Are We Dying of a Broken Heart?

On Hanukkah, we commemorate yet another moment in history when the Jewish people overcame seemingly impossible odds. Yet today, our faith in the impossible is in crisis. We should use this holiday not just for eating sufganiyot and spinning dreidels, but also for reflecting on our poor emotional and spiritual condition. For we could be dying of a broken heart. 

There is a medical term for this syndrome: takotsubo cardiomyopathy, named after the Japanese word for the section of the heart that, when misshapen and swollen from a flood of hormones, looks the same as an octopus fishing net. Faced with enough emotional stress, the body can prevent the heart from contracting properly, and can prove fatal.

Of course, we know what the stressors have been in the Jewish world. Those hormones kicked in after the shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018 and continued building after Poway, then went into overdrive on October 7th. From there, we have absorbed the world’s horrifying, upside-down reactions to the murder of 1200 Israelis by Hamas that day and two-year war in Gaza that ensued. 

These tragedies hit close to home. How many sleepless nights have you spent doomscrolling on X, seething in outrage through twisted half truths, misreporting, or death toll propaganda? How many times have you hit refresh on an Israeli news site just hoping for a glimmer of good news? How many times have you been disappointed, despite the occasional military victory? 

I think of a dear friend, who lost his wife to cancer last year. Perhaps I should have said something when he chose to say kaddish for his wife for eleven months, rather than the customary thirty days. Who could blame him, though? They were so in love. Tragically, he died a few weeks ago on the day of his wife’s unveiling, exactly one year after her burial. To even the trained eye, he seemed physically sound. But spiritually speaking, he was barely breathing. His flood of hormones proved fatal. 

Once you see someone die of a broken heart, you’re wondering who could be next. I fear that we as a Jewish people are at risk of a similar outcome, for all the same reasons. Are we overdoing our own mourning? 

As we limp into Hanukkah, consider these other difficult questions: what’s the appropriate amount of time to mourn the deepest loss of the Jewish people since the Shoah? How long should we mourn the loss of a golden age of Judaism, of a sense of Jewish safety, of the disappearance of all the norms once held by institutions, political parties, or civilized society? If we don’t want to die of a collective broken heart, though, what are we to do? Because we have clearly gotten lost somewhere between 2018 and today. 

Others surely have answers better-rooted in Halacha, but what I do know is that we need to consider these questions very carefully. It may mean the difference between the thriving and the end of Jewish peoplehood. I offer a few uncontroversial ways we can start to heal our broken hearts. 

In the Jewish world, we often always say that we have disagreements for the sake of heaven. We need to find more common ground, immediately, in the name of survival, no matter how far apart we are politically, spiritually, or religiously. Expand the tent. Make room for what brings us together, not what separates us.

We also need to make a clearer distinction between mourning and remembering. Indeed, we will want to remember these horrors and tragedies for all time. But we need to honor our ancestors’ wisdom around grief, and be very careful about dwelling in this emotional maelstrom for too long.  

Other ideas: do one small thing to celebrate your Jewishness. Any simple celebration sends a signal to your soul that the period of mourning has come to an end. Or study a little bit of Jewish wisdom. Light a Shabbat candle. Eat a latke. Call your mother. 

We may see a year of growing antisemitism, or face decades of persecution. Whatever the future holds, we must remember, especially during Hanukkah, that miracles are part and parcel of our history—and will continue to be. We cannot let our sadness overwhelm us. Let’s instead remember Rabbi Hillel, whose Talmudic advice informs how we observe this holiday. We light one more candle each night to add holiness in our lives, until the light is at its brightest on the eighth day. Marking Hanukkah in this way also forces us to ponder that which we should be grateful for in our lives right now. Surely, we already have many gifts, and plenty of partying left to do. 

On Hanukkah, let’s consider what we can do to keep our hearts healthy and beating. And let’s live long, full, happy Jewish lives, shall we? 

Scott Harris is the founder of Magnetic Real Estate and the author of new nationally bestselling book The Pursuit of Home: A Real Estate Guide to Achieving the American Dream (from Matt Holt Books).