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.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel had offered a scathing critique of American religious life: “Religion declined, not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid.”

had always imagined that the role of clergy was to navigate moments of crisis and rupture with the right combination of solace, inspiration, and challenge: from the pulpit, at the graveside, in public protest.

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.

to reclaiming the prophetic tradition and working with multi-faith partners to build a society of equity and equality, compassion and justice.

“What young people need,” he wrote, “is not religious tranquilizers, religion as diversion, religion as entertainment, but spiritual audacity, intellectual guts, the power of defiance!”

Hebrew Bible, which encompasses the Torah, Prophets, and Writings, the Talmud, an immense, multigenerational record of stories, laws, and ideas, and the Midrash, ancient and contemporary Rabbinic Jewish interpretations of the Torah.

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.”

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.