Can we Build a Healing Society?

Many of us do not know of our own illnesses whether they be physical, emotional, or spiritual. For those of us that know, we often, rightfully, look to experts among us: physicians, therapists, and clergy. But there are many barriers to getting what we need since experts are often in high demand and thus expensive and inaccessible. Further, we need others who are willing to walk with us in our journey, not merely scheduling us for forty minutes a month. It is only fair to expect that family and friends can play a partial role. What we need is sacred community and a healing society.

Parker Palmer, a leading educational theorist, writes about how the Quaker community developed a community of healing that transcends experts:

The Quaker process known as clearness committee is a classic illustration of necessity’s being the mother of invention. As a religious community that has no ordained clerical leaders, Quakers cannot take their problems into the privacy of the pastor’s office. If members of Quaker meetings are to get help with personal issues, it must come from the community. If the clearness committee, five or six members of the meeting, chosen with care for their trustworthiness, sit with a so-called focus person who is wrestling with a problem, with the intent of helping the person gain clarity about how to deal with it (Healing the Heart of Democracy, 146).

To build intentional communities properly, there must be strict confidentiality, covenant of trust, and a commitment to honor the deepest dignity of each individual. In a democratic society, we must widen the tent of who is leading and engaged in our theology of hospitality. Each of us has so much to contribute to those in our communities. Indeed, life within broader society cannot simply pertain to commerce and politics: we must show compassion to one another and foster an ethic of care.

Similar to how Abraham and Sarah ran from the tent to support strangers in their camp (Genesis 18), so too must we look beyond the intimate realm to support others. We don’t journey in isolation, but in a web of interconnected relationships. We need one another in the deepest way. Our collective spaces cannot merely be political realms but must also be experienced personally. Those around us may not be friends, but in our fragmented era, they must be more than mere strangers.

Recently, a young chassidic man (“a mere stranger” to me) was wheedling me for praying alone at an airport since he felt I should have tried to pull together a minyan. As more of a solo existentialist, I found his radical commitment to interdependent spirituality inspiring! We dare not always pray, laugh, cry alone. Just as we invite others to make themselves vulnerable before us, we must also be willing to make ourselves vulnerable.

South African author J.M. Coetzee wrote in A Diary of a Bad Year: “Whereas the slave fears only pain, what the free man fears most is shame.” In a free society, we are terribly afraid of being shamed, so we often hide away in cocoons. But shame can only exist in the dark and when we build communities and foster safe spaces for exploring and sharing we repair something deep inside of each of us.

Tragically, we often stop dreaming because we feel we are alone and powerless. We feel we cannot change the world since we are mere individuals. Benjamin E. Mays, mentor to Martin Luther King Jr., taught:

It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is sin.”

To try again, to dream again, we need one another! To heal, we need one another! We stop growing because we are terrified we will need to change. Meanwhile, our higher potentials are yearning evolved manifestations. To heal, to grow, to make an impact, we need one another. Let us turn cold communities into compassionate communities, strangers into friends, and mourners into healers.

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Executive Director of the Valley Beit Midrash, the Founder & President of Uri L’Tzedek, the Founder and CEO of The Shamayim V’Aretz Institute and the author of seven books on Jewish ethics.  Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America.”