose a piece of the Earth - the pathways to grief are many and varied.

What do we do with our grief? The answers are as varied as our countenances. Perhaps we should treasure our grief, for our grief is a great teacher. It is sacred, for out of our grief grows a sense of peace. We understand as we grieve that we can deal with loss. We learn our strength. We gain insight into what it means to be human. And through our grieving we find our deepest gifts, and we find peace. 

HaMakom yinachem etchem, we say to those in mourning - May the Space/Place comfort you. "you are my lamp, Adonai; Adonai turns my darkness into light." (2 Sam 22:29) HaMakom and Adonai - two names for G!d. The "empty space within us as a result of our loss turns our darkness into light. "You, Adonai (i.e. Space), keep my lamp burning; my G!d turns my darkness into light." (Ps. 18:28) The Space within us keeps our lamp burning. The Space within us helps us move forward, turns our darkness into light, and brings us peace.

I invite you, on this last night of Hanukkah, to take yourself on a meditative journey. Envision - or gaze into - the eight lights of the hanukkiah. As you focus on these lights in reality or imagination, feel the light within you, and allow it to grow brighter. Pay attention to what it takes to allow this light to grow. Feel the light within you, sense it. How does it look? Is there action in it? Are there people in it? Keep the image of the eight lights of the hannukiah in sight, and feel the light within you. Then allow these lights within and without to meld together. Feel them all as one. Hold that feeling, and let this light shine in prayer for others, for all the Earth, for the Universe....And when you are ready, come back to the present, holding the sense of light with you.

"Don't let the light go out, it's lasted for so many years. Don't let the light go out, let it shine through our love and our tears." (Peter Yarrow)

Chag Urim Sameach - Happy Hanukkah!

Hanukkah Day 7 - Healing Hurts and Promoting Well-being

by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen

Jewish tradition teaches that we are each to light our own hanukkiah - or Hanukkah candelabrum, and that even children should have their own. Lighting the hanukkiah is one of those mitzvot (commandments) that we can only do for ourselves. Unlike Shabbat candlelighting and many prayers, no one else can provide for us the fulfillment of this mitzvah. We can stand together, we can sing together, we can share in the radiance of the lights, but we must each do the lighting ourselves.

So it is, too, with healing our hurts. Others can love us and support us, stand beside us and encourage us, but we are the only ones, together with G!d, who can do the inner work that shifts our world toward wholeness.

Hanukkah Day 1 - Dispelling Fear and Finding Courage
Hanukkah Day 2 - Acknowledging Greed and Encouraging Generosity
Hanukkah Day 3 - Eviscerating Guilt by Responding with Action
Hanukkah Day 4 - Diminishing Despair and Growing Trust and Faith
Hanukkah Day 5 - Understanding Anger and Cultivating Compassion, Contentment, and Joy
Hanukkah Day 6 - Resisting Jealousy and Strengthening Gratitude
Hanukkah Day 7 - Healing Hurts and Promoting Well-being

All of us carry hurts. Some of them have been with us since childhood, others are fresh from a moment ago. In about the year 1230, Rabbi Hasdai wrote, "Light is perceived only out of darkness." Out of the darkness of our hurts, the light of learning and growing and becoming more compassionate can shine - we can be transformed. Our transformation is our healing, and one of the gifts it brings with it is the light that then shines forth to others who are struggling, bringing healing and a sense of well-being to them as well.

As the number of candles in our hanukkiah increases, so may the lights in the darkest recesses of our souls, in the places of our greatest hurt, may healing begin and grow brighter and brighter with each successive day. May it be so for us, and may it be so for our precious Earth.

Chag Urim Sameach - Happy Hanukkah!

Hanukkah Day 6 - Resisting Jealousy and Strengthening Gratitude

by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen

A major aspect of the Hanukkah story is the message about identity - who was willing and ready to go with the flow of the surrounding culture and who was willing to fight in order to retain a Jewish identity and all that went with it. Hanukkah sends an enduring message about not assimilating. 

So many are the ways we can become assimilated into the mainstream culture! Some of them are indeed related to religious identity - being willing to maintain Shabbat on a weekly basis, even just a little bit, for example, requires dedication and determination, week after week. But there are other kinds of assimilation as well. A big one that comes to mind is regarding material goods. We live in a society that idolizes material wealth. The lights of the hanukkiah can be a reminder to hold onto our values and fight for them as though our lives depended on them, and when we think about climate change and the degradation of the environment, even if our life doesn't depend on what we do, the lives of our children and grandchildren just might.

Hanukkah Day 1 - Dispelling Fear and Finding Courage
Hanukkah Day 2 - Acknowledging Greed and Encouraging Generosity
Hanukkah Day 3 - Eviscerating Guilt by Responding with Action
Hanukkah Day 4 - Diminishing Despair and Growing Trust and Faith
Hanukkah Day 5 - Understanding Anger and Cultivating Compassion, Contentment, and Joy
Hanukkah Day 6 - Resisting Jealousy and Strengthening Gratitude

I often think that the hardest of Asseret HaDibrot - the Ten Utterances, or Ten Commandments - to fulfill is to not covet. I suspect that you, like me, know you will never murder anyone, but you may also be like me in another way, for I know that I often covet, I am on occasion jealous; sometimes I just wish had something someone else has. 

Refusing to become assimilated to materialism means resisting jealousy and desire for material goods. But I find that often (though not always) what I covet it isn't a phone or a car or a piece of clothing. It is more likely a gift, either innate or earned - physical strength, courage, knowledge, patience, the ability to let things roll off one's back, and so on. I wish I had the fortitude and strength I see in others that would allow me to live closer to the Earth and do more than I do for my family and my friends and our planet.

So I gaze at the lights on this sixth night of Hanukkah and I pray, for all of us, "Holy One, may it be Your will to place us on the side of light." (Babylonian Talmud, Berachot 17a) May we feel gratitude and not jealousy. May we understand how much more we have than so many others. May we count our blessings every day. May we become aware of and acknowledge the many gifts we hold within us and we receive every day. May light fill our hearts and our minds and our souls, and drive out the darkness.

Chag Urim Sameach - Happy Hanukkah!