HiN Reflection

By Rachel Holtzman

For the past fifteen years, I’ve made my living as a “book collaborator,” or a writer who helps people tell their stories. And in that work, I typically begin with a very important question: Why do you want to share? Not what do they have to say, but why they feel that unearthing that piece of them and handing it to somebody else to hold would satisfy something for them. Maybe even provide relief.

When I joined a cohort of IDF soldiers in Cuba, Missouri, for the Healing in Nature program one recent Shabbat, I didn’t have to use much imagination to know the “what” of their story. It was violence. Pain. Loss. Beyond the comprehension of anyone who has not had to face the brutal realities of war, including myself. I also deeply understood the why. 

My brother retired this year from the United States Army. He served in Afghanistan and Iraq, where he embedded with Special Forces units as a photographer. I still don’t understand what exactly he did or saw there, nor would he tell me. Because, as with these young soldiers, it feels like too great a burden to place upon someone you love. So you carry it alone. Because that’s what we understand strength and obligation to be. But that eroded his sense of safety. His sense of peace. Until one day, by the grace of God, he chose to get help. He chose to tell someone his story.  He chose to have someone help him step outside the echo chamber of his own thoughts and experiences and reflect back at him a reality that he could begin to make sense of. Begin to fill in the blanks. And in doing so, he moved closer to wholeness.

The soldiers at that dinner moved calmly and comfortably amongst one another, a physical shorthand of their indelible bond. They sat outside with their faces turned to the sun. Rolled cigarettes. Talked, laughed, played pool. There was an easefulness. The kind of deep exhalation, shoulders-down relaxation that came from the safety of the container that had been built around them—the wide open space, the tranquility. None of the obligations that come with simply being home. No sirens. Just them, untethered. But the most important component of it all was the quietest presence in that room, the therapists. The individuals who, each day, multiple times a day, have sat with these men, and said in their own unique therapeutic language, Let me carry that for a while. Until that burden becomes a little more manageable. And in the temporary absence of that burden, their stories ease their grip just long enough to be confronted head-on. Examined from all angles, and eventually, over time, set aside in a safe and sacred place.

And in just that way, it felt so fitting to be sitting around the Shabbat table with these young men. To be saying the prayers in the one language that we all share, and to be reminded of the imperatives that bind us together as Jews. Chief among them, tikkun olam. Heal the world. Our responsibility to one another is to pick up the fragmented pieces so that we might heal the whole. That is what I was witnessing in that room in real time: a willingness of all parties to do the hardest work imaginable so that they could all continue their dedication to the collective. So they could continue to stand strong for their families. So they could continue to stand strong for their country. And so we could all continue the necessary work, together. 

Healing in Nature is an Israeli nonprofit whose mission is to help IDF combat veterans heal, reconnect, and rebuild through nature, technology, and community. It was founded by Omri Barkin, an IDF veteran, in collaboration with therapists and researchers from Cambridge and Tel Aviv Universities. To support this organization and help the thousands of soldiers still in need of this vital care, please go to hin-group.org.