Dr. Leigh Weisz 13:01
As parents, you know, the concerns like will my child be okay, you know, that? The, at the end of the day, that’s what parents worried about.
Rabbi Wendi Geffen 13:08
Yeah, exactly. So then I think after COVID, there’s July 4, and then certainly in the Jewish community, you there’s October 7, which I would say, in the Jewish framework is the most radical flipping upside down of kind of how one navigates Jewish identity in the world, and in particular, in the community. And we in which we live, which, up until that point, by and large, have been pretty sheltered from kind of like, a real sense of threat of anti semitism, I guess, kind of.
Dr. Leigh Weisz 13:44
Absolutely which is, which is unique to this area, you know, exactly. So, I’m gonna kind of take you back to you were saying to me after the Pittsburgh shooting, or if a parents came to you, and it sounds like many did, said, you know, should I like the shots? You’re right. There’s not a one size fits all, but should I send my child to Temple religious school? You know, you? And I do think that parents were worried that there was like, a target on their child’s you know, they were totally, how did you, you know, really approach that with parents? Because obviously, I know you, you weren’t gonna say yes, you should, or No, you shouldn’t. But how, what kind of questions did you make them reflect on and how did you guide them?
Rabbi Wendi Geffen 14:29
So I think, some of the initial conversation and these are, by the way, tropes that can apply.
Dr. Leigh Weisz 14:37
I’m gonna say it certainly could apply after October 7 as well.
Rabbi Wendi Geffen 14:40
And I would say in the kind of like discernment questions, which is, I think, really, for me, at least the starting place and a new conversation, my bigger tools that can be used in any kind of anxiety provoking scenario just for what it’s worth. But I think the first one is to discern what’s real you In a person, like if it’s the parent, for the parent, and then for what they understand of the child, assuming the child’s not actually in that conversation, right, some parents brought their children to have this conversation. And obviously, those were children of, you know, a certain age and older, but it’s not that children can’t be a part of that conversation. It depends on the child. Right. But so for some parents, if, if they kind of slowed down, and said, Okay, so what is the situation we’re actually talking about? We’re talking about in our case, you know, should I send my child to religious school, at our synagogue here in the suburbs of Chicago, right? Is, is what’s going on? Is there an active threat here? Right, let’s discern that and thank God, there was not right. Often we would talk about like, what would you need to hear as the parent to to assure you that this was a different scenario? From your worst case, fear, which is fueling the concern? It’s discernment. Right, then the question goes to the student or the child, which is, how is Is the child manifesting concern? explicitly? Or do you feel that you sense it? How, and really, that then becomes the balance of the parent, you know, if a child is in full anxiety, panic mode. You know, there’s not a lot of cases where I would say, and you should push them through and force them to come to religious school. Right. But if a child is able to self navigate their own concerns, and even maybe had expressed some, but, you know, was was kind of ambivalent about what to do, my direction would be to encourage families, not to change their lives and not to cede their agency to fear. Even if it was a fear grounded in some reality, right. Again, always with the caveat that and they have to, you know, if we make it broader, the parents or the family has to trust the institution that they’re navigating with. Right. So like our institution is pretty outspoken about, we take security very seriously. Parent, you know, we’re not allowed to say everything we do for security publicly for security reasons. But I think our community has trust in us that we are pretty on top of all situations. And if there were a situation that wasn’t safe, we would as an institution, be responsible and not offer whatever was otherwise supposed to be offered, we would never do something consciously to put our community in danger. And I think that’s the case for most organizations. And certainly these days for most synagogues. So some of that is just slowing down and actually discerning or analyzing, okay, what’s, what’s real, right?
Dr. Leigh Weisz 18:24
What’s likely, you know, what’s likely.
Rabbi Wendi Geffen 18:26
And and what’s my priority for my child, my family, vis a vis their life and a healthy life based on the values that we ascribe to as a family. Because at the end of the day, like, that’s why people send their kids to religious school, it’s not, you know, any kind of enrichment activity is valuable. But in this case, this is like core identity enrichment. And if, if at all possible, think it’s about kind of limiting or pulling the concern down a bit, and not enough to create space enough, do allow for some kind of normalcy. Mm. about it, right? Like, it’s no different than even in the pandemic, right. Like all we all want it for our kids. whether they realize it or not, was normal. See, I don’t even know what normal means. But like, it wasn’t normal.
Dr. Leigh Weisz 19:31
Yeah. But that’s what holds kids together, you know, structure and routines and rituals, and, and to have none of that during COVID was kind of sad. Yes. But even like you said, in the wake of these traumatic events, where our kids do need us more, you know, to have that sense of like, we’re in control, you’re safe in the world. So just to have no structure, not do the normal things that we would do is almost more you know, I liked what you said. thought about slowing down? And you know, recognizing, Is there really an active threat? Right? Or is are we responding to our worst fears? You know? So I’m wondering if there are things that you, you help parents to feel more in control about? Because I feel like again, a lot of this is about a sense of control in a world in which people feel they don’t, they don’t have control.
Rabbi Wendi Geffen 20:23
Yes, yeah. So I think like, along those, exactly, as your kind of question hints at a lot of the process of discernment is not just about what’s actually happening, but what is in my control as a parent versus what is not. And sometimes, I think, actually, a lot of times, I mean, I’m not a clinician, but my guess is that this is kind of a human thing. We invest a lot of our energies into the stuff we cannot control, and kind of release our energies around the things we can. And I don’t think it’s a conscious, a conscious thing for us. And I don’t really know what that’s about it might be because the things we can’t control are terrifying to us. And we just take for granted what we can. But in these conversations with families, and in I’m thinking here about, I mean, I can think about examples, actually, from any of these kinds of touchpoints. But especially during COVID, right, like, that’s where I think about this, like, there was this like ubiquitous looming monster of this weird disease that could potentially not just hurt you, but cause you to hurt others. I mean, it’s like a nightmare of a threat. Right? And none of it was, it was just so ethereal, and evaporates, like out there. And we were all hiding from it, either because we wanted to, or we were forced to, or some combination of both. And I think, kids, you know, I don’t know, I mean, I think in general, kids are so resilient. And they can, they can cope so much better, generally speaking than, certainly than I think I can. But a lot of the question would be, you know, when parents would, in COVID talk about and I related to this, because like, we experienced this in my family, like what’s happening to my child because of COVID. And, I mean, I’ll share like a personal story. And I think I’ve shared it publicly, so my kids won’t necessarily mind. But like, my kids navigated COVID in their rooms, and they lived their lives in their bedrooms, they ate in there, they like never left there. And all of this sort of normal habits of our family in the initial lockdown went away. Right? And these are things that happen in our home where we were about which we have complete control, but for whatever reason, we just let it all go all of us. But for nr kids, you know, they what do they know. And I remember one day going into one of my kids rooms. And it was like such a wake up call, because it was just it wasn’t pretty what was happening in there in there. And I remember saying to myself, I’m the parent in this house, I can’t expect that my kid is, if I don’t offer any structure or boundaries, why is my kid going to impose them for themselves, they’re a kid. They need me to do that. And we really kind of had like a family recalibration at that point, because it had become clear, this wasn’t an oddity. This was life now for whatever it was gonna be. And we’re, we needed to control this stuff we could control and that that’s not like spiritual deep. That’s just like, sometimes it’s just about reminding people that they have to clean their room. And that’s the expectation in the little small world that is our family. Interestingly, Lo, that kind of thing actually can become spiritual. Because when you do clean your room, you are claiming agency over your space, it’s giving you a sense of power and control in an outside world where there wasn’t any control, right? And that, that can that kind of like diminished anxiety can make a person feel stronger and better in the place where they find themselves. So I think like things like that, whether it be for ourselves, whether it be for how we navigate in the relation of ourselves to our family, discerning where we do have control and even if it’s not in the like, meta values, but justice Little mundane things of life, it’s, you know, those little steps are grounding. And like, if you think about it, you know, if you’re in a moment of panic and anxiety, what’s like a great way of kind of like recalibrating, just like sitting on the floor and putting your hands down feeling where you are. Yeah. And I think in the same way, like these little exercises of taking agency in the spaces where we have it already, can be, can be a similar process, and it can be virtuous, right? Like you do one thing, then you’re going to feel like you have a little more agency to do something else to do something else.
Dr. Leigh Weisz 25:40
Well, and I hear you, without your without you saying it, I’m interpreting that there’s a piece of like, accepting that there are so many things that are bigger, that we really do lack. And you almost have to come to terms with that piece of it, you know, before you before you can kind of do the rest and make these decisions, because we obviously can’t predict the future, you know, but like you said, you know, checking what the security measures are at the synagogue, you know, feeling like, is there an actual legit threat to this area? Or just I’m my fears are kind of like running away with me. I’m thinking about practice. Oh, go ahead.
Rabbi Wendi Geffen 26:17
I was just going to add one more thing just along those lines, which is like, not internalizing everything, like understanding that what this moment is, might be different from what the next experience is. So like, in those conversations, in particular, I’m thinking back to Pittsburgh, and then in the wake of October 7, really, in the first I’d say, six weeks, in particular, after October 7, were that kind of like hesitancy, or real, real concern about being in Jewish spaces or being Jewish ly identified bubbled up. I think, some, especially since October 7, look, there were times where like, it was clear that people were fully panicked. And it wasn’t going to be productive for any number of families to come together or to send their children, but that they might feel different, in a week, right in a month that this didn’t have to be a permanent sentence of their relationship or their child’s relationship with anything. It was just responding to where you were in a given moment. And I think that not catastrophizing, for all space. And time is another tool that’s really important in our scary world.
Dr. Leigh Weisz 27:36
It is like, what do you need right now? It’s almost like after an acute trauma, what do you need today? What do you need this week? You know, what, like you said, not making a permanent decision, we’re never going to temple again, we’re never, you know, we’re never going to feel safe again. Right, those extreme words, and taking it to this moment, I think that’s incredibly, incredibly helpful. There’s a whole, you know, a whole therapy mode called DBT, which is about being in the here and now and looking around the room and being able to pull out what do you see that’s red? And what can you feel that’s textured? And what do you smell like trying to like, just really use your senses to ground yourself? Because sometimes, again, the anxiety propels us to this other place, and we are not able to, you know, make decisions. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I was thinking about too, with the kids anxiety versus our own anxiety. One of the examples that sticks out for me is, with the school shooter drills, I remember even with my own kids, when they were younger, it was so normal to them, they would go to school, they would do a little drill, they would come home, and I would try to process it with them. And it was clear, they were not needing to process it, correct. It was. And, again, it’s like hard to understand, because we did grow up in a different world than they are. But some of this is not something that they’re experiencing is traumatic, and we are so again, talking with adults, you know, to our friends, family supports therapists, you know, you know, religious leaders around our own reaction, so it doesn’t trickle down, and we don’t make it an issue for the kids.
Rabbi Wendi Geffen 29:14
And I think some of that, first of all, yes, 100%. And more to that, because look at at a baseline, we don’t want to cause our kids. We don’t want to be the ones to traumatize our children telling them information or narrative. That isn’t their narrative we want, you know, I think to help our kids form their own narratives in their lives and build the tools they need to navigate life. They’re growing up in a time that is very, very different than certainly a time that we their parents grew up in or any other generation before, right. And that your how you say that we as parents should be finding support amongst ourselves and finding the resources, we need to take care of ourselves, for me sits at one of those kinds of ideas that I just think sometimes we forget, which is we are actual whole human beings ourselves. We are not only parents, and if we don’t take care of ourselves, and, you know, ironically, it will create a reality where we might not be the parents, we would otherwise want to be. But we are best parents, if we are good with us, you know, good with ourselves. And I think sometimes that honoring of it, you know, it’s, it’s just, it’s the airplane metapho.
Dr. Leigh Weisz 30:42
Hold on your own oxygen mask, right?
Rabbi Wendi Geffen 30:49
Exactly. Brace yourself. Right, you know, again, even unless you are actually in a moment where a real tiger is chasing you. That is, that’s a completely different scenario. But thank God, those actual moments relative to the expanse of time are small and finite. Most of us live in moments where that is not the case, the majority of our life, correct.
Dr. Leigh Weisz 31:09
We don’t understand we don’t respond as though that’s a perpetual, correct. Experience.
Rabbi Wendi Geffen 31:17
Right. I mean, you know, because it’s not a perpetual experience. Right, even though I mean, this is, I think one of the real challenges with issues like, you know, mass shooters, or even in the Jewish community growing anti semitism. There’s lots of messaging that, you know, speaks to, for lack of a better word, the ubiquity of these realities. And even at that they are still isolated incidences. Thank God. But I think about our kids, I think about Jewish kids growing up today. And, you know, the world that Jewish kids are growing up today and in America is a very different world than the world I grew up in as a child in America as a Jew, and I grew up in Texas, not the North Shore, which had a very different Jewish reality in relation to its neighbors, but nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, compared to studies that come out every week now about exponentially increased anti semitism. Right, which I think that, that becomes really hard for us to navigate. But I mean, I’m thinking of a story, you know, we in the in sometime, within the first month or two, after October 7, we had done a series of programs here at the synagogue, to kind of like be a resource to parents of different age children to, to address this question, right. And one of them was for parents of children zero to five. And the conversation was just like a check in like, asking parents to share what they were feeling. And, you know, the parents were talking about how would they be able to identify if a child in there, if another child in their child’s preschool was anti semitic? Right, like, that’s where their brain was going to? And we had to say, like, okay, just let’s step back for a snack. Right, right. Like, is there any thing, anything that’s happened in your experience in this preschool? To open the door to that right to? Is that a real concern? And once we were able to kind of like, parsley, analyze and parse it out, you know, like, Thank God, of course, that was not a concern, right? And it what it led the parents in the room, I mean, like, we didn’t have to say any of this. And it was, it was me in partnership. With a therapist, we were doing this together, we it required nothing. The parents themselves were like, Oh, my God, I have totally brought all my mishegoss to my two year old.
Dr. Leigh Weisz 34:09
Who’s experiencing, you know, what.
Rabbi Wendi Geffen 34:12
Thank God, good, right. And these are people who want who are, you know, their go to our synagogue they want their child to have they have healthy Jewish relationships in with visa vie their identity, like they want their kids to have that. And it just kind of took that shared conversation, I don’t know sometimes Right? to kind of get out of it and say, like, oh.
Dr. Leigh Weisz 34:33
Even just naming your fears in the community, you know, or allowed for someone else. Sometimes it’s more helpful than keeping it inside or writing it down, you know, just and then look at it and examining and saying like, so, you know, where does this come from? Is this like you said, an actual legit, you know, acute threat, right? Right. Yeah. What about taking it to the kid level now because like you said, there are some Get to absolutely or teenagers who are old enough to, unfortunately follow the current app. Yep. What do you How does the conversation look with a, let’s say a teenager who is aware of, you know, more information about October 7, for example than a little kid might be? And they really are feeling scared about anti semitism of the world, like, what does that? What does that conversation look like?
Rabbi Wendi Geffen 35:24
So I think, I think once you’re with, I’m gonna say like an actual teenager. Yeah. And I guess like, not every, you know, not everyone’s 13 year old is an equal thing. But I don’t think this is the same conversation really, with below junior high age kids developmentally. So I just kind of want to name that. Because if a person who’s hearing this has like a 12 year old in sixth grade, I actually think it’s a different kind of conversation. And my experience is, though we have I am aware of a couple junior high age kids who have been navigating some challenges. They have particular like, some of them are children of Israelis, like they have like some connection, primary specific direct connectivity, which I think makes them a little unique relative to our community, right? Where we see it definitely is in high school aged kids, and in particular, ones kids are starting to think about college, right, like so the.
Dr. Leigh Weisz 36:29
Get questions like where to go.
Rabbi Wendi Geffen 36:33
Because they are, they are seeing depending on where they get their information. Also, depending on the school they go to, they may be personally experiencing either veiled or explicit forms of anti semitism. They may not be experiencing anti semitism, they may be experiencing people in their environment expressing, for lack of a better word, political opinions, or other opinions that are not necessarily or necessarily intentionally meant to hit back to Jewish identity. But that do or are felt as such. And in particular, this age population in our community is really having to learn how to cope with that because they have not developed skills to face this. It’s not like they’ve been doing prepare yourself to respond to anti semitism, like they’ve been doing lockdown drills since preschool. Right? I often will give the example like when I was growing up in Dallas. From the time I think I was probably in second grade, my synagogue trained us on how to respond to someone if they tell you like, and they gave us different anti semitic tropes. I mean, like where we were literally taught, right? Here’s the response, I mean, gave us a tool. And it was less scary, because we had heard it before. He had heard it before we knew what to say. And it wasn’t necessarily uncommon. Now, this wasn’t like violence or things like that. It was just more what was kind of like verbal and what was a common trope in the South. I think for our kids here, they got nothing.
Dr. Leigh Weisz 38:35
Okay, you know, what, and occupations, right?
Rabbi Wendi Geffen 38:39
No and they’ve never even had to think that they needed to defend their Judaism, their identity, whatever that meant, you know, by and large, you know, living in this community is such a incredible oddity for Jewish people. visa vie, the larger Jewish experience on unit from exactly a larger world that like the confronting of, on the one hand, I think is challenging and kids. What kids want to know is, is what they’re saying, true. How can I learn more about this? I want to understand it. I mean, they’re looking, they’re asking for tools to deal with it themselves, which I think is a great, a great thing, right? They’re not asking for somebody to go and do it for them. They understand it as something they they need to know how to handle. But at the same time, you know, it’s really a it’s a very difficult it’s a really difficult scenario, however it manifests to kind of empower them around for any number for any number of reasons. And again, not all kids are the same. Not All families are the same. And I’m taking away anything in terms of the family’s particular view on Israel, Zionism. Jewish identity, I’m just kind of glomming it all into one thing, but that can complicate it, too, because a teenager and their identity, although they are looking to individuate, they are still very influenced by and subject to the norm of their family, and in particular, their parent or parents or guardians. Right. So that, that can be really difficult. But I would say no different than the parent population, what we’ve found to be, you know, the most effective place for creating some kind of resource for teenagers, and we’ve now done this with college kids, most college aged kids, is just convening them, bringing them together, share whatever they are experiencing. And I I honestly think the minute they hear that they are not alone. Like a supportive, like, this huge elephant just became this much more manageable writing. Right?
Dr. Leigh Weisz 41:16
No, definitely. I’ve had, you know, we had graduate students who again, like in their, you know, the Jewish graduate students come together and have, you know, a dinner where they’ll talk about kind of what their age experiencing. And again, they feel such a weightlifter, just knowing they have this group to be able to share these feelings, these big overwhelming feelings with and that they’re not alone, and that they can kind of rely on each other for support. So there’s something so therapeutic about that community.
Rabbi Wendi Geffen 41:45
The other thing that we at least have, as clergy have been able to say is, because this age person, a high school student, by and large, is seeking individuation, and they do want to handle things themselves, we have found that we are the ones who can give permission for them to know that like, they don’t have to. And like we the we, the clergy. And this is true at any synagogue really, everywhere. We reach out to schools all the time, when challenges arise, to kind of help to educate or inform or support based on whatever needs are necessary that like the burden of the defense of the Jewish people, or even one’s defense of oneself as a kid doesn’t need to fall entirely on the shoulders of the kid. And we’ve seen that like once permission like not their parent. It’s different when the parent is like, I’m gonna call some kids, you know that they don’t respond well to that. But when we, their rabbis and Cantor have been able to say, Hey, I’m gonna call this is part of what my job is. It’s not your job, you’re a student, your job is to learn, you know, that that has also been a little bit of a relief. We don’t want to disempower anybody.
Dr. Leigh Weisz 43:16
Oh, but this isn’t a burden for one person, let alone a young adult or a teen. And so you’re just saying I’m happy to take some of that on with you. Like, exactly. You know, because it’s, it’s, it’s a lot. It’s a lot. It’s a lot. There’s a lot. I’m going to ask you, if you can tell us Rabbi Geffen, one kind of last piece of advice for how parents can cope with whatever they are experiencing. Whenever we face these challenging moments, and when their anxiety or our anxiety feels paralyzing, because, again, as you said, there’s all these different events in the world that, unfortunately, will continue. So it’s not it’s not over for us, for parents, for us parents, but what would be one kind of tool or piece of advice that you could give us?
Rabbi Wendi Geffen 44:11
Thanks. I’m impressed. This is something that I do. I mean, I think there’s so many great tools out there. But for me, like discernment is, is like the place where I find power and control. And I find that if I’m able to get in a space where I don’t feel like everything is out of my control that there it’s just a different reality than unfolds. And I think that that’s true for a lot of people. So there’s, there’s actually a really beautiful, it’s a Jewish mindfulness practice. And it’s, we would talk about it this way. It’s basically about remembering that you always have breath. Yeah, literally you will. If you’re alive, you are breathing You’ll always have it, it’s yours to activate at any point in time. And what intentional breathing can do is slow things down, can get you out of a reactivity reflex, fight or flight kind of scenario, and help recalibrate you. So that look, if it turns out you do need to run, you can run better. And if it turns out that you don’t, there’s actually not a tiger, you can calm and center into what is the needed action. And and the way that this teaching that I’m thinking of talks about it is it talks about creating a differentiation between the match and the flame. So you know, if you have a match, right, it’s not on fire, a match is just a match. And then when you strike it against something with friction, if you try to like slow motion that in your brain, you know, it’s gonna sizzle a little and then it feels like it’s instantaneous, but then there’ll be a flame. Right? But it’s actually not instantaneous. There is a lot that’s happening between when you’re holding the match. And when the flame lights. And if we kind of think of our own selves like this, where the match whatever we’re emoting or feeling is the flame.
Dr. Leigh Weisz 46:29
How can we slow down the kindling of it basically beautiful metaphor?
Rabbi Wendi Geffen 46:33
Yeah. Breathing is just like, so when we feel something happening in us. Can we sit in two, five deep breaths, right? Not one, but five. Right? So it might feel like you’re in an awkward pause. But it’s just five breaths, right?
Dr. Leigh Weisz 46:48
Well, and even from a very basic like, parenting standpoint, when parents are like, Oh, I’m quick to anger. I know, they can do five routes. I mean, it would work in almost any scenario. But yes, I always say you take your breath with you. Because people are like, what tools and they you know, some people have like actual things that physical things they use totally wherever you are, right. And some people feel awkward about that, like you, you can always go to the to the breathing. So I learned something, is there a name for the mindfulness practice that you’re talking about, like in Judaism, or just.
Rabbi Wendi Geffen 47:20
So I mean, it’s part of something called the Musar tradition, which is just feeling you were holding up just, it’s a large there any number of like, mindfulness pedagogies, I guess we might call them in, in sort of the the narrative of Jewish tradition, this one is called Musar. And there’s a tons of other ones underneath it. But they’re all they’re really, and what’s interesting about them, is they’re really for the purpose of character refinement. So, you know, if a person like and that’s I have, where I think this is, can become really virtuous, is we all like, it’s not new, to face an unknown world, the truth of the matter is, humans are all living things have very little control. And that is the eternal reality or condition of our existence. No matter how escalated, we might perceive it to be it’s actually no different than it’s ever been. It just takes unique, you know, realities based on the moment in which we live. So, this practice Musar, this whole thing, and this one that I’m telling you about, just like accessing the breath, and you can use it proactively right? To address and kind of harness anxiety, but the more you practice it, the more it will become habit. Sure. And it will find places in your life beyond just these reactive moments. And that will make you a more measured person that will make you a less reactive person, and from a Jewish Vantage that will make you a person who’s better equipped, not just for defense, but actually for improvement of the world.
Dr. Leigh Weisz 49:05
Like meditation, right?
Rabbi Wendi Geffen 49:09
But for the sake of something, ultimately, which could be even beyond oneself. Yeah. No, that sounds good to me.
Dr. Leigh Weisz 49:18
I think that’s a great a great piece of advice everyone can do it. It’s it’s simple. It just like you said, take some practice to remember to use that breath that we have. Exactly. And it does shift I mean, from from the shallow breathing to kind of like a deeper breathing really does change how you feel pretty quickly. So it’s pretty powerful. Yeah, well, thank you Rabbi Geffen so much for everything for your time and your wisdom. Again, I I always say you are the most equipped therapists who is not a therapist. I know this is what you do day in day out with all of your congregants and we are so grateful to have you here. Everyone, please check out more episodes of our pod cast, go to coping partners that come and click on podcast and articles. And thank you so much for tuning in and again, thank you Rabbi Geffen for being here.
Rabbi Wendi Geffen 50:09
Thank you so much Dr. Weisz. Pleasure to be here. I’m humbled and so appreciative of all the work you and your colleagues do. Thank you.
Dr. Leigh Weisz 50:15
Thank you.
Outro 50:17
Thank you for listening to The Coping Podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes and check out our podcast page at copingpartners.com.