Rabbi Malkah Binah Klein
Parshat Nachamu
“What do we most need to do to save our world?”
Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh offered the following, perhaps surprising, answer to this vital question: “What we most need to do is to hear within us the sounds of the Earth crying.”
How do we open ourselves to hear the sounds of the Earth crying as she witnesses so much killing and destruction and injustice? How do we awaken from numbness and distraction and breathe in the devastation facing our world? Can our hearts handle feeling this pain? What are the consequences of not feeling the pain?
Starting in the late 1970s, visionary spiritual activist and eco-philosopher Joanna Macy and her colleagues developed group work processes, which came to be known as “The Work that Reconnects,” to support honoring our pain for the world.
Macy teaches in her powerful book, “World as Lover, World as Self,” that “of all the dangers we face, from climate chaos to nuclear warfare, none is so great as the deadening of our response. …The refusal to feel takes a heavy toll. It not only impoverishes our emotional and sensory life — flowers are dimmer and less fragrant, our loves less ecstatic — but also impedes our capacity to process and respond to information.”
Being numb and overwhelmed cuts off our lifeline to caring for ourselves and for one another.
How do we support each other in feeling our grief and in hearing within “the sounds of the Earth crying?” How do we cultivate a culture of loving, comforting presence in our Jewish communities, where our feelings, including the dark ones, are welcome? Nechama (consolation) — genuine emotional connection — is a powerful support for healing our hearts and overcoming numbness.
Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of comfort, is upon us this week and invites us to bring attention to how we create a culture of comfort in our communities. Shabbat Nachamu is the first of seven Shabbatot of consolation before Rosh Hashanah. The Jewish calendar invites us to focus on comforting one another in these weeks of preparation for the New Year with a special Haftarah from Isaiah for each Shabbat.
There are many ways to offer comfort. I am grateful to my mentor, Rabbi Shefa Gold (author of “The Magic of Hebrew Chant”), for her teachings on receiving and giving comfort. While on retreat with Gold, we learned a beautiful practice of chanting to a partner — one partner chants for several minutes while the other listens and receives the loving presence of the chanter, and then we switch roles.
We chanted Gold’s melody for the phrase from this week’s Haftarah: “Nachamu, nachamu ami/Comfort, oh comfort My people” (Isaiah 40:1). During our debrief after the chanting, many of us shared how deeply comforting this practice was and how tears began to flow. Chanting a wordless niggun or a short phrase from Torah, accompanied by gentle presence, has become one of my most potent healing tools as a rabbi.
Another favorite practice for receiving and giving comfort is what I have come to call “beauty walks.” This is a practice of stepping outside and taking a walk around the block, intending to receive beauty.
During the early days of the pandemic, I was amazed at the powerful medicine for the spirit that I discovered through this simple practice — a moment of experiencing the beauty and wonder of a flower or a puddle or a cloud restored my generosity and compassion. I also like to take photos of my finds, cropping them with an eye for what delights me, and then texting them as a way of communicating love and comfort.
What are your favorite pathways to receiving and giving comfort?
In these seven weeks of consolation, as we navigate so much loss and devastation in our world, may we enter into dialogue about the art of comfort, and may we learn to serve one another as comforters to support honoring our personal and communal grief. May we learn to hear the sounds of the Earth crying within us, and may our listening awaken in us our capacity to save our world.
Rabbi Malkah Binah Klein is the founder of Merkava, a new organization devoted to transformation and healing through creative ritual and spiritual practice. The Board of Rabbis of Greater Philadelphia is proud to provide diverse perspectives on Torah commentary for the Jewish Exponent. The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Board of Rabbis.