Please, Take Good Care of Yourselves!

The Catskill Mountains near my home.

Dear Friends,

I hear my mother’s voice so clearly, even though she is gone some years now: “Please, take good care of yourself!” I am doing my very best to follow her instructions. After all, what good am I if I am a wreck?

In almost every way I have been gifted with a charmed and privileged life, blessed with good health, satisfying work, a loving family, personal freedom, and ample resources, all within a quite safe and stable social environment. As I get older my gratitude only expands for my outrageous good fortune. Of course I have confronted the challenges of living in the world: dealing with family trauma; contending with my inner demons; grappling with the horrors of history; searching for faith and purpose; making peace with my limitations and paths not taken; and learning through painful experience how to be an accountable and upright person.

Age brings with it wisdom and also opportunities to deal with loss and pain, personal, societal and global. Whatever wisdom I have gained, I need it now as our world rocks and reels.

As a Jew, I am grief-stricken as I watch Israel under attack, tilting toward authoritarianism, and engaged in brutal war. As a Jew, I tremble as antisemitism resurges with a ferocity I have never in my lifetime experienced. As an American, I watch with horror and incredulity as our nation descends into division, venality and farce – it might be comical if the fate of our planet was not at stake. As a member of the human family, I struggle daily to remain aware of the endless suffering our benighted species inflicts on one another everywhere, while I determinedly remember that so many of us are nonetheless dedicated to the betterment of life for others.

The sweltering reality of global warming is, for me, the most destabilizing change of all. I do understand the tragic roller coaster of human history, and though deeply saddened, am not shocked by the possibility that the smooth ride I have enjoyed so far – through no particular merit of my own - might soon become very rocky. But I have always counted on the regularity of the seasons, and have found the rhythmic cycles of nature to be my steadying ground in a turbulent world. Even that ground now slips and slides beneath me.

I find myself in a seesaw battle against depression and despair. I am determined not to succumb to these soul-sucking conditions. I am doing everything I can to remain healthy and strong, and yes, even happy, so that I can be a source of support, kindness, and solace to others. I am alive for who-knows-how-much longer, and I refuse to spend my days numbed to life’s pleasures. Whatever well-being I can store up in myself, I will not hoard it – it is good energy meant to be freely shared, and constantly recycled. Some days I will need a boost from someone else’s stores. We lift each other up. This simple truth will never change.

So, I am listening to my mother and doing my best to take care of myself. Articulating my thoughts in writing is one of the ways I regain and retain clarity - thank you for reading this, it genuinely helps me to write it out, and I hope it assists you to read it.

I have also found that walking and hiking is the most wondrous medicine for me. I am taking long walks and even longer hikes as often as I can, weather and life permitting. The rhythm of my legs striding and my deep breathing steadily calms my jangled nerves, my churning thoughts begin to lose their grip and trail away behind me, I bathe in the beauty of my surroundings, and I slowly return to the innate pleasure of being alive. This is my stable foundation in an unstable world.

And you? What helps you to restore your balance? You know what works best for you, and if you are too foggy or anxious to think straight, you can talk with the people who know and love you. We are living through frightening and depressing times, and none of us is immune from these conditions. We know that caring for ourselves does not fix our broken world. But we also know that our misery does not fix the world either. On behalf of my mother of blessed memory, I’ll say it again: please, take good care of yourselves.

With love,

Rabbi Jonathan Kligler