Resource Type: Articles

Wellness Resources for the Situation in Israel

“Kol Yisrael arevim zeh la zeh – All Jews are responsible for one another” is a Talmudic phrase most often used as a call to action. A symbol of the responsibility we should feel for the well-being of others. It is also a sign of unity and strength, and it reminds us that we are never truly alone in our struggles.
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Keeping it Together

By Max Hollander | In the desert, there is only anxiety, but the holiday of Sukkot asks us to embrace that desert experience because without it we wouldn’t get anywhere. We don’t just read about it; we live it, residing in the sukkah for an entire week. And, in doing so, we learn to accept the reality that we are allowed to shake or stumble on our journeys and shouldn’t be ashamed of that.
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God has Made Laughter for Me

By Ze’ev Korn, LCSW, MSW, EdM | On Rosh Hashanah, Jews around the world will read the same section of the Torah. It is the story of the birth of Isaac, or Yitzhak in Hebrew, whose name means laughter. What a way to begin the new year, with the gift of laughter and humor being brought into the world. While everyone has experienced the pleasure of laughing, I (and I imagine others) have also known the experience of losing one’s sense of humor.
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T’Shuva Le’Tevah – A Return to Nature

By Tori Greene | The holiday of Sukkot is a time when we as Jews from all around the world take our indoor lives outdoors as we build temporary dwellings — called sukkot — to eat, hang out and even sleep in. After spending about a month and a half from Elul to Yom Kippur, delving inward and focusing on the self, Sukkot pulls us outward.​ It requires us to interact with community and nature in a way that can be rejuvenating for the soul and, potentially, for the mind.
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Dancing into Forgiveness

Simchat Torah speaks to us in two ways. First, the completion and renewal of the Torah can show those of us stuck in or holding onto the past that we can begin again, and we aren’t alone in our need for a fresh start. Second, when all else fails, sometimes we just need to move our body. Simchat Torah provides a jumpstart of fun, excitement and dance we can use to pull ourselves out of our own heads and into our bodies, which can serve as a form of informal dance therapy.
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Remembering the Good: A Daughter Reflects on her Father’s Life

By Ruby Falk | Anyone who has lost a loved one in an “unsavory” way — generally, suicide and/or an overdose — knows all too well the physical reaction you have when someone asks how your person died. It’s information we’re not so ready to give away until we know we can truly trust the person to hold this for us. This same level of recoiling doesn’t exist when we’ve lost someone to cancer or another illness. We’re much quicker to share the positive, happy, warm memories of that person. We remember the rich life they lived leading up to their passing, even if it was an untimely death. How is it still this hard for us (myself included) to accept that mental illness is as critical and life-threatening as any physical condition?
Mirror without a reflection with flowers covering the ground.
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Vidui: Remembering You’re Human

During the High Holidays, we reflect on ourselves and the year we've had and recite prayers like "Vidui" where we list out our sins. But we need to be mindful of the complexity of human life and its ups and downs, and that we are far more than any one label, misdeed or illness. Just as the Vidui serves as a catch-all for misdeeds we might have done that we might not even have been aware of, we should recognize there are plenty of good deeds we performed as well without realizing it. We are not our sins, we are not our mistakes, we are not our diagnosis. We are human and created in the Image of God.
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Shofar Service and Our Longings

By Rabbi Sandra Cohen | I believe patience will win out. Hope will win. But…if I, for example, light Shabbat candles four times a year, and God “shows up,” as it were, four times a year… then the odds of us meeting each other are low. But if I invoke God regularly, doing mitzvot, praying, blessing, celebrating and mourning, if I actively remember God, I am more likely to experience God remembering me.
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The Power of Art: The Positive Effect of Art on Mental Health

Creativity is a godly activity. According to Jewish tradition, every story in the Torah is included for a reason. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, a 20th-century scholar, wrote in “Halakich Man” that the reason the story of creation was included in the Torah was to teach us to be creative — just like God. Engaging in art and practicing creativity can leave us with more than just a beautiful physical piece of work. Art can be an incredible tool for expressing ourselves and actively supporting our mental health. Research has found “expression through art can help people [who are struggling] with depression, anxiety, and stress.”* Engaging in art for even 20 minutes reduces cortisol, which decreases stress.
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