What’s in it for me? Discover the hidden blessings of community and presence.
What’s the relationship between faith, ritual, and community? Rabbi Sharon Brous has witnessed first-hand the profound power of human connection – even in life’s darkest moments.
In the early 2000s, many young Jews had abandoned synagogue life, propelling anxious leaders into crisis mode, to somehow win back the next generation. Amidst this, Brous co-founded IKAR, a spiritual community in Los Angeles grounded in purposeful gathering and social justice.
In The Amen Effect, Brous shares her lived experience building IKAR alongside deeply moving stories of grief, loss, and the search for meaning. She has kept vigil at bedsides and experienced the raw grief of mothers losing their children – yet somehow still carving out fleeting moments of intimacy and awe.
In this Blink, you’ll see how our willingness to listen, share silence, see pain, and provide ritual can awaken compassion and meaning within us and others. And we’ll see how community can help us birth our full purpose, stirring us from passivity into flourishing.
Showing up
Gail was the caring mother of two children, living with her family in a tight-knight community. One day, a drunk driver sped down the road and crashed violently into her vehicle. Though Gail and her husband barely survived the horrible collision, losing their beloved teenage children left them utterly devastated.
This tragedy brought about an outpouring of support, as acquaintances and even strangers gathered in her home to offer sympathy. But her mother couldn’t help but express cynicism – questioning whether people were perhaps fake gawkers, pretending to care.
But another grieving mom helped Gail understand the significance of this support. “Your house,” she said, “is the scariest place on earth right now. So anyone who walks through your door is a friend.”
Whether they cried together, sat together in silence, shared memories, or told stories, the presence of Gail’s community ended up providing real comfort for her grief. Though the pain was still immense, this support helped put her loss in context, alleviating her isolation. Their willingness to participate in her suffering created a sense of solidarity that bore profound meaning.
The author recounts this story as a beautiful example of the importance of what she calls showing up. This can manifest in different ways. It can mean being present with loved ones enduring illness, loss, depression – for all of life's hardest moments. The comfort and care we extend to others – visiting loved ones in hospital, helping them with funeral arrangements, sitting shiva in their homes, or just listening to them cry – awakens our innate compassion. And though bearing witness to acute suffering often feels profoundly uncomfortable, it is deeply affirming. In this way, grief itself reveals its intrinsically communal nature.
That said, showing up isn’t just about sharing in grief. It's also important that we make an effort to attend our family and community’s celebrations, milestones, and achievements. It’s possible that someone else’s success or good fortune can trigger our own jealousy or feelings of failure. But even so, being present to toast the joys of others can foster profound connection. And, whether it’s a promotion, wedding, project launch, or graduation, it likely means they’ll be there to celebrate our successes as well.
When times are toughest, communal mourning rituals can serve as vessels for this supportive showing-up. Whether reciting ancient prayers as a group, collecting earth-stained hands together in burial, gathering to share memories over a meal, or simply physically sitting with one another, such ceremonies carve out space for emotions that are meant to be experienced in togetherness.
The ancient Jewish prayer known as the Mourner's Kaddish is rich with meaning. When someone in mourning stands up to recite this prayer, the community responds with "amen" after each line. This refrain conveys a world of significance – it's an affirmation meaning "I'm with you," "I hear you," and "I'm bearing witness."
The mourner expresses their anguish through this difficult prayer, and the community offers comfort and recognition by responding "amen." There is a back-and-forth between mourner and community – a supportive dialogue. In this way, "amen" represents the communal participation so vital for grieving – the act of showing up for someone suffering unimaginable loss. Even when finding the right words feels impossible, the collective ministry of presence – and the utterance of "amen" – carve out space for pain to be experienced within togetherness.
Life, grief, and meaning
Erin knew life could be brutal. A member of the author’s congregation, Erin had seen life's cruelty up close through her stage IV breast cancer diagnosis. Over two bleak years, the disease ravaged her body. She came face to face with her own mortality day after excruciating day. She endured the physical pain as well as the emotional anguish of sensing her young family's profound grief and fear.
Yet even in the midst of her ordeal, Erin consciously carved out spaces to experience moments of beauty, wonder, and intimacy. A stunning sunset viewed from her hospital bed; the sparkling eyes of her two little boys, tumbling around on her living room floor; the tight embrace of her stalwart husband as they slow-danced in the kitchen to their favorite song. She bore witness to life's brutality but resolved to witness transcendence as well.
In her final months, Erin grappled with an urgent question: what was the core purpose she was put on earth to fulfill? It felt urgent to excavate her long-buried dreams and vocational callings – before her time was up. She worried she had, for years, been getting in her own way, allowing the stresses of life to crowd out the boldness she could feel existed inside of her.
She wondered whether those around her felt the same restless longing, or if it was mortality – staring death in the face. Either way, she resolved not to let another minute slip by without contending with that persistent, inner voice asking, "Why am I here – and what am I supposed to be doing?"
Erin's mind turned to her kids. She hoped they wouldn't just float through life either. She wrote them each a note about the importance of becoming who you were created to be. About looking inside to find what energizes you, rather than chasing external validation. In the end, part of being a mom for her was midwifing her children into embracing their passions. It was an act of trust. If she did that, she believed, everything else would follow.
Discovering purpose
The author had her own journey of discovering her purpose that began years earlier. She was a committed student of Talmudic studies when she came across a newspaper article about a devastating flood in Mozambique. Women were stranded for days atop trees, awaiting rescue as crocodile-infested waters raged below. Stunned by the world's apathy, and her own powerlessness to help, she walked out of seminary, driven by an unnamed force. She appeared at Columbia University demanding to see the director of the human rights center about coordinating an emergency airlift.
Instead of dismissing her, he convinced her to continue her rabbinical studies while simultaneously pursuing a graduate degree focused on human rights. She ended up marrying religious scholarship with ethical action, past and present, spiritual and political. It was the first of many times that she would feel her life purpose emerge – from a place of divine mystery.
This mysterious clarity only intensified when her beloved teacher called her into his office shortly before her graduation from rabbinical studies. As he philosophized about the menorah lights in the ancient Temple, it dawned on her that he was hinting she could never fully shine while under his shadow. With tears streaming down both their faces, she decided to step into her calling as an independent rabbi. The time had come to nurture her own sacred flame.
When it comes to finding our inner purpose, most of us don’t get such a moment of shining revelation. One year, the author decided to incorporate a contemplative activity into the High Holiday rituals, in hopes of spurring introspection within her congregants. As people gathered for the ceremony, held near the ocean's edge, she passed around index cards and pens. She invited everyone to write down what deeply felt longings or silent yearnings they carried inside – the secret hopes they found themselves waiting for. The sun glinted off the water as three hundred temple members put pen to paper.
Later at home, the author's family gathered around their dining room table to review the collection of cards. Her young son, laughing, picked out one, speculating, “This must be from my brother, hoping for the latest Star Wars Lego set.” However, as the evening progressed, the author noticed a pattern that went beyond these light-hearted wishes. She uncovered a central theme: a profound collective ache for external validation and a sense of waiting for the right moment to act and self-realize. It was as if one person confessed through the silence, saying, “I'm waiting for someone to tell me I'm talented.” Another's yearning was palpable, as if they were in the room, whispering, “I wish my parents would say they love me.” And from another card, the frustration seemed to leap out, “Why can't she see that I'm trying?”
So many in her flock, young and old, seemed too paralyzed to live boldly into their callings, without someone else's stamp of approval. Her eyes welled up, feeling the weight of their deferred dreams. If only they could have a glimpse of their own radiance shining from within. If only they could stop questioning their worth. She longed to awaken them to the reality that they already possessed everything they needed to deem themselves worthy and to pursue their heart's true yearning.
She used her High Holiday sermon as an opportunity to emphasize that, ultimately, no external voice could confirm their worth. True peace and purpose must spring from within. No one else can grant you permission – your gifts emerge, precious, from your very soul.
Final summary
Even when darkness encroaches, we must make the effort to truly show up for one another. If we do, holding each other in sorrow and hope, our presence fills us and others with life. The “amen” we offer, from the depths of this care, makes loss somehow survivable – and joy somehow sweeter. In that sacred act of witness, we find purpose. By taking the time to knit hearts back together through loving community, we take the first small steps to mend the wider world. The “amen effect” calls us to nothing less than that truth.