Healers and bereaved offer Jewish paths at S.F. panel

Two years ago, Jackson Holtz found himself wondering how Judaism could help him through the loss of his sister. She died at the age of 35, two days after being hit by a drunk motorist while she was bicycling.

"I was reeling, dealing with something that was incomprehensible," Holtz told an audience of about 20 at a recent Jewish Healing Month event. Held at San Francisco's Congregation Emanu-El, the panel discussion was titled "Struggles in Our Lives: How Judaism Helps."

"Within a short amount of time, the shiva was over and I was back in my professional life," said Holtz, who directs public relations for an Internet company. "But I had many questions relating to the rituals I'd gone through."

Motivated to find out whether "there are places where light really does shine in darkness," he attended a weekend workshop for bereaved individuals, held near Yosemite at Camp Tawonga. The annual event is organized by the Bereavement Center of the Jewish Family and Children's Services and by Ruach Ami: Bay Area Jewish Healing Center. In the workshop, Holtz was encouraged to put together a metaphorical "shoe box" of personal tools for coping with loss.

To his surprise, one of his tools was the act of making challah -- while listening to the Grateful Dead.

"My sister and I both liked the Grateful Dead, so it was a way of drawing on things we'd shared," he said. Later, when attending a Talmud study group, Holtz said he was "very glad" to learn more about "our religion's built-in mourning infrastructure," including yahrzeit, the custom of annual remembrance of the dead.

"To have a prescribed time to come together with my family and talk about my sister is not only a healing and helpful thing, but a very wise thing," he said.

Patients who are suffering from illness also need mourning rituals, said panelist Diane Weil, a psychotherapist who specializes in medical health issues. "I work with people who are in a lot of pain, and often they've heard that it's all in their head. I try to connect with their spirit and to work on the mind-body connection."

Recalling a 25-year-old Jewish patient who had undergone a heart transplant operation, Weil said, "Everyone was telling her how grateful she should be because she had a new life." In deference to the young woman's traumatic operation, however, "one of the things we did was to light a yahrzeit candle to acknowledge the loss of her heart."

Panelist Marsha Heller, a family physician, agreed that spirituality is a vital ingredient in healing. "What patients so often need from us is our permission to access their spiritual lives," she said. "By opening up that dimension, you're saying, 'It's safe to go there.'"

Heller said her own spirituality is a key resource in helping her empathize with patients. "How do we keep alive that energy and inspiration that allows us to be there as healers?" she wondered. "What do you do when someone comes to you with a toothache, then crumbles and tells you they can't go on?"

Attending patients' funerals and a Jewish physicians support group have both been helpful, added Heller.

"The task is to find meaning," Heller concluded. Yet "none of this is antithetical to fighting [a patient's] illness tooth and nail with all the biomedical resources available."

A vital component of Jewish healing is simply "showing up when someone is having a hard time," said Rabbi Miriam Senturia of Ruach Ami. "Sometimes it's helpful to be a rabbi -- people say things to us that they wouldn't say to other people," she said with a laugh. "There's a Jewish teaching that when someone's ill, we're supposed to visit -- each visitor takes away one-sixtieth of the illness."

Like Holtz, Senturia said she'd been drawn to Judaism following a personal loss. While she was working as a chemical engineer, her 4-month-old niece was diagnosed with a brain tumor and died five months later. "After her death, I was looking for meaning, connection, identity. This led me to the Jewish community."

Now, "so much of my work is about being with people who are in a hard, narrow place," she said. "But I have the incredible privilege of accompanying people in their spiritual journeys."

Though sitting beside hospitalized patients, trying to mitigate their pain, might not seem like the world's greatest job, Senturia does have an answer to those who ask, "How can you do that?"

"We represent the source of love," she said. "These days, I don't know how I could do anything else."