Close to Home: At Passover, let’s also break our invisible shackles

At sunset on Friday, Jews around the world will gather at tables to celebrate Passover, the retelling of the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt.

Those tables will be covered with foods rich in symbolism, partaken in a ritualized meal meant to recall the painful suffering and joyous liberation depicted in this defining origin story of the Jewish people.

The central meaning of Passover is liberation from bondage and of being freed by the “mighty hand and outstretched arm” of God. For contemporary Jews, the definition of bondage is expansive; at our Seder tables we discuss not only the physical bondage of modern-day slavery and human trafficking, but the psychological shackles of addiction, materialism, and ignorance, among many others.

At our Community Seder table this year we will also talk about the shackles of mental illness. This pervasive but often unrecognized form of bondage sometimes makes headlines when it affects people like Ernest Hemingway, Robin Williams, Spaulding Gray or Philip Seymour Hoffman. But it’s the countless others we never hear about - likely even in our own families - who suffer and sometimes die because of this debilitating ailment that is too rarely disclosed by the sufferer.

People discuss cancer and diabetes - we run 10Ks and proudly wear ribbons in support of the afflicted. AIDS, once the plague of modernity, is discussed openly. But depression - more common and for many just as debilitating - is not talked about.

Though often rooted in blood chemistry, depression can be triggered by external forces, crushing emotional blows that sap our vitality. Last year, I dealt with grief and probably some depression after suffering a miscarriage. Consumed with grief and fear for my future fertility, I filled but never took a doctor’s prescription for an antidepressant. Instead, I cried multiple times each day and struggled to fulfill my work and family obligations. Finally, a friend said, “Stephanie, you just told me you don’t want to get out of bed. You need to consider taking the prescription or talking with a professional.” I found a million excuses not to.

I see now that my friend and the doctor were right: I needed that pharmaceutical boost to help me swim up to the surface. When I was drowning in my sadness, the invisible shackles were so debilitating that freedom looked impossible. This was my only experience of this incapacitating disease, and I’m lucky that it was only temporary.

Many of us are not so lucky, so enslaved to their depression that they cannot picture freedom. When the shackles are invisible, the bondage is hard to recognize and harder still to break. The ancient Israelites had Moses to lead them from bondage. To free ourselves from the invisible shackles of depression, we need to take away the stigma that adheres to mental illness, start talking openly about the disease and make access to mental health care more readily accessible.

When the Israelites reached the sea, with pharaoh’s army closing in behind them, they had to make a choice: enslavement or freedom. As we approach this season of freedom, let us make the choice to release the invisible shackles, smash the stigma, and provide a safe space for all who suffer.

Stephanie Kramer is associate rabbi at Congregation Shomrei Torah in Santa Rosa, which holds a Passover Seder open to the community on Sunday.