I’ve been thinking a lot about what I wanted my first post to be because I didn’t want to just post anything just for the sake of it. But something really moved me this week that I feel compelled to share. Last week I went to Shiva for the mother of a very good friend of mine. For those who don’t know, Shiva is the is the week-long mourning period in Judaism for the passing of first-degree relatives. This was the first time I had ever been to one. As I stood in the back of the room, shoulder to shoulder with friends, family, and loved ones of the family, I couldn’t help but be overcome with connection to all of those surrounding me. Even though I knew only one other person in the house of nearly 150, I felt the love, pain, and sense of longing that everyone else was feeling. It passed through the room from person to person like a pulsing heartbeat, as we wiped our tears and bowed our heads. I haven’t shared such an intimate moment with so many strangers in quite a while and it was something that I will remember for a long time. Over this past weekend I went to a wedding of one of my in-laws. It was a beautiful wedding. Great friends and family. Open bar right on the beach. It was what anyone could have wanted. It was perfect. But as the night got going and we got into speeches there was a topic that continually had come up. The groom’s mother had passed away a few years ago and her absence was heavily felt by all. As the father of the groom spoke to the audience about how proud she would have been of her son, the entire room choked up together. Each one of us was feeling the feels together as he embraced his newly married son. Within a week I had gone to two events, that could not have seemed to be any more different and yet, I had this incredibly intimate experience with a massive group of people sharing my same feelings. The more I thought about it I realized that they were both incredible celebrations of life but on both ends of the spectrum. Congregations of family and friends come together and feel all the emotions of life together - the ups and the downs. Love is ultimately what binds us all together and it can be wrapped in all different kinds of emotions. To me, social enhancement is all about our empathy for one another. We share way too much in this life to go through it alone, or even, let others go through it alone. Our lives are hard enough as it is. I prefer lock arms and get through it together rather than let each of us go our own way.
