Thought of the Week: Listening to our Mental Well Being
Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 5 November 2015
Sarah, the first Jewish woman, dies at the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, Chayyei Sarah. She is buried in a place found by her husband Abraham. But what has happened to her son Isaac? Hasn’t he had enough trauma being taken up a mountain and nearly sacrificed by his father in last week’s Torah portion?
Clearly Isaac’s bereavement weighs heavily on him. His mental wellbeing is upset. We hear this towards the end of the portion (Genesis 24:67) when he marries Rebekah. “Finally Isaac found comfort after his mother’s death.” The trials and tribulations of life naturally affect our mental wellbeing. Sometimes they are simply not copable with. Our mental health suffers.
There are of course a great number of factors that determine our mental wellbeing. Some are clinically diagnosable and some are very tough to pin down. In our community we talk quite freely about physical health. A generation ago it was very difficult to find support and to express freely one’s feelings about Cancer or living with HIV, for example. Now through the work of Jewish charities like Chai Cancer Care and JAT and their counterparts in wider society and though an opening up of our community to the issues, the situation is much better. Relatives and people living with the trauma of physical illness can find action and support rapidly.
This is much less the case with issues around mental wellbeing. As Rabbis we often hear families speaking about how difficult it is to share the challenge of supporting a relative whose mental health is not good whether for short or long periods. We hear about people finding it difficult to find support from friends and from health services. We hear about people feeling cut off from their various communities.
Alyth has worked for many years with the Jewish Association for Mental Illness and the Martin B Cohen Centre to ensure that this community offers a welcome and a friendly space for people living with substantial mental and learning challenges. This year we want to go much deeper and find out what is going in with the regular day to day issues around mental wellbeing that challenge our own members and their families. We want to make Alyth a place where, as we already do with physical illness, you know you can talk about mental wellbeing with frankness and find support, not ostracism, beyond the excellent work of Lynette Sunderland and the more formal Synagogue welfare set-up.
On the way there we need to listen and talk with one another. For this reason the Alyth Action Group has trained seventeen volunteers to hold conversations with any member who would like to so that we can find out what the issues actually are so that we can act as a community in the future. We need as many members as possible to participate in a half hour conversation one on one or in groups, as you prefer. Then onn December 2nd we will bring together, anonymised, the issues and challenges that we have heard and in an open meeting work out how this community can deal better with mental wellbeing and see if there are issues upon which we should campaign beyond our gates.
We are seeking conversation partners in many ways. We are sending individual e-mails to invite people to meet and talk. We are holding an open session for anyone who would like to drop in for a one to one conversation on Mitzvah Day morning (22nd November). We are approaching groups of Alyth members who already meet regularly to see if some of them would like to talk. Alternatively please simply contact Ruth Weiner on ruth@weinerfamily.co.uk (Co-ordinator of the listeners) who can get a conversation organised for you. If you would like to know more beforehand please feel welcome to contact me mark@alyth.org.uk.
Alyth is rightly known as a caring and campaigning community, helping North West London life to be good. Let’s hear what today’s mental well-being challenges are so that together we can make our contribution to removing taboos around mental illness and improving services for so many of us who are challenged.