Category: Healing & Hard Times

Ritualwell is excited to introduce a new series of interviews with Jewish artists on art and spirituality. Our first featured artist is D'vorah Horn. Learn more about Mending Spirit: Art for Healing and support their fundraising campaign, ending soon. 1. Al regel akhat, on one foot: Tell us about your latest Jewish art project.

As you may have noticed, this month Ritualwell featured guest blog posts for Mental Health Awareness Month. You might wonder why an organization devoted to ritual would choose to address this topic. Mental illness affects us all, and Jewish communities in particular are failing to support those struggling with their mental health issues. In many communities, particularly in the Jewish community, we do not discuss mental illness often, let alone acknowledge it through ritual. 

The first time I participated in a prayer service in a circle I felt awkward and uncomfortable. It felt exposed—everyone could see me. For me, prayer is a private matter. Indeed, one of the highlights during my years after college studying in

How can the Jewish community be more accessible to those affected by mental health issues?

Here’s our message: if you suffer, get help. You’re worth it.

They kept telling me that once we got through the terrible summer, the “summer of yuck” as we called it, that I would find light, happiness and health. They tried to reassure me, as we checked each week of chemo off the calendar, that I was one step closer to relief, to a happy ending, to life after cancer. They promised – everyone promised – that I’d feel better, that I’d resume work and parenting and everything in between, and that I’d be able to put cancer far behind me and move on.

But we must recall the innate human dignity of every person, every prisoner, and recognize their need for healing, too.

Sukkot invites us to live more fully present lives.

Grief begins to feel like the humidity of northeast summer: a ubiquitous discomfort that we’ve come to accept as normal. 

In Kabbalah, the current month on the Hebrew calendar, Iyar, is the month of healing. Its spelling—aleph, yud, yud, resh—corresponds to the first letters of the words “Ani Yud-Yud Rofecha,” “I am G-d your Healer.” As I prepare for the Jewish Healing Circle I lead each month at my synagogue, I am struck by what a powerful healing tool it has become.