The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World

There is still vitality in this now forever broken world. There is still surprise and wonder, life and love. Your loved one has died, and you, you are still alive. We will hold this grief with love, and we will return to life together. In our moments of greatest anguish, we are not alone. I wish I had figured this out in time to help Jonah.

Despite the fact that the Kaddish is the hallmark of Jewish mourning practice, Jonah was not alone in struggling to make sense of it. The prayer is hard. It’s written in Aramaic, the vernacular of the Jewish community in the ancient world, precisely so that everyone who recited the words back then would understand exactly what they were saying. Iro

There is a timeless wisdom in entering the sacred circle: this is, on some fundamental level, what it means to be human. Today, you walk from left to right. Tomorrow, it will be me. I hold you now, knowing that eventually, you’ll hold me. Every gesture of recognition marries love and humility, vulnerability and sacred responsibility.

You wear your troubles on the outside: the whole world moves seamlessly in one direction and you in another. And even still, you trust that you won’t be marginalized, mocked, misunderstood. In this place, you will be held, even at the ragged edge of life.

Gail answers her own question, remembering something she had been told by another bereaved parent in the community that morning. “Let me be clear,” this mother had said. “Your house is the scariest place on earth right now. So anyone who walks through your door is a friend. I promise you that.”

I don’t quite know what to say, so I mostly listen. I’ve found during the past forty-eight hours with Gail and Colin that my role as their rabbi is less to dispense wisdom—I wouldn’t dare—and more to engage in the very holy work of not running away.

The world was made—gorgeous, tender, broken, dangerous—we know not why. —Reverend Victoria Safford

I argue that training the heart in compassion and curiosity is a social and spiritual necessity.

The science of apathy and empathy, loneliness and resilience is critical to understanding the complex puzzle of the human brain and the human heart, and essential to understanding our emotional lives, our communities, and the broader society.