Mental Health Awareness Month: Guest Blogger, Beth Lazar

In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, a member of my faith community, a Reform Jewish Congregation, presented this sermon.

Beth co-chairs the Mental Health Awareness Team , and concludes:

“Our forefathers in Biblical times excluded the disabled from the Temple ritual of burnt sacrifices.Today, modern Reform Jews include, accommodate, and try to better the lives of people with disabilities, including people with mental illness. I feel comfortable and supported at B’nai Israel, and I’m glad I’m a member. Shabbat Shalom.”

Sermon about Mental Illness by Beth Lazar

Torah Portion: Emor, Leviticus 21, lines 18-21

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Mental illness is often referred to as a disability. What does the Torah say about people with disabilities?

This week’s Torah portion, Emor, Leviticus 21, says this about those who can make an animal burnt sacrifice, which is how our ancestors communed with God:

No man who has a defect shall be qualified to offer the food of his God. No one at all who has a defect shall be qualified. No man who is blind or lame or has a limb too short or too long. No man who has a broken leg or broken arm or who is hunchback or dwarf, has a growth in his eye, who has a boil, a scar, scurvy, or crushed testes.

Unlike our ancestors who excluded the disabled, modern Reform synagogues try to include the physically disabled by providing ramps and elevators and amplification for the hearing-impaired, and now zoom helps too.

In 2001, the Union for Reform Judaism, the URJ, adopted 13 resolutions regarding mental illness. Resolution #2A calls on congregations to participate in communal efforts aimed at destigmatizing mental illness. This sermon is a step in fulfilling the goal of this resolution.

The words “mental” and “mentally ill” are often used as pejoratives to describe someone you disagree with or think is evil or violent, such as political opponents, Nazis, racists, and people who commit mass shootings. In fact, mentally ill people come in all different political persuasions, nationalities, races, and genders. Mental illness is not the cause of mass shootings and violence. To the contrary, mentally ill people are 4 times more likely to be victims of violent crime compared to the general public. Mental illness is all over the world, yet only in the United States are there so many mass shootings and daily deaths by gun violence. This is due to the proliferation and easy access to all guns including military-style guns.

In truth, there is nothing shameful or evil about being mentally ill. Mental illness is an illness of the brain. Depression and schizophrenia are caused by the body’s deficiency in the production of certain brain chemicals needed for the functioning of a healthy mind. Just like the chronic illness of diabetes, where the body doesn’t produce enough insulin. Mental illness is an illness, not a character flaw.

As artist Vincent Van Gogh, who struggled with schizophrenia, wrote to his brother back in 1889,

As for me, you must know, I shouldn’t precisely have chosen madness if there had been any choice. What consoles me is that I am beginning to consider madness as an illness like any other and that I accept it as such.

Other famous people struggled with mental illness. Writer Sylvia Plath had depression. Actor and stand-up comic Robin Williams had bipolar disorder. Nobel Peace Prize winner in economics John Nash had schizophrenia. Some people romanticize mental illness as an enhancer of genius and creativity: the mad scientist, the crazy creative artist. In reality, mental illness does NOT enhance creativity but instead is a big stumbling block. For example, John Nash had his career interrupted by having a major psychotic episode. He spent time in a mental hospital before he could resume his work.

I can testify that mental illness interrupted my schooling and creativity. In 1984, I had completed all my master’s course work and had planned to write my master’s thesis and earn my master’s degree by the end of 1985. My plan was interrupted by mental illness and multiple hospitalizations. I didn’t earn my master’s degree until 1989.

Vincent Van Gogh, Sylvia Plath, and Robin Williams all died by suicide caused by mental illness. Mental illness is the death of creativity in cases such as suicide.

Depression is the leading cause of suicide. Each year, 40,000 people die by suicide in the USA. That’s the same number of people who died from breast cancer. The issue of suicide should have the same amount of public attention, support, treatment, funding and medical research as the issue of breast cancer does.

Anyone concerned about people with mental illness should be concerned about the criminal legal system and mass incarceration because there are 10 times more mentally ill people in jails and prisons than in mental hospitals. According to the Bureau of Justice statistics, 44% of people in jails and 35% of those in state and federal prisons have a mental illness. 3 out of every 4 children in juvenile detention have a mental illness.

There are so many mentally ill people in prison because in the 1980s and 1990s, many state mental hospitals closed. Regular hospitals have a shortage of beds available for psychiatric patients. When mentally ill people don’t get the treatment they need, they can’t function well, lose their jobs and then their apartments because they don’t have the money for rent.

Once homeless and living on the streets, they get sucked into the criminal legal system. Drugs and alcohol used as a means of self-medication become abused, which together with loitering, disturbing the peace, and petty theft, are reasons the homeless mentally ill are arrested. Lacking money for a good attorney and bail, the mentally ill languish in jails and prisons.

Once in prison, the majority of mentally ill people do NOT receive the mental health treatment they need. Instead, 4 thousand people with serious illness are held in solitary confinement in prisons. Before 2022, Connecticut incarcerated people were subject to months, even years, in solitary confinement.

The organization Stop Solitary CT wrote and lobbied for the Protect Act, a law which restricts the use of solitary confinement to 15 consecutive days in a 60-day period. The law also establishes an independent advisory board to hire an ombudsperson to monitor the CT Department of Corrections. One member of the advisory board must be a mental health care professional. The Protect Act was signed into law May 2022.

URJ resolution #10A states, “Place nonviolent mentally ill offenders into community-based mental health programs. Work to ensure that persons with mental illness who are sentenced to prison receive appropriate and humane treatment, including access to appropriate medication.”

URJ resolution #2B urges synagogues to “Work with persons with mental illness and their families so that they feel welcome within our synagogues.”

B’nai Israel does this, giving members platforms to share their mental health journeys. Congregant Randye Kaye, who is an actress and radio host, presented her book, “Ben Behind His Voices.” It’s the story of how she dealt with having a son who has schizophrenia.

Congregant Ivan Maisel, who is a sportswriter, shared his book, “I Keep Trying to Catch His Eye: A Memoir of Loss, Grief, and Love.” It’s about how he and his family dealt with the death by suicide of his son.

Congregants who are mental health professionals have used their knowledge to serve the congregation. Jennifer Doran did trauma counseling after October 7.

Rachel Yarden leads a support group for caregivers.

Dr. Kerner gave presentations about depression.

Our Rabbis are very supportive of B’nai Israel’s Mental Health Awareness Team, which was founded by me and Adam Weisblatt, and now Marje Freeman and I are co-chairs.

In summary, our forefathers in Biblical times excluded the disabled from the Temple ritual of burnt sacrifices. Today, modern Reform Jews include, accommodate, and try to better the lives of people with disabilities, including people with mental illness. I feel comfortable and supported at B’nai Israel, and I’m glad I’m a member. Shabbat Shalom.