Grief & Coping

Grief Moves Us Into A World Of Ghosts
Grief & Coping |
March 29, 2022

Grief Moves Us Into A World Of Ghosts

The first year of grief is time spent in a different country, a time of wild disjunctions and unfamiliar rhythms, of weeping and guilt and emotional tailspins. Loss fills the air you breathe, exerts itself all day, and then fills your dreams: even when you forget yourself long enough to think for a moment you’ve briefly stepped away, it doubles back on you.  Loss is everywhere. And then, somehow, at some unpredictable point, things start to shift. There comes a moment when the utter irreversibility of death–which you knew all along–nonetheless sinks......

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James Rogers
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The Great Forgiving
Compassion and Empathy, Grief & Coping, Longform, This Week In Wisdom, Uncategorized |
November 19, 2021

The Great Forgiving

This week’s Torah portion always gets me in the gut. It’s the story of Jacob returning to his long-estranged brother Esau, from whom he fled 20 years beforehand after betraying Esau by stealing his birthright and blessing. Now, so much time has passed, Jacob doesn’t even know Esau anymore. We can tell this because Jacob takes great pains to send gifts ahead, to prepare for Esau’s wrath but hope for his forgiveness, to plan for any eventual outcome. Jacob can’t anticipate Esau’s reaction. Despite Jacob’s worry that Esau’s still violently mad about......

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Rabbi Julia Appel
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