Theres the faithbased initiative. There are other synagogues, churches and faithbased groups that deal with this issue in their own particular way. This morning we would like to invite you into a serious and important conversation. We have rabbi Stacy Friedman and joann foreman who is a member of the Mental Health initiative coordinator. Thank you so much for being here. Rabbi friedman, why do we jump in and ask why you consider this particular issue so important for your synagogue into the Jewish Community at large. When we decided this was a real need, i had been at the congregation for 25 years. More and more people had come to me to talk to me about their Mental Health crises. It could be them personally or Family Members and happen more and more. That was in the spring. That summer was the summer that Robin Williams took his life. Suddenly, and really for the first time that i had seen or our country has seen the issue of suicide and Mental Illness being the top issue that it is. The newspaper was talking about it and television and people were having the conversation. At that moment, i said it was time to discuss it publicly. To reduce the stigma. I wanted to create a community where people could bring their Mental Illness in addition to their physical illnesses to destigmatize it. That really was the motivation. Just a month or two after that, i spoke about this issue and thats how it all began. Host wonderful. Since that particular sermon, can you talk about the transition from essentially the privacy of your office to the public forum of the conversation and the pulpit . Sure. At yom kippur and the server dashing at the sermon, i spoke about Mental Health in my family. We have a close Family Member who committed suicide and took his life. Since then, others have shared their story. We opened the Jewish Healing Center and we decided to put together a program and have a meeting. We were looking and at that meeting there was a person from our community who was truly inspired at the holidays. He was inspired and wanted to support the program. We were able to hire joann foreman, who is incredible. I will be able to talk more about that. We had a meeting after the sermon and we had 7580 people. We determined there was an incredible need. People in the congregation started talking ensuring their own stories in various ways. Host it has to be important to have that zone of safety and to be relational on the topic that had a stigma or privacy about it. Joann, were going to take a break in just a moment, but lets jump in and ask you to outline with the program is if you can in just a moment. Sure. As rabbi freeman mentioned, i came in thats friedman mentioned, i came in to run the program. We have three different teams. We are working and have put together a speaker serous series on Mental Health and Mental Illness. We are working to reduce the isolation and stigma in the Jewish Community and the broader community. There are new and interesting and exciting ways. Host wonderful. We will take a quick break and continue this conversation with rabbi friedman and joann foreman in just a minute. Father here we go. Were gonna go out there in the rain. Youre gonna get wet. Alright, here we go baby [squealing with joy] father oh, yeah. Yes so much fun youre so wet. Host good morning. Welcome back to mosaic. I am rabbi eric weiss. We are joining a conversation about Mental Health and the Jewish Community. I wonder if you can talk a little bit more about the details of how the Program Works and how it works and the responsibility the response you are getting so far. At that townhall meeting, people came to come together and talk about what they would like for that meeting. The teams are lay led. Im a part of the teams. We have a team on youth and another team on education in the community and outside the community. Also the connections with other congregants who may have other challenges. Host for these teams the result of listening to the community. Was that from town Hall Meetings . They do. The youth team is focused on making changes and our k6 children. They check in at the beginning of sunday school. Our Education Team put together a wonderful fourpart Speaker Series that just wrapped up recently. And we are working at creating a buddy system to help congregants who may have walked through a challenge to help congregants starting on that path. For example, having an adult child diagnosed with Mental Illness. And the Connections Team is working on creating a lay led support team as well. Host that is wonderful. I know for folks concerned about this issue, one of the things that comes up for people is the infrastructure. Rabbi friedman, can you tell us how it is managed in the long term . Our mission is uniting the passion to connect to god, to others and to our world. That connection allows people to open up and be their true selves. We always go back to our mission. Im involved with that and the directors the other directories. We have a coordinator in joann and other people in the congregation keep reaching out to expand the program to reach as many as we can in the community. Host you know, one of the ways that you have actually broken the stigma is when you say everybody, it is people capable of being united for a deeper relationship with god and the community. It doesnt matter their status in life or their mental state or their physical state. Part of the stigma of Mental Illness. You are into a deeper connection with self and community and really it is about all of us. Host one person in the community was talking about her son with a critical Mental Illness. She said, it never occurred to me to call to call the synagogue. If i had a physical illness or death, i would call. But here we were with a crisis with her son and we didnt feel like we could call the clergy or the synagogue. We want to change that. If somebody has a critical issue with the diagnosis, we want them to know they can call. It is common in the community, just like physical illness. Host joann, it is always so important for people to understand in a concrete way why they feel welcomed. Can you give a couple of examples from your experience so far with the program. Lets say change in somebody or impact on the community, something that you see happen because of somebodys interaction with what you are doing . Sure. Rabbi friedman was talking about a woman and i was faced with a decision that the synagogue was the last place that i thought of coming. That is working to help create the system. So whether people when they are first faced with that challenge have other people. Not just the rabbi, but other congregations they can talk to. That is really beautiful. There are probably 50 different people on our teams that are working to do different things. A lot of the people who are on the youth team have had children who have gone through the Religious School who maybe did not have the school and are not as connected. They are working on making that a better place for the children who are now going through Religious School. Host what a beautiful example of night being naove or self alienation. It is extraordinary. We will come back to continue this extraordinary conversation about Mental Health. We will be back here on mosaic in just a moment. Host welcome back to mosaic. I am rabbi eric weis and i am welcome to be im happy to be your host. We are here with the senior rabbi of of rodef sholom run by Stacy Friedman and we are here with joann foreman. Many people think that Mental Illness is the domain of the psychiatrist and they dont talk about a psychiatric episode or Mental Illness. They think that or, they think it is in the political realm advocating for public policy. So, why the synagogue . Thats a great question. One of the things that the synagogue uniquely offers is that this is the place where the whole family resides spiritually and they reside and spend their lives there throughout the lifecycle. So, we see families cradleto grave and beyond. We see people for multi generations. We see people at their worst times and their most joyous times. The fact that people live their lives as part of the congregation means they can bring their full cells and that is important to us. If somebody goes to the psychiatrist or psychologist or counselor, we dont representative replicate the services they get elsewhere. We support in other ways. For example, we are there to support the entire family. We know that Mental Illness can impact the entire family or the community beyond the individual. We are there to support. Not only around crisis and issues around the Mental Illness, but around life. If somebody experiences Mental Illness and they go to their therapist on thursday and then friday they come to services and pray and then they come with their child. We can be there to support the whole family and the whole person. Host you remind me of a subtle and potent threat to all of this. Something i think we need to talk about, but dont necessarily talk about. Religion, whatever the religion is, talks about relationship to god. Every sacred text talks about hearing gods voice. In traditions that have a strong prophetic threat to them, those narratives are thrill filled with conversations with god and hearing gods voice. Yet, i think in the modern culture, the notion of listening to god gets relegated to somebody with a Mental Illness. Therefore, it is put into a different category, but not a religious category. What occurs to you about that . It is interesting. I find that people who are experiencing psychological darkness and pain feel alienated from god. So, i view part of my role as helping them to hear gods voice again. Or get angry at god and be in relationship with god, whatever that looks like. To support that with them. Host to break down the stigma even further. Joann, i know that the program that you work with also deals with congregants across the age spectrum. Can you talk about what you have seen with the senior members . Sure. We have talked about bringing the initiative programming. We really thought about it and thought about what made the most sense. We are bringing teams to the meetings to ask about what they would like and how they would like to receive information about Mental Health and Mental Illness. What are they not getting from other areas of their lives or their school or their parents. Why are they still coming to the synagogue. They still come. So, what makes our synagogue a place they want to come and what can we give them that will help them feel as safe as possible . Is it education or safe place to talk. Are we listening to them . Are we giving them what they need in a way that will make the most sense for them . So, that is something we are working on, and we are planning to do the same with seniors. We will look at the Senior Community and potentially what do they need, and what can we give them that would be helpful and useful at this time in their lives . Host something that people dont also necessarily understand is that Mental Illness can be a lifelong experience and episodic. It can start in the teen years with one episode and then go away or continue. Its the same for seniors on the other end of the spectrum. It seems like a wonderful way to embrace the issues. We are going to take a quick break and come back to mosaic in just a moment. Daughter calls me googly eyes. Mom you know youre beautiful right, you know that . Daughter even youre beautiful. I got bullied for wearing glasses. Share if youre against bullying. Mom we put it out there, it just took off. 3 Million People have shared this post. Dont let bullies get you down, i stand with you. That whole familys wearing glasses. Daughter yay mom i wear glasses and im proud. Daughter i even have the army on my team. Mom all the kind comments have brought my child joy. I dont feel thank you is enough. Daughter yes good morning and welcome back to mosiac. We have a really important conversation about Mental Illness in the june week Jewish Community at large. We are here with Stacy Friedman and joann foreman from congregation rodef sholom. We are going to end this conversation in just a little bit. Rabe, i want to ask rabbi, i want to ask as a mom and a rabbi, what are some of the things that you think the clergy might consider to initiate continued conversation . Right. I think the answer is twofold. I will start with one thing. For many it is going back to the sacred text. For us it is the torah or the bible. Our ancestors were not perfect and they struggled with dark is. I think it is important to be explicit that none of us are immune. Everybody has darkness and pain. In our tradition, we say there is nothing as old as a broken heart. To remind people of that. Secondly, i think it is important to be explicit about the fact that Mental Illness is something not to be ashamed of. Something we can share and that makes us human. For example, we have a prayer for healing and in it we speak about the renewal of body and spirit. In our congregation, we say if there is somebody in your life who is experienced a illness or Mental Illness, please mention their names and we will pray for them. We are hoping to break down that stigma. To be explicit and open and accepting about it. Host i know with the stigma, to what degree is someone to be public about Mental Illness and tell their story . In a short way, can you talk about have you done that . How did it work . What did you do to get over that . That has made a big difference for us. Two years ago we were able to start this initiative. People of volunteer to tell their story. On our high holy days, we have congregants tell their stories of their spiritual journeys. We have also included stories of Mental Illness and journeys with Mental Illness. We had one woman tell a story of her struggle with addiction and her struggle to find healing. It was transformational and there was not a dry eye in the congregation. It was so vulnerable, poignant and powerful. Especially since it is so scary and not done in most places. It is easier to stand up and talk about healing from a surgery, but Mental Illness is not done in our community. This person was very brave and we are doing it more and more. Host . Believe it or not, we are coming to the end of our time together. In our jewish tradition, we have a notion that there is no learning without economic viability and vitality. And there is no viability and vitality without learning. In this context, this initiative relies on so many components to make it whole. Among them, philanthropy. I am wondering if you could talk a little bit about what the philanthropic thread is for this initiative . Other places do things in different ways, but what is your Economic Vitality attached to this learning . So, as rabbi stacy mentioned, after her holiday sermon, we were approached by somebody who was touched very much and they offered a generous grant from the laszlo intel but Family Foundation laszlo and talbot Family Foundation. We have also partnered with the california Mental Health movement. They have offered a small money grant that has helped with programming. The financials are important as well, you are right. Host we have rabbi Stacy Friedman and joann foreman with us. Thank you for joining us here on mosiac for this vital conversation about Mental Illness. We invite you to continue to talk about this issue. Thank you. ,,,,,,, areas basketball legacy. But hes not talking sports this morning. Nba and former wa host welcome to base sunday. I am your host, kenny choi. Nba and former warriors superstore darren davis is here. Welcome to base sunday. Thank you. Host tell us about black santa the company. How did it start and why . I wanted to be creative after i was done playing basketball