Remembering Robin Williams; Discussing Depression

The shocking news of Robin Williams suicide has sparked a national conversation about depression and mental illness.  Depression, like other illnesses, requires treatment, and Jewish voices of hope through despair may give strength to those struggling through this enervating disease.  These are my reflections on the recent loss of one of America's finest talents and the wisdom we can glean from our tradition's encounter with depression.

Reaching Out of the Prison of Depression

This week, like so many other weeks, has been marred by tragedy.

Chinese police forces opened fire yesterday on Tibetan protesters, wounding ten.[1]

Dozens of minority Yazidis were killed in Northern Iraq for refusing to convert to Islam.[2]

And the ebola outbreak, which has claimed over 1000 lives, continues to rage through Western Africa.[3]

Yet I must admit that my attention was captivated this week by a different tragic loss: the death of Robin Williams.  For most around the world, Williams’ suicide should appear as only a minor footnote.  But for those of us who have welcomed Robin into our hearts for decades, the loss feels somehow personal, and whether I like it or not, it has eclipsed so much else.

Like many of you, I have spent this week reminiscing about this prodigal actor’s effect on my life.  I remember growing up with Aladdin, laughing with Mrs. Doubtfire, and crying with Patch Adams.  I recall with shivers Williams’ stunning performance in the tense dramas One Hour Photo and Insomnia, and I honor his foray into the Jewish world with his Holocaust film, Jakob the Liar.  Jessica and I even stayed up late last night watching Jack, a classic Robin Williams movie I hadn’t seen yet.  I have joined millions of Americans in paying tribute to the man who with unparalleled skill could conjure passion and emotion out of the miraculous clay of his playful imagination.

There has been a proliferation of responses to Robin Williams’ suicide, many of which have addressed the depression that Williams battled until his last hours.  And of these responses, many have sought to locate just what was responsible for Williams’ suicide.  Was he a helpless victim of depression or a lucid adult making an active decision?  Jewish blogger Elad Nehorai, known as the Pop Chassid, argues on the one hand, “Robin Williams did not kill himself.  His disease, whatever it was, killed him.”[4]  In contrast, writer Matt Walsh counters, “Suicide does not claim anyone against their will.  No matter how depressed you are, you never have to make that choice.”[5]  For Walsh, depression is a terrible affliction but not one that can force a person to commit suicide.  Behind these multiple reactions to Williams’ death is a profound theological conundrum: Do we bring on the curses and afflictions we face in our lives?

This week’s Torah portion says yes, absolutely – we get what we deserve.  One of Eikev’s major themes is “Follow God’s commandments, and you shall live” (Deut. 7:12-13, 8:3, 11:8-9).  As I mentioned earlier, this message is incorporated into the heart of Judaism as the second paragraph of the Shema (Deut. 11:13-21).  Classically, Judaism has taught that if you behave well you will be rewarded, and if you behave badly you will be punished.  God has ultimate control over our successes and our tragedies.

But the Reform Movement rejected this approach a hundred and fifty years ago.  Our version of the Shema does not include this paragraph, even in the more theologically diverse prayer book Mishkan T’filah, which we use today.  It defies our experience and accosts our sense of justice to believe that those who suffer afflictions do so because of their own personal failings.  There’s nothing you can do, we teach today, to earn illness or bankruptcy or personal loss.  Nor is there anything you can do to avoid them.

Our Torah portion offers an important reminder that our actions have consequences, both metaphorical and literal, but Reform Judaism asserts that we do not bring afflictions like depression on ourselves.  Depression, like other mental illnesses, is a disease; and like disorders of the body, it can be treated.  Also like physical ailments, treatments are not cures, and even individuals receiving quality care struggle mightily with forces beyond their control.

Psychologist Martha Manning writes about her own descent into deep depression in her book Undercurrents: A Life Beneath the Surface.  This memoir, drawn from her diary entries, gives us a view of the impact that depression can have on those who suffer from it and on their loved ones:

 July 21, 1990

            We’re still on vacation.  It is endless.  We are now in an idyllic cabin in the middle of nowhere.  ...  In other times, I would have found this restful.  But in the total quiet, there is nothing to counteract the chaos inside me, the pain that reverberates more strongly because nothing balances it from outside.
            Brian and I sit alone on the dock.  He is restless in his chair.  When I ask what’s wrong, he shrugs off the question.  Suddenly, he spots a black bear around the curve of the cove.  It is on its hind legs, picking blackberries from a huge bush.  Brian is thrilled, grabs his field glasses, and delivers a commentary on the bear’s appearance and movements.  He thrusts the field glasses at me with excitement.  I take a cursory peek and hand them back.  He looks incredulous and yells, “Damn it, Martha.  That’s a big black bear!”
            I can’t understand his anger and reply sheepishly, “The way I feel, Brian, it might as well be a big black bug.”
            He slams down the field glasses.  “Doesn’t anything move you?” he asks despairingly.
            I don’t know how to answer the question.  Several moments of strained silence pass between us.
            “I know this is hard for you, Brian,” I say, trying to break the deadlock.
            “No, Martha.  I don’t think you do.  I don’t think you know what it’s like to have to manage everything alone.  [Our daughter], the house, the families, the friends.  I dread calling you.  I dread coming home to you because I don’t know how you’ll be.  You are receding every day.  I’m living with a ghost.  And I don’t know how much longer I can take this.”
            “What do you want me to do, Brian?  I take my medicine.  I go to therapy.  I say my prayers.  Tell me what you want me to do.  Please.  Because right now it takes all I have just to breathe and move and be.”
            Brian’s eyes fill up and his bottom lip quivers.  He leans over to me and whispers hoarsely, “I know it, Marth, and it’s breaking my heart.”
            We hold hands across the lounge chairs, inhaling each other’s sorrow.  The big black bear lumbers about in the distance, savoring the sun and the juicy blackberries.[6]

Manning’s brave effort to recount the pain she suffered at the hands of depression helps us better understand this enervating illness.  And though it may come as a surprise to some, our own Jewish tradition is well aware of depression and the devastation it can cause.

To give only one of many examples, we turn to the famous Hasidic rebbe, Nahman of Bratslav.  The same Rebbe Nahman whose exalting prayers ornament our worship.  In one of his prayers, he writes:

God, ever my only Support,
You’ve taught me to pray--
to sigh,
to cry,
to awaken true, meaningful words
from deep within:
words that strengthen;
words that ease my pain
and heal my wounds;
words that dispel darkness.
Thank you, God,
for opening my lips
and for teaching me to seek You
through prayer.

The Rebbe Nahman who authored this beautiful meditation on prayer is the same Rebbe Nahman who was plagued by depression his entire life.  Nahman writes from his own experience:

The main thing is that one must struggle with all one’s strength to be joyous always.  It is the nature of man to be drawn into melancholy and sadness because of the things that happen to him; every man is filled with sorrows.[7]

Not unlike Robin Williams, here we have a man known for his exuberance and pathos, whose words bring joy to the heart and whose prayers uplift the soul.  Nahman was surrounded by a community that valued joy above all else, and though this caused him particular anguish when he wasn’t able to feel that joy, it also gave him something to strive for.  He wrote:

Depression keeps [you] from guiding the mind in the direction that [you want] and makes it difficult to come to any inner resolution.  Only by means of joy can a person lead his mind where he wants and thus settle his mind.  Joy represents the world of freedom, as in [the quote from Isaiah,] “For in joy will you go forth” (Isa. 55:12).  It is by means of joy that a person becomes free and goes forth from exile.[8]

Indeed, this is the message of this week’s haftarah reading.  The passage opens with the mournful cry, “The Eternal has forsaken me; my Sovereign has forgotten me” (Isa. 49:14) but concludes with a promise of peace:

Just so the Eternal will comfort Zion,
comforting all her ruins:
making her wilderness like Eden,
her desert like the Eternal’s garden,
where joy and gladness are found,
thanksgiving and the strains of song (Isa. 51:3).

Nahman knew that his demons had the power to control him, so he turned himself over to his joy-loving community for sustenance.  Tragically, not everyone can be spared from their inner torment, as Robin Williams painfully reminds us.  But Rebbe Nahman’s focus on recovery even in the midst of turmoil gives us hope even in our darkest times.

I want to conclude tonight with a story from the Talmud.  The characters lived seventeen hundred years ago, and they, like us, struggled with intense pain and sadness.  This vignette is recorded in the fifth page of the Talmud, perhaps hinting that the suffering of illness should never be far from our thoughts and reminding us of the importance of addressing our pain by reaching out for help.

Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba fell ill.
Rabbi Yochanan [his teacher] went to see him.
He said to him: Are your sufferings welcome to you?
He said to him: Neither them nor their reward.
He said to him: Give me your hand.
He gave him his hand, and [Yochanan] raised him up.

Rabbi Yochanan fell ill.
Rabbi Hanina [his student] came to him.
He said to him: Are your sufferings welcome to you?
He said to him: Neither them nor their reward.
He said to him: Give me your hand.       
He gave him his hand and [Hanina] raised him up.

Why couldn’t Yochanan raise himself [though he knew how to raise Rabbi Hiyya]?
[Our sages] replied: A prisoner cannot free himself from jail.[9]

May we offer our hands to those imprisoned by their pain.
May those of us who feel imprisoned ourselves find freedom in the ones we love.


[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/15/world/asia/chinese-police-fire-on-tibetan-protesters.html?ref=asia


[2] http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/15082014


[3] http://emergency.cdc.gov/han/han00365.asp


[4] http://popchassid.com/robin-williams-didnt-kill/


[5] http://themattwalshblog.com/2014/08/12/robin-williams-didnt-die-disease-died-choice/


[6] Undercurrents: A Life Beneath the Surface, p. 91-92.


[7] Likkutim of Nahman of Bratslav, II:24.  In Arthur Green’s Tormented Master p. 164.


[8] Likkutim of Nahman of Bratslav, II:10.  In Arthur Green’s Tormented Master p. 244.


[9] B’rachot 5b.