We live in a time when loneliness is now an epidemic, and with all of the information coming out of the advice industrial complex, there's one place that most people aren't looking religion, putting belief aside. The question is are there lessons about human connection that our faith communities have yet to teach us? Stay tuned. Loneliness and disconnection are rampant in our society. People are feeling more alone than ever before. How do we revitalize our need for connection and rebuild community in our lives? My guest today is obsessed with this question. Rabbi Sharon Brouse is considered one of the most influential faith leaders in the world today. She's led faith events at the White House across multiple administrations, founded her own congregation, and has a new book, The Amen Effect, which is all about rekindling the human connections we so desperately crave. According to Rabbi Browse, what we need to remember is that when grief and heartbreak show up in our lives, our instinct can be to withdraw inwards. But when life is at its most painful, that's our greatest reminder that we need other people and that we cannot heal alone. This is a bit of optimism. I was very keen to have you on to talk about human connection. But we seem to be an epidemic of loneliness, depression, and anxiety. A. Is that true? Is it this epidemic of loneliness and disconnection? And then B is there an antidote?

We live in a time when loneliness is now an epidemic, and with all of the information coming out of the advice industrial complex, there's one place that most people aren't looking religion, putting belief aside. The question is are there lessons about human connection that our faith communities have yet to teach us? Stay tuned. Loneliness and disconnection are rampant in our society. People are feeling more alone than ever before. How do we revitalize our need for connection and rebuild community in our lives? My guest today is obsessed with this question. Rabbi Sharon Brouse is considered one of the most influential faith leaders in the world today. She's led faith events at the White House across multiple administrations, founded her own congregation, and has a new book, The Amen Effect, which is all about rekindling the human connections we so desperately crave. According to Rabbi Browse, what we need to remember is that when grief and heartbreak show up in our lives, our instinct can be to withdraw inwards. But when life is at its most painful, that's our greatest reminder that we need other people and that we cannot heal alone. This is a bit of optimism. I was very keen to have you on to talk about human connection. But we seem to be an epidemic of loneliness, depression, and anxiety. A. Is that true? Is it this epidemic of loneliness and disconnection? And then B is there an antidote?

The answer to both of those questions is yes. In my opinion, I think one of the one of the things that we're learning now is that loneliness is not only attacking our spirits, but also attacking our bodies. I see it as a rabbi, as a kind of spiritual malady, and I've really witnessed this over the course of the last twenty years of pastoring to a community and just seeing what brings people in the door when they say, you know, I really need to talk to you, and also what makes people flee from community. We can see the pain that this kind of loneliness and disconnection is causing us spiritually. About eleven years ago, I was introduced to the work of doctor John Cucciopo, who wrote the book who wrote really wrote the book on loneliness, and he spoke about the science of loneliness and the way that loneliness also attacks the body, and that what the Surgeon General has been talking about for the last couple of years now, that acute loneliness is the equivalent of smoking fifteen cigarettes a day in terms of its impact on your lungs and on your heart, inflammation, early onset illness, et cetera. And I think there's a third component. So there's the spiritual, there's the physical, and then there's the broadly social. And this is where I really look to the work of Hannah Arendt, who writes the loneliness and social alienation and isolation are preconditions for tyranny in a society. That totalitarianism cannot root itself in a society if people are not already atomized and isolated from one another. And so we're I feel we're really at this crisis point in many ways. There was a study that was done right before COVID that showed that thirty percent of Americans don't know the names of their nextdoor neighbors, and that twenty percent of Americans say that they don't have one single confidant in the world. And so that was before COVID, and we know that COVID has exacerbated all the worst trends, and so I think we are really ripe for some really nefarious, some really nefarious forces really gaining a foothold in the society right now. I mean our into writes about conspiracy theories. They cannot take hold in a society where people are not already isolated for one another. So, you know, if somebody tells you that Jews control the weather, you might believe that. If you don't know a Jew, and then you happen to know a Jew who is your neighbor or your colleague or your friend, and you know that it rained at that Jew's wedding, you think, wait a minute, that doesn't check out. But if we don't know each other, if we don't engage each other, then that So this is how the kind of spiritual illness of loneliness becomes a social ill that really I think we have to address with great urgency.

The answer to both of those questions is yes. In my opinion, I think one of the one of the things that we're learning now is that loneliness is not only attacking our spirits, but also attacking our bodies. I see it as a rabbi, as a kind of spiritual malady, and I've really witnessed this over the course of the last twenty years of pastoring to a community and just seeing what brings people in the door when they say, you know, I really need to talk to you, and also what makes people flee from community. We can see the pain that this kind of loneliness and disconnection is causing us spiritually. About eleven years ago, I was introduced to the work of doctor John Cucciopo, who wrote the book who wrote really wrote the book on loneliness, and he spoke about the science of loneliness and the way that loneliness also attacks the body, and that what the Surgeon General has been talking about for the last couple of years now, that acute loneliness is the equivalent of smoking fifteen cigarettes a day in terms of its impact on your lungs and on your heart, inflammation, early onset illness, et cetera. And I think there's a third component. So there's the spiritual, there's the physical, and then there's the broadly social. And this is where I really look to the work of Hannah Arendt, who writes the loneliness and social alienation and isolation are preconditions for tyranny in a society. That totalitarianism cannot root itself in a society if people are not already atomized and isolated from one another. And so we're I feel we're really at this crisis point in many ways. There was a study that was done right before COVID that showed that thirty percent of Americans don't know the names of their nextdoor neighbors, and that twenty percent of Americans say that they don't have one single confidant in the world. And so that was before COVID, and we know that COVID has exacerbated all the worst trends, and so I think we are really ripe for some really nefarious, some really nefarious forces really gaining a foothold in the society right now. I mean our into writes about conspiracy theories. They cannot take hold in a society where people are not already isolated for one another. So, you know, if somebody tells you that Jews control the weather, you might believe that. If you don't know a Jew, and then you happen to know a Jew who is your neighbor or your colleague or your friend, and you know that it rained at that Jew's wedding, you think, wait a minute, that doesn't check out. But if we don't know each other, if we don't engage each other, then that So this is how the kind of spiritual illness of loneliness becomes a social ill that really I think we have to address with great urgency.

There's a lot to unpack there. Yeah, okay, So let's go backwards the broadly social themes. And I think that touching on the conspiracy theory is particularly interesting. It seems to me that it relates to the concept of finding meaning right and when we feel disconnected. You know, when we feel like no one understands us, no one is there for us. We seek out meaning in the world and then we find community in the other people who have found that same that same thing. Let me give you a real life example. A friend of mine, her sister in law, has become very very conspiratorial in her thinking and very very activist on Facebook to promote some of these conspiracies. And she wasn't like this before during COVID, in the loneliness of COVID and the disconnection of COVID, she found some of these conspiracy theories on Facebook and started spreading them and making very close friends with people who believe what she believed in. She took sort of a leadership role in some of this, and she said, these are her words, my life finally has purpose. So I think the conspiracy itself of what she found was actually irrelevant. It doesn't matter. She found something that gave her purpose and more important, it gave her community, which is i e. The other people. She didn't feel shame anymore.

There's a lot to unpack there. Yeah, okay, So let's go backwards the broadly social themes. And I think that touching on the conspiracy theory is particularly interesting. It seems to me that it relates to the concept of finding meaning right and when we feel disconnected. You know, when we feel like no one understands us, no one is there for us. We seek out meaning in the world and then we find community in the other people who have found that same that same thing. Let me give you a real life example. A friend of mine, her sister in law, has become very very conspiratorial in her thinking and very very activist on Facebook to promote some of these conspiracies. And she wasn't like this before during COVID, in the loneliness of COVID and the disconnection of COVID, she found some of these conspiracy theories on Facebook and started spreading them and making very close friends with people who believe what she believed in. She took sort of a leadership role in some of this, and she said, these are her words, my life finally has purpose. So I think the conspiracy itself of what she found was actually irrelevant. It doesn't matter. She found something that gave her purpose and more important, it gave her community, which is i e. The other people. She didn't feel shame anymore.

Yeah, I think the two things that you said are two essential needs for human beings. We need purpose and we need connection. And then your friend's sister in law found something like that in the conspiratorial community. She found belonging, She found a sense of purpose. But the question is, can we harness that kind of profound human need for both purpose and belonging in the service of building a more just and loving society? Is that not possible for us?

Yeah, I think the two things that you said are two essential needs for human beings. We need purpose and we need connection. And then your friend's sister in law found something like that in the conspiratorial community. She found belonging, She found a sense of purpose. But the question is, can we harness that kind of profound human need for both purpose and belonging in the service of building a more just and loving society? Is that not possible for us?

I want to go back to a point you made before, where you said you've seen it in your own attendance that people are coming to you to a faith based organization because they are lonely or fleeing for the same reason. Can you say more about that?

I want to go back to a point you made before, where you said you've seen it in your own attendance that people are coming to you to a faith based organization because they are lonely or fleeing for the same reason. Can you say more about that?

Well, I love that you caught that many people are searching for a way to connect. That's sort of the obvious, Like people walk in the door because they're looking for something and they're trying it. They're trying, like, can I make myself vulnerable enough to walk into this space and try to hook into community? But actually it's counterinstinctual to show up when you're lonely, because what we know about loneliness is it kind of functions in the opposite way that other physical pain functions. And this is again the work of John Cacciopo and others. That you know the pain of your hand on the stove sends signals to your brain saying, get your hand away from the stove, get safe, get the help you need right now. But the physical pain of loneliness and the spiritual pain of loneliness actually cause us to do the opposite of what we need to do in order to make ourselves safe. What we need is connection. What the pain of loneliness does is it often leads us to retreat from community and retreat from other people. So my whole book is oriented around this ancient pilgrimage ritual from temple times, so this is two thousand years old. Jews used to go up to Jerusalem. They would ascend to the city on a hill. They would climb up the steps of the temple. They would enter through this grand arched entryway, and they would turn to the right and they would circle en mass, like hundreds of thousands of people at once around the perimeter of the courtyard of the temple. Mount holiest place, holiest city, holiest days, like the Hajj, you know, just this massive movement of people. Except for somebody who's broken hearted. Those people would go up to Jerusalem and they would climb the steps of the temple, mount and they would go through the same entryway, but they would turn to the left when everyone else is turning to the right, and so the whole world would be walking in one direction and they'd be walking in the other direction. And this sacred encounter would take place in which the people who are okay that day, the hundreds of thousands of people would stop and look at this one broken hearted person and ask them, very simply, what happened to you? How's your heart? What do you see from your vantage point? And this person would answer saying, I'm broken hearted because I just lost my father, or my partner just left, I feel totally blindsided, or I'm so worried about my kid and I just need to know she's going to be okay. And the people who are going this way would give them a blessing, something like, may the one who dwells in this place hold you with love as you navigate this difficult time, or as you go through treatment, May you be surrounded by friends and family and people who care about you. And that's the end of the ritual. And the reason that this ritual became my north star and this sort of guiding principle of my life is because I realized about ten or eleven years ago that every party to this ancient ritual does not want to be part of this ritual. The person who's broken hearted, the last thing in the world they want to do is even get out of bed, let alone, show up in this place where there are hundreds of thousands of people, and they're all walking in one direction, and they are the vulnerable, lonely, alone, broken, breaft, bereathed, ill going in the other direction. And yet they can't stay home. They have to go, and they can't pretend that they're like everyone else because they're not. And what does it mean to ask someone who's broken hearted to be honest about their pain in this culture, in this time. And the people who are okay, who are going this way, the last thing they want to do when they're having like the spiritual experience of their lives is actually peel away from their friends and their family and say like, Hey, I'm going to go check in on this broken hearted stranger who's coming toward me. And yet that's what they're called to do. And so the kind of key question of our time is precisely at the moment when we are disinclined to see one another in our humanity. When our greatest instinct on both sides of that circle, in both directions, is to retreat from each other, what would it take for us instead to incline toward each other, to see that in one another we can actually reconnect with our own purpose, with our own humanity, that we can begin to heal that way.

Well, I love that you caught that many people are searching for a way to connect. That's sort of the obvious, Like people walk in the door because they're looking for something and they're trying it. They're trying, like, can I make myself vulnerable enough to walk into this space and try to hook into community? But actually it's counterinstinctual to show up when you're lonely, because what we know about loneliness is it kind of functions in the opposite way that other physical pain functions. And this is again the work of John Cacciopo and others. That you know the pain of your hand on the stove sends signals to your brain saying, get your hand away from the stove, get safe, get the help you need right now. But the physical pain of loneliness and the spiritual pain of loneliness actually cause us to do the opposite of what we need to do in order to make ourselves safe. What we need is connection. What the pain of loneliness does is it often leads us to retreat from community and retreat from other people. So my whole book is oriented around this ancient pilgrimage ritual from temple times, so this is two thousand years old. Jews used to go up to Jerusalem. They would ascend to the city on a hill. They would climb up the steps of the temple. They would enter through this grand arched entryway, and they would turn to the right and they would circle en mass, like hundreds of thousands of people at once around the perimeter of the courtyard of the temple. Mount holiest place, holiest city, holiest days, like the Hajj, you know, just this massive movement of people. Except for somebody who's broken hearted. Those people would go up to Jerusalem and they would climb the steps of the temple, mount and they would go through the same entryway, but they would turn to the left when everyone else is turning to the right, and so the whole world would be walking in one direction and they'd be walking in the other direction. And this sacred encounter would take place in which the people who are okay that day, the hundreds of thousands of people would stop and look at this one broken hearted person and ask them, very simply, what happened to you? How's your heart? What do you see from your vantage point? And this person would answer saying, I'm broken hearted because I just lost my father, or my partner just left, I feel totally blindsided, or I'm so worried about my kid and I just need to know she's going to be okay. And the people who are going this way would give them a blessing, something like, may the one who dwells in this place hold you with love as you navigate this difficult time, or as you go through treatment, May you be surrounded by friends and family and people who care about you. And that's the end of the ritual. And the reason that this ritual became my north star and this sort of guiding principle of my life is because I realized about ten or eleven years ago that every party to this ancient ritual does not want to be part of this ritual. The person who's broken hearted, the last thing in the world they want to do is even get out of bed, let alone, show up in this place where there are hundreds of thousands of people, and they're all walking in one direction, and they are the vulnerable, lonely, alone, broken, breaft, bereathed, ill going in the other direction. And yet they can't stay home. They have to go, and they can't pretend that they're like everyone else because they're not. And what does it mean to ask someone who's broken hearted to be honest about their pain in this culture, in this time. And the people who are okay, who are going this way, the last thing they want to do when they're having like the spiritual experience of their lives is actually peel away from their friends and their family and say like, Hey, I'm going to go check in on this broken hearted stranger who's coming toward me. And yet that's what they're called to do. And so the kind of key question of our time is precisely at the moment when we are disinclined to see one another in our humanity. When our greatest instinct on both sides of that circle, in both directions, is to retreat from each other, what would it take for us instead to incline toward each other, to see that in one another we can actually reconnect with our own purpose, with our own humanity, that we can begin to heal that way.

I mean, you and I agree in the sense that true purpose comes from service. You will never understand purpose until you have the opportunity to serve. And I think the most basic kind of service that you're talking about, which I think, is because when you're walking with hundreds of thousands of people in the same direction, if the people in front of you you only see the backs of their heads, the people next to you, you can't see their faces because they're next to you. You can't see anybody behind you. The only people you can see are the people walking in the opposite direction. They're the only faces you will see are the people walking in the other direction. The grand metaphor is it's about being seen, and so the people who are walking in the other direction it is lonely. It is humiliating to be in the other direction. But you are the only ones who will be seen by everyone else. And I think what you are talking about is the most basic service that any of us can ever learn, is we are amongst the masses. I don't know the people who are well. I see the backs of their heads. And my responsibility is to go to my friends who are not showing up, who don't want not to get out of bed, and my responsibilities to call them up, show up at their door and say are you okay, which is another way of saying I don't know what's going on, but I want you to know I see you.

I mean, you and I agree in the sense that true purpose comes from service. You will never understand purpose until you have the opportunity to serve. And I think the most basic kind of service that you're talking about, which I think, is because when you're walking with hundreds of thousands of people in the same direction, if the people in front of you you only see the backs of their heads, the people next to you, you can't see their faces because they're next to you. You can't see anybody behind you. The only people you can see are the people walking in the opposite direction. They're the only faces you will see are the people walking in the other direction. The grand metaphor is it's about being seen, and so the people who are walking in the other direction it is lonely. It is humiliating to be in the other direction. But you are the only ones who will be seen by everyone else. And I think what you are talking about is the most basic service that any of us can ever learn, is we are amongst the masses. I don't know the people who are well. I see the backs of their heads. And my responsibility is to go to my friends who are not showing up, who don't want not to get out of bed, and my responsibilities to call them up, show up at their door and say are you okay, which is another way of saying I don't know what's going on, but I want you to know I see you.

I see you exactly. First of all, I absolutely love that read of this tradition and I have lived deeply in this text for twenty years and I have never heard somebody or myself reflected on it in that way. So thank you for that. And I'm going to just even up the ante on your interpretation because it makes me think of something even more. So let me tell you a story, because that's what rabbis do. One of my beloved educators that works in our community at a car her name is Beth, and she was in the pottery studio listening to my audiobook, so and she started to engage this guy who's sitting across from her, and like, you know, light chit chat, and she mentions that her daughter just got married, and then she says, do you have any kids? And he said, my son is thirty two, my daughter's twenty six, and my other daughter was twenty eight, and then he gets up and goes like and walks away to the other side of the studio, and she's like, I do not want to touch that, Like that is a world of pain that I don't want to get near right now. But she's listening to the book, so she's like, I got to figure out how to go over and talk to this guy, and so she walks over and she says to him, I hope you don't mind me asking, but it sounded from what you said like you lost a child. Do you want to talk about it? And his eyes welled up and they sat down together and he said that his daughter had died by suicide two years earlier, and because of the nature of her death, his friends do not know how to engage him at all, and so he's basically processing the grief alone and he feels like not only the grief, but now the isolation on top of the grief, and Beth asked, can I see a picture of her? And he showed her a picture of the two of them from the morning of her death, when they went on a by ride together, and she was young and beautiful and full of life. And he said he's been grappling for two years with the question of how someone who was that vital in the morning could need to die by the evening, and like what happened there, But he's grappling with that question, like the most excruciating existential question alone until this stranger in the pottery studio essentially says like I see your humanity, and I'm terrified, and I'm not going to run away from you, and so I think that this is exactly right, Like we don't want to encounter each other's pain for all kinds of reasons. It's absolutely terrifying. But it's not only that the only person we see, the only face that we can see, is the broken hearted coming toward us. It's also that the only person who can see us is the broken hearted coming toward us. Because Beth said to me afterwards, I felt so grateful that I could help this man, And she said, and I also felt, yes, I felt good about myself because I felt like I did something that was necessary and important in the world today. And so we are. We are also seen in the work of seeing another. And what a profoundly powerful way to attach to something bigger than ourselves.

I see you exactly. First of all, I absolutely love that read of this tradition and I have lived deeply in this text for twenty years and I have never heard somebody or myself reflected on it in that way. So thank you for that. And I'm going to just even up the ante on your interpretation because it makes me think of something even more. So let me tell you a story, because that's what rabbis do. One of my beloved educators that works in our community at a car her name is Beth, and she was in the pottery studio listening to my audiobook, so and she started to engage this guy who's sitting across from her, and like, you know, light chit chat, and she mentions that her daughter just got married, and then she says, do you have any kids? And he said, my son is thirty two, my daughter's twenty six, and my other daughter was twenty eight, and then he gets up and goes like and walks away to the other side of the studio, and she's like, I do not want to touch that, Like that is a world of pain that I don't want to get near right now. But she's listening to the book, so she's like, I got to figure out how to go over and talk to this guy, and so she walks over and she says to him, I hope you don't mind me asking, but it sounded from what you said like you lost a child. Do you want to talk about it? And his eyes welled up and they sat down together and he said that his daughter had died by suicide two years earlier, and because of the nature of her death, his friends do not know how to engage him at all, and so he's basically processing the grief alone and he feels like not only the grief, but now the isolation on top of the grief, and Beth asked, can I see a picture of her? And he showed her a picture of the two of them from the morning of her death, when they went on a by ride together, and she was young and beautiful and full of life. And he said he's been grappling for two years with the question of how someone who was that vital in the morning could need to die by the evening, and like what happened there, But he's grappling with that question, like the most excruciating existential question alone until this stranger in the pottery studio essentially says like I see your humanity, and I'm terrified, and I'm not going to run away from you, and so I think that this is exactly right, Like we don't want to encounter each other's pain for all kinds of reasons. It's absolutely terrifying. But it's not only that the only person we see, the only face that we can see, is the broken hearted coming toward us. It's also that the only person who can see us is the broken hearted coming toward us. Because Beth said to me afterwards, I felt so grateful that I could help this man, And she said, and I also felt, yes, I felt good about myself because I felt like I did something that was necessary and important in the world today. And so we are. We are also seen in the work of seeing another. And what a profoundly powerful way to attach to something bigger than ourselves.

With a caveat, which is when you are alone walking in the opposite direction, everyone can see you. You are seen, but you are not seen by that person. You were just one of the masses until yes, you walk away and say I see you, I see that you're in pain. Only then do you earn your own face. Otherwise you're just part of the masses. You are not still until you produce, until you have an act of service. And the act of service from the masses is the thing that makes you seen. Oh my god, that is where the mutual love, That's where the mutual connection, mutual purpose happens.

With a caveat, which is when you are alone walking in the opposite direction, everyone can see you. You are seen, but you are not seen by that person. You were just one of the masses until yes, you walk away and say I see you, I see that you're in pain. Only then do you earn your own face. Otherwise you're just part of the masses. You are not still until you produce, until you have an act of service. And the act of service from the masses is the thing that makes you seen. Oh my god, that is where the mutual love, That's where the mutual connection, mutual purpose happens.

That's the thing that distinguishes you from the masses. Is the fact that you're the one for the masses.

That's the thing that distinguishes you from the masses. Is the fact that you're the one for the masses.

Is your your choice to step away and say I see you.

Is your your choice to step away and say I see you.

Okay, First of all, I would like to study terror with you more often because I feel like this is a revelatory for me. But I want to tell you we so we actually enacted this ritual, this ancient ritual, which there were like seven or eight hundred people in the room, and we had this incredible conversation, and then I asked if everyone would rise and then would move to the perimeter of the room, and the people who are okay turn to the right and circle, and the people who are grieving, like I am, my father died just before Hey Holy Days this year, so I'm still in my year of grieving, would join me in walking to the left. And it doesn't matter what kind of grief you're experiencing. It could be the death of a loved one, it could be it could be an illness, it could be a breakup or a divorce, like what ever you identify as making you like really not okay today. And so we had about seven hundred people walking this way in about fifty or sixty people walking this way, and I experience I've never done it before. I mean, I've been writing about it and thinking about and I experienced the masses coming toward me and individuals doing exactly what you're saying. Like there were people who are new to the community, who I'd never met before, who literally came over to me and asked me this question malach, which is the ancient let you know, the ancient words of tell me about your pain. And I said, you know, my father died, and I am worried that I haven't really grieved because I went straight from Shiva, the most intense period of grieving, the first week into high Holy Days, and then it was October seventh.

Okay, First of all, I would like to study terror with you more often because I feel like this is a revelatory for me. But I want to tell you we so we actually enacted this ritual, this ancient ritual, which there were like seven or eight hundred people in the room, and we had this incredible conversation, and then I asked if everyone would rise and then would move to the perimeter of the room, and the people who are okay turn to the right and circle, and the people who are grieving, like I am, my father died just before Hey Holy Days this year, so I'm still in my year of grieving, would join me in walking to the left. And it doesn't matter what kind of grief you're experiencing. It could be the death of a loved one, it could be it could be an illness, it could be a breakup or a divorce, like what ever you identify as making you like really not okay today. And so we had about seven hundred people walking this way in about fifty or sixty people walking this way, and I experience I've never done it before. I mean, I've been writing about it and thinking about and I experienced the masses coming toward me and individuals doing exactly what you're saying. Like there were people who are new to the community, who I'd never met before, who literally came over to me and asked me this question malach, which is the ancient let you know, the ancient words of tell me about your pain. And I said, you know, my father died, and I am worried that I haven't really grieved because I went straight from Shiva, the most intense period of grieving, the first week into high Holy Days, and then it was October seventh.

You went from losing your father into going back to work.

You went from losing your father into going back to work.

Going back to work, and then some because it was like and then the war, and then these strangers, like people I did not know, like held me in my grief and gave me blessings. And by the way, part of that, like what I love about this is that you go up to the Temple mount in Jerusalem, you save your whole life, You plan, you plot, you know, you get up there, not to get a blessing from the high priest, not to get a blessing from the rabbits, to get a blessing from some stranger. Like it's a total democratization of care. Isn't like someone with real training. It's saying we all have the capacity to hold each other in our times of greatest pain. We just don't know that we do. And I think part of the problem, and this is something else I try to address in the book, is that we have this misperception that when people around us are in pain, we need to fix them, like we need to make the pain better. We have to bring them out of their pain.

Going back to work, and then some because it was like and then the war, and then these strangers, like people I did not know, like held me in my grief and gave me blessings. And by the way, part of that, like what I love about this is that you go up to the Temple mount in Jerusalem, you save your whole life, You plan, you plot, you know, you get up there, not to get a blessing from the high priest, not to get a blessing from the rabbits, to get a blessing from some stranger. Like it's a total democratization of care. Isn't like someone with real training. It's saying we all have the capacity to hold each other in our times of greatest pain. We just don't know that we do. And I think part of the problem, and this is something else I try to address in the book, is that we have this misperception that when people around us are in pain, we need to fix them, like we need to make the pain better. We have to bring them out of their pain.

Which is why the friends of the person who lost his daughter to suicide didn't engage because they felt they were ill equipped. They couldn't fix his pain that's right, and so they chose nothing that's right.

Which is why the friends of the person who lost his daughter to suicide didn't engage because they felt they were ill equipped. They couldn't fix his pain that's right, and so they chose nothing that's right.

So if you can't fix it, then you disengage. But actually, as I learned from one of my dear friends in the community whose son died in a freak ski accident, a beautiful, amazing twenty year old kid. He so the father said to me, as we were like processing this during his first year of mourning, and he said, you know, people literally think that their job is to pull me out of the grief, Like come on, we're just going to go out and get drunk and you know, hang out and talk about other things. And he's like, I want to talk about other things. I want to talk about Charlie. I want to grieve, I want to weep, I want to be in I want to be in the depths because my son is gone, and so like, why are we so afraid to be in the depths with each other, to navigate the dark night of the soul together? Like, we're not car mechanics. Our job is not to fix it. Our job is to be present to the grief and be present to the pain. And that is a totally different kind of calling. And if we knew that, If the people coming toward me thought that their job was to fix my broken heart, they wouldn't have gone near me. But if they knew that their job was just to see me, just to communicate you're not alone tonight, then it gives them the courage to actually step into that difficult relationship.

So if you can't fix it, then you disengage. But actually, as I learned from one of my dear friends in the community whose son died in a freak ski accident, a beautiful, amazing twenty year old kid. He so the father said to me, as we were like processing this during his first year of mourning, and he said, you know, people literally think that their job is to pull me out of the grief, Like come on, we're just going to go out and get drunk and you know, hang out and talk about other things. And he's like, I want to talk about other things. I want to talk about Charlie. I want to grieve, I want to weep, I want to be in I want to be in the depths because my son is gone, and so like, why are we so afraid to be in the depths with each other, to navigate the dark night of the soul together? Like, we're not car mechanics. Our job is not to fix it. Our job is to be present to the grief and be present to the pain. And that is a totally different kind of calling. And if we knew that, If the people coming toward me thought that their job was to fix my broken heart, they wouldn't have gone near me. But if they knew that their job was just to see me, just to communicate you're not alone tonight, then it gives them the courage to actually step into that difficult relationship.

The metaphor which I have used and found very useful both when I'm the one in pain and when I am near someone in pain, is the idea of sitting in mud, which is when you are in pain. It's the equivalent of sitting in mud. It is not fun, it is dirty. I would like to get out, but I don't know how to get out, And you said, which is I should get out? But I don't want to get out of bed. I just want to sit in the mud and feel sorry for myself, you know. And the instinct of our friends who care about it is to pull us out of the mud. Yes, that's to fix, to pull us out, and they do any amount of whether it's advice giving or trying to get us to go out to go drinking or whatever. But I don't. I'm not ready to get out of the mud. I just want to sit in the mud. And what good friends do. What service is? Service isn't, as you said, pulling me out of the mud. Service is the willing I'm going to cry. The service is the willingness to get in mud with someone. And trust me, when you sit in pain with someone, I don't want to get in the mud with you. I don't want to hear about you talking about your your recently dead son like that is no fun for me. Why would I want to do that? But I choose to do it because I love you, and I will get in mud with you. And the only time we will get out of the mud is when you say I think I'm ready to get out now, and then all of my instincts to fix and pull and push. Now, now, with permission, I can engage all of those instincts. Yes, but until that moment. My job is to do nothing but sit in mud with you. That is my job. And for people who are afraid that they don't know when or how, it's really really simple. Ask like Beth, she said, can I ask? And he could say I'd rather not, and they could sit quietly and make pots together. The point is she asked for direction, and I've done that with friends who are in pain. I said, do you want me to offer advice or do you want me to just sit with you? And they said, can you just sit with me? I said, you got it. Your friends who are in pain know what they need. You can climb into bed with them and watch a movie all day. You can go be depressed with them, but don't let them be depressed alone. Yeah, And for us to suffer and struggle through the ups and downs of humanity with someone not alone, not alone, is really the thing here. We'll be right back.

The metaphor which I have used and found very useful both when I'm the one in pain and when I am near someone in pain, is the idea of sitting in mud, which is when you are in pain. It's the equivalent of sitting in mud. It is not fun, it is dirty. I would like to get out, but I don't know how to get out, And you said, which is I should get out? But I don't want to get out of bed. I just want to sit in the mud and feel sorry for myself, you know. And the instinct of our friends who care about it is to pull us out of the mud. Yes, that's to fix, to pull us out, and they do any amount of whether it's advice giving or trying to get us to go out to go drinking or whatever. But I don't. I'm not ready to get out of the mud. I just want to sit in the mud. And what good friends do. What service is? Service isn't, as you said, pulling me out of the mud. Service is the willing I'm going to cry. The service is the willingness to get in mud with someone. And trust me, when you sit in pain with someone, I don't want to get in the mud with you. I don't want to hear about you talking about your your recently dead son like that is no fun for me. Why would I want to do that? But I choose to do it because I love you, and I will get in mud with you. And the only time we will get out of the mud is when you say I think I'm ready to get out now, and then all of my instincts to fix and pull and push. Now, now, with permission, I can engage all of those instincts. Yes, but until that moment. My job is to do nothing but sit in mud with you. That is my job. And for people who are afraid that they don't know when or how, it's really really simple. Ask like Beth, she said, can I ask? And he could say I'd rather not, and they could sit quietly and make pots together. The point is she asked for direction, and I've done that with friends who are in pain. I said, do you want me to offer advice or do you want me to just sit with you? And they said, can you just sit with me? I said, you got it. Your friends who are in pain know what they need. You can climb into bed with them and watch a movie all day. You can go be depressed with them, but don't let them be depressed alone. Yeah, And for us to suffer and struggle through the ups and downs of humanity with someone not alone, not alone, is really the thing here. We'll be right back.

In the terror in the book of Genesis. The first thing that's not good is a person being alone. I mean, everything's good at the end of every single day of creation. It's good. It's good as good, it's very good. And the first thing that's lotove that's not good is Lotov, you have Dovado. It's not good for a person to be alone. And there's this incredible story that the rabbis in which at the end of that sixth day of creation when human beings, when Adam and Eve were created, the sun starts to set and starts to get dark, and Adam is really scared because he's never seen darkness before. The first time you see the dark, it's really terrifying, and so he starts to cry, and then it gets darker and darker, and darkness starts to scream, and he's freaking out, and he thinks, what did I do? Maybe it's my fault, Maybe I screwed up. And God's going to return the whole world to know nell and void and chaos. And Eve just comes and sits right across from him and holds him and weeps with him throughout the night until the dawn comes. And I think the most important lesson that we learned from that is this question that we have to ask ourselves, which is who will weep with us through the dark of night? Who's just going to be there to sit with us and cry with us? And Eve can't say to him, you know, it's going to be okay. She doesn't know. She's never seen the darkness either. She's scared. Also, she can't promise him that it'll be better, but she can just be with him while he's crying and while he's hurting.

In the terror in the book of Genesis. The first thing that's not good is a person being alone. I mean, everything's good at the end of every single day of creation. It's good. It's good as good, it's very good. And the first thing that's lotove that's not good is Lotov, you have Dovado. It's not good for a person to be alone. And there's this incredible story that the rabbis in which at the end of that sixth day of creation when human beings, when Adam and Eve were created, the sun starts to set and starts to get dark, and Adam is really scared because he's never seen darkness before. The first time you see the dark, it's really terrifying, and so he starts to cry, and then it gets darker and darker, and darkness starts to scream, and he's freaking out, and he thinks, what did I do? Maybe it's my fault, Maybe I screwed up. And God's going to return the whole world to know nell and void and chaos. And Eve just comes and sits right across from him and holds him and weeps with him throughout the night until the dawn comes. And I think the most important lesson that we learned from that is this question that we have to ask ourselves, which is who will weep with us through the dark of night? Who's just going to be there to sit with us and cry with us? And Eve can't say to him, you know, it's going to be okay. She doesn't know. She's never seen the darkness either. She's scared. Also, she can't promise him that it'll be better, but she can just be with him while he's crying and while he's hurting.

I had I learned this lesson in an uncomfortable way, which is a friend of mine was going through hard time and I was doing absolutely everything wrong. And by doing everything wrong, it turned what should have been a beautiful moment into one of anger, which is we started fighting because she didn't appreciate my attempts to solve her problem. I didn't appreciate her attempts to criticize my attempts because they're well intentioned. You know, she's not looking at my heart, you know. So I took offense and it just didn't go well. And she had the clarity to say, there's only one thing you need to do in this moment. She gave me an instruction. She said, all you need to do is ask me the question, what do I need to do to make this better? And I just stopped, stopped whatever argument we were having, and I said, what can I do to make this better? And she said, I just need you to ask me if I'm okay, And I said, are you okay? She said no, I'm not okay because all she asked me to do was walk in the opposite direction, come out of the crowd, and see her. That's all she asked. And I didn't have the wherewithal until I asked permission, not ask permission. I didn't even ask permission. I asked instruction. What And I have used that so many times in business in personal What can I do to make this better?

I had I learned this lesson in an uncomfortable way, which is a friend of mine was going through hard time and I was doing absolutely everything wrong. And by doing everything wrong, it turned what should have been a beautiful moment into one of anger, which is we started fighting because she didn't appreciate my attempts to solve her problem. I didn't appreciate her attempts to criticize my attempts because they're well intentioned. You know, she's not looking at my heart, you know. So I took offense and it just didn't go well. And she had the clarity to say, there's only one thing you need to do in this moment. She gave me an instruction. She said, all you need to do is ask me the question, what do I need to do to make this better? And I just stopped, stopped whatever argument we were having, and I said, what can I do to make this better? And she said, I just need you to ask me if I'm okay, And I said, are you okay? She said no, I'm not okay because all she asked me to do was walk in the opposite direction, come out of the crowd, and see her. That's all she asked. And I didn't have the wherewithal until I asked permission, not ask permission. I didn't even ask permission. I asked instruction. What And I have used that so many times in business in personal What can I do to make this better?

And then to be okay with knowing that you may not be able to make it better and.

And then to be okay with knowing that you may not be able to make it better and.

Be and to be okay with the fact that I did.

Be and to be okay with the fact that I did.

My part right right, and going back to what you were saying earlier, which I fully believe, your job is not to heal her. Your job is to help her know that as she navigates the darkness, she's not alone.

My part right right, and going back to what you were saying earlier, which I fully believe, your job is not to heal her. Your job is to help her know that as she navigates the darkness, she's not alone.

And you said it, which is, when I walk into the temple, I can choose to hide by turning right, or I can choose to be seen by turning left. And if I am in pain, I choose to turn left or right. And there's still a choice to be made by the person in pain to turn left, even if it's begrudging.

And you said it, which is, when I walk into the temple, I can choose to hide by turning right, or I can choose to be seen by turning left. And if I am in pain, I choose to turn left or right. And there's still a choice to be made by the person in pain to turn left, even if it's begrudging.

That's right. That's right. And there's so many good reasons why we don't want to turn left, namely, I mean, the main one is we don't trust that we're going to be held with left. What if you walk to the left and nobody meets you. I mean, this is something I hear a lot from, especially lately, from people who say, you know, people who I have cared for failed to care for me, fail to show up and hold me with love when I was the one in pain. And that's extremely painful to be vulnerable and then not be met with love and care. Just as there are good reasons why people coming from the right don't want to see the person coming from the left, and I think one of the best ones is because your vulnerability makes me feel vulnerable. It scares the crap out of me to think that what happens.

That's right. That's right. And there's so many good reasons why we don't want to turn left, namely, I mean, the main one is we don't trust that we're going to be held with left. What if you walk to the left and nobody meets you. I mean, this is something I hear a lot from, especially lately, from people who say, you know, people who I have cared for failed to care for me, fail to show up and hold me with love when I was the one in pain. And that's extremely painful to be vulnerable and then not be met with love and care. Just as there are good reasons why people coming from the right don't want to see the person coming from the left, and I think one of the best ones is because your vulnerability makes me feel vulnerable. It scares the crap out of me to think that what happens.

To you while while walking to the right, when I see you, I will avert my eyes for the discomfort that it will cause me. That's right to look at you, that's right, And if you are not alone, I am just afraid, especially.

To you while while walking to the right, when I see you, I will avert my eyes for the discomfort that it will cause me. That's right to look at you, that's right, And if you are not alone, I am just afraid, especially.

If the loss you've experienced is tragic or traumatic loss, because that forces me to reckon with the fact that my kids might not be safe, or that I too might get diagnosed with this illness, or that I too might experience that Like, we don't live forever, and in a death denying culture, that's something we want to avoid at all costs. I don't want to confront your loss because it terrifies me. And so that's what I'm saying about. It's all. It's counterinstinctual for every party, and yet it's the only way that we can begin to heal. We have to trust that we're going to be held with grace and with love, and we have to know that it's our work to hold with grace and with love.

If the loss you've experienced is tragic or traumatic loss, because that forces me to reckon with the fact that my kids might not be safe, or that I too might get diagnosed with this illness, or that I too might experience that Like, we don't live forever, and in a death denying culture, that's something we want to avoid at all costs. I don't want to confront your loss because it terrifies me. And so that's what I'm saying about. It's all. It's counterinstinctual for every party, and yet it's the only way that we can begin to heal. We have to trust that we're going to be held with grace and with love, and we have to know that it's our work to hold with grace and with love.

Do you know the irony of that metaphor is that in reality, everyone should have turned left. Yeah, But the problem is if everyone turns left, that no one will be seen. You know, if we're dealing or coping, or it's kind of going fine, or I'm not thinking about it today, I'll turn right. And it's only the people who their challenges are greater than mine today. Yeah, have the courage because, by the way, on day one I turned right and hid my pain. On day two, I turned right and hid my pain. On day three, I turned right and hid my pain. And because I saw on day one, two, and three people with the courage to turn left, on day four, their courage inspired me to turn left.

Do you know the irony of that metaphor is that in reality, everyone should have turned left. Yeah, But the problem is if everyone turns left, that no one will be seen. You know, if we're dealing or coping, or it's kind of going fine, or I'm not thinking about it today, I'll turn right. And it's only the people who their challenges are greater than mine today. Yeah, have the courage because, by the way, on day one I turned right and hid my pain. On day two, I turned right and hid my pain. On day three, I turned right and hid my pain. And because I saw on day one, two, and three people with the courage to turn left, on day four, their courage inspired me to turn left.

Okay, here's my answer to that. Simon the day that I went into the er when my dad got really seek you know, he had a terrible infection and he ended up dying a week later, and you know, we knew things were really, really bad, and I was sitting in the er with him and it was terrible. And then I got a text them my little Rabbi thread, and it said that another member of the community's father had an infection the same one as my dad and was in the er. And I wrote back saying, which er, because I'm at Cedars and maybe I can go visit them if they're here too, And we ended up tracking. Like as my father went into hospice and then died, this other family was about a week a week behind me in terms of their father's death, and I felt this incredible connection to this family even from the depth of my depth of my grief, I felt like the bereaved was my sister in grief, and so I felt like I need to also be with her, and we can walk together through this path. And so I think we do have the capacity. Some of us when we're in the depths of it, we just can't like we need to be fed, we need to be nurtured, as I've been thinking, you know over the last five months, when you are in shiva, when you're in deep, deep grief, the only people who are around you are people who love you and can care for you and can actually keep you alive, because when you lose a loved one, you want to be with them. But the community comes around and says, we're going to keep you in this world. But then Shiva ends at some point and you have to get up and you have to see that there's a whole world of human pain and human longing and love and loss and yearning, and you re enter the world even though you're still grieving. And so we do have the capacity to see who else is coming from the left, and to hold each other even if everybody's coming from the left, and if nobody's greeting us and holding us from the right.

Okay, here's my answer to that. Simon the day that I went into the er when my dad got really seek you know, he had a terrible infection and he ended up dying a week later, and you know, we knew things were really, really bad, and I was sitting in the er with him and it was terrible. And then I got a text them my little Rabbi thread, and it said that another member of the community's father had an infection the same one as my dad and was in the er. And I wrote back saying, which er, because I'm at Cedars and maybe I can go visit them if they're here too, And we ended up tracking. Like as my father went into hospice and then died, this other family was about a week a week behind me in terms of their father's death, and I felt this incredible connection to this family even from the depth of my depth of my grief, I felt like the bereaved was my sister in grief, and so I felt like I need to also be with her, and we can walk together through this path. And so I think we do have the capacity. Some of us when we're in the depths of it, we just can't like we need to be fed, we need to be nurtured, as I've been thinking, you know over the last five months, when you are in shiva, when you're in deep, deep grief, the only people who are around you are people who love you and can care for you and can actually keep you alive, because when you lose a loved one, you want to be with them. But the community comes around and says, we're going to keep you in this world. But then Shiva ends at some point and you have to get up and you have to see that there's a whole world of human pain and human longing and love and loss and yearning, and you re enter the world even though you're still grieving. And so we do have the capacity to see who else is coming from the left, and to hold each other even if everybody's coming from the left, and if nobody's greeting us and holding us from the right.

We'll be right back. Do you know what I have learned from this conversation from you? Tell me I've learned the definition of service from you, and it's not what most people think. Service is not learning the skills to come out of the crowd from the right to the person who turned left. Service is teaching others how to turn left. Yeah, because if no one learns how to turn left, then how can we ever help anyone? Like the skill to come out of the crowd to help the person who turns left is always second to the person who learned to turn left first. You have to have someone to go left before I can apply the skills of knowing how to sit in mud with them. I think that's what I've learned. True service is not helping those in pain. True service is teaching us how to be open and ask for help when we are in pain. In other words, it's where are we teaching our children how to turn left? We teach them everything, but we don't teach them to say, I am hurting and I don't know what to do. Will you just be there with me? True service is being open with our struggle.

We'll be right back. Do you know what I have learned from this conversation from you? Tell me I've learned the definition of service from you, and it's not what most people think. Service is not learning the skills to come out of the crowd from the right to the person who turned left. Service is teaching others how to turn left. Yeah, because if no one learns how to turn left, then how can we ever help anyone? Like the skill to come out of the crowd to help the person who turns left is always second to the person who learned to turn left first. You have to have someone to go left before I can apply the skills of knowing how to sit in mud with them. I think that's what I've learned. True service is not helping those in pain. True service is teaching us how to be open and ask for help when we are in pain. In other words, it's where are we teaching our children how to turn left? We teach them everything, but we don't teach them to say, I am hurting and I don't know what to do. Will you just be there with me? True service is being open with our struggle.

When we enacted the ritual in February in our community, one of my teachers, the rabbi in the community, came to me afterwards and he was shaking, and he said this ritual has not been enacted in two thousand years, Like this is a super obscure ritual. And he said, like there were verberations like from the ancients in this room tonight. And he said, and I don't think anyone would have gone to the left if you hadn't said I'm walking to the left, and I want to invite you to join me if you, like me, have a broken heart right now, like we need to be told that it's okay to walk to the.

When we enacted the ritual in February in our community, one of my teachers, the rabbi in the community, came to me afterwards and he was shaking, and he said this ritual has not been enacted in two thousand years, Like this is a super obscure ritual. And he said, like there were verberations like from the ancients in this room tonight. And he said, and I don't think anyone would have gone to the left if you hadn't said I'm walking to the left, and I want to invite you to join me if you, like me, have a broken heart right now, like we need to be told that it's okay to walk to the.

Left, shown shown, not to be told, to.

Left, shown shown, not to be told, to.

Be shown that's right.

Be shown that's right.

And so because every rabbi says, if you're in pain, turn left, right, right, No rabbi says today I'm going to turn left, yeah, yeah, to be shown, not told.

And so because every rabbi says, if you're in pain, turn left, right, right, No rabbi says today I'm going to turn left, yeah, yeah, to be shown, not told.

So so you know, the book's called the Amenifa. And the reason that I called it that is because we have this ritual in Jewish practice of the Mourner's Scottish, this Mourner's prayer, and I realize that what it's actually doing is saying to a mourner, we're going to create environments in which it is safe for you to stand up and just say my heart is broken, and you will be met by a chorus of loved ones and strangers who will respond saying Amen, I see you, and as scared as I am, I'm not running away from you. In other words, it will become normative in this culture for you to walk to the left and you will always be met by people coming from the right who will not avert their eyes. And we don't just say a man in that prayer. We say amen, a man, a man, a man. I meant there are five amens in that prayer. We say it again and again and again, I see you, I see you, I see you. I'm not running away from you. And we do that prayer throughout the entirety of a person's time of grieving, to just say to them, like get used, to build the muscle memory for standing up and not being okay when you're not okay, and to the community, build the muscle memory of showing up relentlessly for somebody who's in pain. It's not just one phone call, it's not one email I'm so sorry, you know, to hear of your loss. It's repeated encounters that express that that loving container will be with you as long as you need it to be. That Eve will hold Adam throughout the whole night and weep with him.

So so you know, the book's called the Amenifa. And the reason that I called it that is because we have this ritual in Jewish practice of the Mourner's Scottish, this Mourner's prayer, and I realize that what it's actually doing is saying to a mourner, we're going to create environments in which it is safe for you to stand up and just say my heart is broken, and you will be met by a chorus of loved ones and strangers who will respond saying Amen, I see you, and as scared as I am, I'm not running away from you. In other words, it will become normative in this culture for you to walk to the left and you will always be met by people coming from the right who will not avert their eyes. And we don't just say a man in that prayer. We say amen, a man, a man, a man. I meant there are five amens in that prayer. We say it again and again and again, I see you, I see you, I see you. I'm not running away from you. And we do that prayer throughout the entirety of a person's time of grieving, to just say to them, like get used, to build the muscle memory for standing up and not being okay when you're not okay, and to the community, build the muscle memory of showing up relentlessly for somebody who's in pain. It's not just one phone call, it's not one email I'm so sorry, you know, to hear of your loss. It's repeated encounters that express that that loving container will be with you as long as you need it to be. That Eve will hold Adam throughout the whole night and weep with him.

Yeah right, there's no other way to end this conversation, but with amen.

Yeah right, there's no other way to end this conversation, but with amen.

Thank you, Simon.

Thank you, Simon.

Sharon, thank you so much for joining me. This is absolutely enlightening. Thank you so much.

Sharon, thank you so much for joining me. This is absolutely enlightening. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts, and if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website Simon sinek dot com for classes, video and more. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other. A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company. It's produced and edited by David Jah and Greg Reiderschan and Henrietta Conrad is our executive producer.

If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts, and if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website Simon sinek dot com for classes, video and more. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other. A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company. It's produced and edited by David Jah and Greg Reiderschan and Henrietta Conrad is our executive producer.