A New Normal: Finding Light In The Darkness

By: Eliana Mandell Brane

By Eliana Mandell Braner

As a bereaved sister and the director of an organization supporting bereaved families, I’m often asked what the quickest path is to get back to “normal” after a tragic loss.

After more than two years of war and devastation hopefully behind us, all in Israel and our Jewish brothers and sisters around the world are naturally asking the same question.

Needless to say, there is no one answer and I would even hazard to say that perhaps there isn’t an answer at all.

In working with people coping with the deep emotional scars of bereavement, trauma, or tragedy, getting back to our old selves is more often than not a concept that we typically believe will never be attainable. We do not wish to go back to our old selves. Our lives as we know them have changed beyond repair. What lays ahead may not have been planned but with the right tools can be turned into something unexpectedly powerful.

Perhaps we will have a “new normal” or learn to best cope with our new realities, but back to normal…? That shouldn’t be the goal.

Rather, in place of normalcy, we advocate for perhaps the most important word in emotional healing—resilience.

Resilience does not for a moment mean to overcome or to forget.

My mother, Sherri Mandell, literally wrote the book on resilience. She has always said that people think of resilience as being tough and strong, when in fact resilience is often about being weak and letting yourself fall apart. However, the most important part is that in order to let yourself fall apart, you have to know that there is a community that will be able to hold you. It is that community and relationship that allows our broken hearts to heal.

From that basic understanding, individuals, families, and communities, even those who haven’t suffered a personal loss, can harness all types of tools that will inspire resilience.

But again, healing emotional pain is not like healing from a physical injury where the symptoms or physical signs will ever disappear. They will likely always be there, sometimes more present and sometimes hidden underneath a tough exterior, but never completely absent from our identities.

Recently, The Koby Mandell Foundation began a new program—a hiking group for bereaved mothers. Walking alongside fellow women who truly understand their pain, the women are able to reflect and find peace in nature and the companionship of people like them who have experienced the worst. As one of the mothers just wrote to me, every trip is a breath of fresh air that fills her up for the rest of the week.

For some—indeed for many—humor, laughter, and escapism are no less valid ways to cope with trauma. Being able to lean into dark humor is something our Camp Koby campers have often said is one of the best parts of camp. Not being judged for making a joke about loss because everyone around you has been through the same. Being allowed to be happy even though your life has changed forever.

Humor heals and laughter is sometimes the best medicine, as we have certainly seen from nearly 25 years of our Comedy for Koby events in Israel and abroad. These events not only go to support the work we do and the families we embrace but give thousands of “normal Israelis” the ability to laugh freely and wholeheartedly, particularly since October 7. The nation of Israel has been holding their collective breath for more than two years. Being able to laugh together with your community is another building block of Jewish resilience.

As we commemorate and celebrate these days of Chanukah, the Jewish people have always found light in the darkness. That message is likely more important today as we celebrate the modern-day miracle of our brothers and sisters—hostages who were most literally released from dark tunnels into the physical and metaphorical light of freedom back with their families and communities here in Israel.

The message from their experiences, and the experiences of countless Israelis that will be charting a long and challenging path of healing and resilience is that true freedom is not abandoning or forgetting the pain. It will always be there. But if we seek to inject that darkness with the light of care, community, humor, and love, we can help those in need live lives of purpose, meaning, and joy. n

Eliana Mandell Braner is the executive director of The Koby Mandell Foundation.