Reflections on Mental Health Shabbat
One of the hardest truths about being human is that we each have an awareness of being individuals, yet we also live in a society. Even in a crowded room, a person can feel unseen and lonely. At the same time, most people need moments of quiet reflection and solitude. There is a paradox of the human condition: we need to be alone, and we need to be with others. The British psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott captured that paradox with a single line: “It is a joy to be hidden, and a disaster not to be found.” There must be a balance between cherished solitude and the necessity of being truly seen and connected with others.
That is why community matters so much. A good community makes space for individuality and helps people become witnesses to one another. People do not always need fixers or judges, but sometimes we simply need people who notice, listen, and stay close. I would like to argue that people need community to achieve a good and healthy balance in life and good mental health.
This Shabbat is Mental Health Shabbat, established by JAMI during the week of Parashat Bo for a powerful reason. In Bo, Egypt is struck by a plague of darkness. A darkness so thick the Torah describes it as tangible, where people could not see one another or even rise from where they were. JAMI connects that image to the lived reality of mental distress: the loneliness, the feeling of being stuck, that no one can understand you. And yet the same portion also moves towards liberation, towards light, movement, and a way forward. JAMI’s website says: ‘This special Shabbat is an opportunity for us to encourage conversations on mental health, raise awareness of mental illness and distress and share ideas on how to support ourselves and others within our community.’
May this Shabbat help us become better witnesses to one another’s lives. May we learn to recognise darkness without being frightened of it, and to speak about what matters. And may we each, in our own time and in our own way, know when to be hidden and when to be found.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Igor