February 21, 2025

A Message from your Friendly Neighborhood Soon-To-Be-Rabbi with extensive training in pastoral care/person who has spent the last several years researching collective trauma transmission, Jewish collective trauma transmission, and secondary traumatization for her rabbinic thesis: 

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To my Jewish friends: 

Hamas’ main weapon is psychological torture. What they are doing/what they have been doing since October 7 is psychological torture against the Jewish people, orchestrated in a pitch perfect way to weaponize the dynamics of global anti-Semitism, the best and worst behaviors that Holocaust trauma can engender, and internal Jewish community dynamics. They are succeeding beyond their wildest dreams. 

Protect yourself. The primary way you can do that? Lean into Jewish tradition. 

There is a reason the Jewish people have endured for thousands and thousands of years across multiple geographic locations and through countless catastrophes. Because our tradition is incredibly wise in helping us stay resilient. 

Jewish Tradition is full of many forms of sacred medicine — most of which don’t necessitate a belief in God. The most profound one is coming up: Shabbat. Here are a couple things you might consider doing to perform psychological/spiritual first aid for yourself and your community this Shabbat: 

• Sing. The vibrations of your voice from singing stimulate your vagus nerve, which is part of your parasympathetic nervous system, which regulates stress responses such as fight-or-flight, freeze, etc. Singing also helps regulate breath.
  • Better yet, sing in community. Singing in community magnifies the response to your vagus nerve, combats loneliness and isolation, and promotes positive prosocial bonds and behavior. 

• Have a communal meal. Eating is a basic necessity to keep yourself resourced. Doing it in community combats loneliness and isolation, and promotes positive prosocial bonds.

• Pray. Prayer is a form of meditation/mindfulness practice. Pray the words in a prayerbook, pray some poetry, pray the words of your own heart. You actually don’t even have to say anything. Focus on gratitude. Focus on the preciousness of life. Focus on love. 

• Take a Shabbos schluff (nap). Or do any activity that feels restful for you. 

• Unplug from technology. 

• Light candles. 

• Study something for fun. 

• Go on a walk. 

• Be in community. It is absolutely imperative that you not be alone right now. Be with whomever makes you feel good. 

I am telling you, the best way you can take care of yourself, honor all the innocent lives lost, and honor your ancestors who passed down this incredible Wisdom Tradition to you is to observe Shabbat this Shabbat, in whatever way feels right to you.

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To my non-Jewish friends:

Reach out to your Jewish friends, wherever they fall on the political and Zionist-Antizionist spectrum. Text them, call them, post on social media, invite them for a meal, go to Shabbat services with them. Many of them are not okay right now. Many, many, many Jews live with some degree of a psychological phenomenon called “Siege Mentality,” or a belief that the whole world is against them, and that they are alone in the world. To be sure, Jews are not the only identity group who experience Siege Mentality. But we don’t need to play the oppression olympics (the technical term being “competitive victimhood.”) Everyone’s trauma is valid. Pain is pain. 

The events of the past 48 hours in Israel/Palestine, and the lack of public outcry, not to mention neo-Nazi fascist regime quickly unfolding in the U.S., have triggered this sense of isolation even for those of us who are deeply involved in multiracial/multi-faith solidarity work. 

Now is the time to show up for your Jewish friends, and show them that they are not alone.

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Sending strength and love to all, 

Soon-To-Be-Rabbi Leah Julian