May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and for me, this is not an abstract idea or a passing calendar moment. It is core to my rabbinate and to how I understand sacred community.
A huge part of my work as a rabbi has always been tending to the mental and spiritual health of the people I serve — often in moments when life has become overwhelming, traumatic or unbearably heavy. I have stood with families who lost everything in the California wildfires of 2017. I have sat with communities grieving young lives and lives lost far too soon. I have walked with individuals whose pain was invisible to the outside world, but all consuming on the inside.
Over the years, I have come to use a phrase that often stops people short: died of depression. We are comfortable naming heart disease, cancer or stroke as causes of death. Yet depression — an illness that alters brain chemistry, perception, energy and hope itself — still carries stigma. And so people suffer quietly. They worry that if they speak up, they will be judged as weak or broken. They are afraid to see a doctor, seek therapy or take medication that might help bring their bodies and minds back into balance.
The rates of depression and suicide in our country are alarming. And still, so many people struggle to ask for help.
One of the most important messages I share — whether in my office, from the bimah or in quiet conversation — is this: Seeking help is not a failure of faith or strength. It is an act of courage. In Jewish tradition, pikuach nefesh — the obligation to save a life — overrides almost every other commandment. Your life, your well-being, your mental health matter profoundly. Getting professional help is not giving up; it is choosing life.
Alongside one-on-one pastoral counseling and encouraging professional care, I have also seen the profound healing power of community — especially through support groups that acknowledge that some challenges are situational, shared and deeply human.
This year at Congregation B’nai Jehudah, we have intentionally created spaces to respond to those needs. We launched a caregiver support group for spouses and adult children caring for a loved one. Caregiving can be isolating, exhausting and emotionally complex. Love and resentment can coexist. Guilt often sits beside devotion. This group is a place of vulnerability, support, shared resources and community. It is also anonymous — creating a safe space where caregivers can truly grapple with their challenges without fear or shame.
Again and again, I witness how powerful it is for people to sit in a room and realize, “I am not the only one who feels this way.”
We also started a widow’s support group. This one comes from deeply personal awareness. When my father died 16 years ago, my mother experienced not only the grief of losing her partner, but also a painful shift in her social world. “Couple friends” often change. Invitations dry up. Widows grieve in unique and varied ways, and navigating that landscape alone can be incredibly lonely.
Having a place to come where stories are shared, friendships are formed, and spiritual support is woven into the conversation matters. It reminds us that grief does not follow a timetable, and that companionship does not erase pain, but it does make it more bearable.
In my High Holy Day sermon this year, I spoke about the phrase gam zeh ya’avor — this too shall pass. It is a beloved Jewish teaching, often whispered during moments of great distress. But it is not meant to minimize suffering or rush healing. It is not a command to “be over it already.”
Instead, gam zeh ya’avor is a reminder that moments, even the most painful ones, are not permanent — and that we are not meant to pass through them alone. Judaism does not ask us to endure silently. It asks us to lean into relationships, into care, into honest presence with one another.
Mental health awareness is not just about naming illness; it is about building communities where people feel safe enough to speak the truth of their lives. It is about normalizing therapy and medication. It is about sitting beside someone who is struggling and saying, “I’m here — and I’m not going anywhere.”
If you are struggling, please know: help exists. Support exists. You are not weak for needing it. And you do not walk this path alone.
This too shall pass — but together, we can help one another through.