I cried about nothing today

Note: This post is more personal and less clear than usual- not sure if I'll leave it up, but sharing it for now:

“Just because other people have it harder, that doesn’t invalidate your pain. It’s okay to feel sad and cry over ‘smaller’ problems, even as we acknowledge that there are also bigger ones.”

Have you heard some version of this before?

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve said this to a client, friend, or one of my kids, I would probably never fly coach again. (Maybe- idk; I haven't actually done the math.)

Therapists offer this validation all the time (and I’m sure some non-therapists do too).

And: sometimes, we’re hypocrites.

Because, while I know that we can have perspective and empathy for others while still allowing ourselves to feel our own pain, I totally struggle with sometimes judging and trivializing my own feelings, because “there are much bigger things out there to cry about.”

Today was almost one of those days.

I kept telling myself (and some of those closest to me) that I wasn’t going to make a big deal about launching our baby. She turned 18 this week, and we’ve been helping her pack and prepare for a year of Torah study abroad. This is a special opportunity and a gigantic privilege (and we all know that privilege is very, very bad and shameful, of course.)

And while for the older kids, I indulged in some degree of dramatic journaling and ugly-crying as they each became a legal adult and left our cocoon, this time felt different. Because this time, we’ve been crying constantly for the last nearly 700 days about gargantuan national trauma and so crying hits differently these days.

Every time I’ve cried since 10/07/2023, even if it wasn’t specifically while praying for or thinking about the hostages, soldiers, wounded, and bereaved in Israel, (and mostly it was) it was also about them. It’s  about the pervasive, vicarious pain of that devastating day, and about the relentless, global aftershocks ever since.

Every funeral, wedding, poignant speech, article (or sentimental commercial) that evokes “regular” tears somehow also activates the current collective pain that sits chronically at the back of my throat and the pit of my stomach. I’m speaking for myself, but I’m sure I’m not alone in this. I feel this so much that it often feels wrong to write or speak publicly about anything except the war and those affected by it.

There’s a midrash that hurts a bit to read, which I’ve been thinking about a little differently lately:

When the newborn Jewish nation sent spies to Israel and then cried over their reports on the 9^th of Av, it says that G-d responded to them:

“You cried over nothing, so I will establish tears for generations.”

It always felt like the Biblical equivalent of “I’ll give you something to cry about!” which sounds harsh.

But there are many facets to interpreting texts, and some of them serve to soften these edges.

In the quote: “You cried over nothing,” the Hebrew word used for that is “chinam”- remember that word for later, please.

The Jews were crying in the desert, not exactly because they didn’t want to enter the Promised Land, but because they were afraid of it. They had been rescued dramatically from the only lives they knew in Egypt, and although it was awful- slavery, oppression, suffering- it was also familiar.

In grad school, I had a professor who used to say:

“Most folks will choose a familiar problem over an unfamiliar solution, because people are so scared of change.”

The first generation of Jews was forged amid multi-generational trauma, physical and psychological, narrowly escaping death multiple times, beheld open miracles, and were then living with the uncertainty of wandering in the desert dependent on miraculous survival– completely destabilized.

The energy of Tisha B’av started as far back as the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve messed up and lost the one commandment they’d received from G-d.

He called to them: “Ayekha?” meaning: “Where are you?” Rhetorically, symbolically, spiritually.

But the letters hinted at the word “Eichah” (it works better in Hebrew) which is the megillah of Tisha B’av and it also means: “How, G-d?” This word introduces other painful reverberations of transgression and repercussion.

Adam and Eve were fully supported and sustained in Eden; they had almost nothing to do other than bask in the pleasure of G-d’s gifts in the Garden and follow the one rule, but they lost it. That primal loss was a seismic shift in the human condition- existential, geographic, mortal, and evolutionary.

The newly freed Jewish nation was fully supported and sustained in the desert; they had almost nothing to do in the desert other than bask in the study of Torah and follow its rules. But they served the Golden Calf and cried in fear of the Promised Land, and so that generation too, lost this idyllic gift.

[Even Moshe, the greatest Prophet ever, lived, loved, served, transgressed, and lost entering the Promised Land.]

Adam and Eve, and later the Jewish nation, were both offered freedom with one caveat, but it didn’t work out and ended in loss and the need to toil.

This is, in a way, a pattern of the human experience, individual and universal:

“Here are your gifts, now just follow these rules… oh no… let’s try this again.”

We have, we lose, we feel pain, we cry, we want, we work, we rebuild. And we love.

Later in Israel, the Jews are gifted the Temples, and for a while, that’s a miraculous existence as well. But then also, they’re lost to transgressions. Primarily: “sinas chinam”- baseless hatred or hating over nothing.

In the Torah portion of Va’etchanan, Moshe begs G-d to let him into the land, and Rashi explains that one of the ways that the righteous pray and beg for things is that although could try and cash in on all their merits and good deeds, they instead request: Matnat chinam: a free gift, or literally: “a gift for nothing.”

This recurring word “chinam” is linguistically correlated to the two-letter word “chen” which means grace or favor. Chinam means “free” or “for nothing” and “chen” grace means gifted good-will.

Maybe what G-d also meant, when He said: “You cried ‘chinam’ so I will establish crying for generations” wasn’t so much vindictive as prescriptive:

To be a sentient human is to perceive, sense, and emote- we need to feel in order to be alive and to consciously experience our existence, and that includes the need to cry. Sometimes that crying is a heart-swell of grace, like when we’re moved by beautiful music, poetry, narrative, or good tidings; this is one kind of crying of “chinam”- crying that’s a free response to a stirring of the soul. And sometimes our emotions and tears are borne of frustration, fear, pain, anger, loss, or grief.

Sources tell us that every experience of discomfort can be viewed as a small piece of atonement, and that each consequence of sin carries a bit of Adam’s original sin and that of the Golden Calf mixed into it. On a technical level, this is to dilute the severity over time and cushion the impact. But maybe conceptually too, they are the paradigms for all other kinds of mistakes and losses we endure.

G-d created humans, and to err is human, but to err creates loss. We’re given “free” gifts, we mess up, we feel pain, we cry, we learn, we repair, we rebuild. Although it’s not always that clear, linear, or simple- it’s often messy.

We often don’t appreciate what we have until we fear losing it, and ironically, it’s the capacity for loss that helps us value what it, the fact that almost nothing lasts forever is what makes things precious.

And so sometimes, we cry over profound personal, vicarious, national, or global pain and suffering.

Sometimes we cry from poignancy- a deep appreciation for the sacred moments.

And sometimes we cry from nothing, the “chinam”- the grace, the taking for granted, the having that hints to not having, the loving so strong it hurts, the leaving that inflames our loving and feels like loss, the human need to leak emotion as it bubbles over, even as cognition tries to tell us: it’s not a big deal.

And it’s really not, sometimes.

Tragedy is real.

Illness is real.

Injury is real.

Pain is real.

Sending loved ones off to war is real.

These are the “tears of generations.”

In a world where involuntary acute suffering is ubiquitous, it can feel tasteless, tactless, weak, tone deaf to cry the indulgent tears of chinam, of nothing- the ostensibly frivolous tears over the natural passage of time and change.

But still, we do.

Maybe because although tears are not all equal, not even comparable, our crying stems from that original existential pain of being, having, knowing, wanting, loving, worrying, losing, and yearning.

I’ve heard people say things like:

“You would think that after all I’ve been through, I wouldn’t sweat the small stuff, but I still do sometimes.”

Because experiencing or caring about the big stuff doesn’t mean dismissing the little things.  

Perspective-taking can help contextualize and de-catastrophize, but it doesn’t usually nullify feelings. And it doesn’t need to. (Although we absolutely should "read the room" regarding with whom we share what.)

We can and should and do cry and pray and worry about the serious issues in the world today.

We can and should and do appreciate the blessings in our lives.

But today, I let myself cry about nothing.

We cried about nothing and then also about everything.

My daughter was fortunate to board a plane to go do something wonderful, someplace wonderful.

My mind is so grateful and my heart is hurting.

And my soul is accessing prayer from the depth of those tears of goodbye, because deep down, they’re not really only about her and about me and about our family.

They’re also about parents and families and humans everywhere who want to keep their loved ones close and safe, who get weepy about change, and who ache and cry over other and bigger worries and pain and trauma and anger and confusion and loss and hope and love.

Which will finally all be resolved with chinam as well- the unconditional love, ahavat chinam, that we’re taught is the only way to heal the world and wash away our tears.

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