The Amen Effect

The Amen Effect Plot Summary

Introduction

I steadied myself against the hospital wall, breathless after visiting Mia, a teenager who had attempted to end her life the night before. As I walked outside, I saw a mother being wheeled to her car with her newborn baby. Life and death, beginnings and endings, joy and sorrow – all passing each other in the same hallway. I had gone to see Mia hoping my presence might offer comfort, might help her realize she wasn't alone. Though the visit left me drained, I knew that showing up mattered. In our increasingly isolated world, this simple act of presence can be transformative. This insight forms the heart of what Rabbi Sharon Brous calls "the amen effect" – the recognition that human beings are, fundamentally, deeply relational beings with an innate yearning to be known, to be seen in our imperfection, to find our way through life's forest together. Drawing from ancient wisdom traditions and contemporary science, Brous illuminates how authentic human connection serves as both a spiritual necessity and a pathway toward healing our fractured world. Through moving personal stories and spiritual insights gained from decades of ministering to the brokenhearted, she offers a profound vision for how we might rebuild our connection to ourselves, to one another, and to something greater than ourselves in these uncertain times.

Chapter 1: Show Up: The Spiritual Mandate of Human Presence

Gail and I huddled in the corner of her living room, which was packed with people. Some she barely knew. She wondered if her mother had been right to be annoyed by those who show up at the house after a funeral when they weren't close to the family. But tonight, Gail's house was full of people mourning her two beautiful children, Ruby and Hart, seventeen and fourteen years old, who were killed when a drunk driver crashed into their car. These kids had grown up in the community – wickedly funny, ridiculously smart, quirky and creative. Their deaths created a sinkhole of sorrow so deep it felt as though it might consume the whole world. "Let me be clear," another bereaved parent had told Gail that morning, "your house is the scariest place on earth right now. So anyone who walks through your door is a friend. I promise you that." This simple truth transformed the crowded house, just for a moment, into a blessing. The community's awkward attempts at consolation, their tears, their presence, the heaping portions of bagels and endless platters of fruit – perhaps these are among the most precious gifts one person can offer another. This understanding of showing up crystallized for Brous when she discovered an ancient text describing a pilgrimage ritual from two thousand years ago. When hundreds of thousands of people would ascend to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, they would enter the Courtyard and circle counterclockwise. But someone suffering – the grieving, the lonely, the sick – would walk through the same entrance and circle in the opposite direction. Every person who passed the brokenhearted would stop and ask, "What happened to you?" And then say, "May God comfort you. May you be wrapped in the embrace of this community." The Rabbis constructed this system of ritual engagement built on a profound psychological insight: when you're suffering, you show up. You root your suffering in a context of care. But you don't pretend that you're okay. The whole world moves seamlessly in one direction and you in another. And even still, you trust that you won't be marginalized or misunderstood. In this place, you will be held, even at the ragged edge of life. The Mourner's Kaddish, the ancient Jewish prayer said after the death of a loved one, embodies this same wisdom. Though the prayer is written in Aramaic and includes no mention of death or grief, its true power lies not in its words but in its function: it calls the mourner into sacred conversation with the community. When a brokenhearted person stands and reveals their grief, out loud and in public, the community responds with love and presence. The one who suffers is invited, repeatedly, into the recognition: I am broken, but I am not alone. We now know that walking together, singing together, seeing and being seen by each other – all of these things enhance our emotional health and deepen our sense of connectedness. They alter the physical and psychological landscape of a group and the people in it. The ancient Rabbis didn't know the science of dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin, and stress hormones. But they understood that showing up for one another is a critical part of what behavioral scientists now call molecular remodeling – with the potential to transform the connective tissue of our society, one heart at a time.

Chapter 2: Hold On: Finding Connection in Times of Isolation

A snapshot of Sarge, my neighbor: he's a sweet-tempered army vet in his eighties with a gentle laugh and an ageless charm. Shortly after the pandemic began in 2020, my son Levi and I checked on him to see if he needed groceries. We stood at a safe distance, but when Sarge reached for something from his pocket, he lost his balance and tumbled to the ground. Even as we ran to lift him up, we realized that our attempt to help—that kind of physical closeness in a pandemic—may have been more dangerous than the fall itself. And yet, what would have been the perils of not reaching out at all? The pandemic brought a seismic wave of uncertainty and grief, exacerbated by the loss of physical proximity. We were stripped of our best tool for connection—loving, physical presence—precisely when we needed it most. Who could have fathomed the spiritual void created in a world without touch? In countless phone calls to check on community members, Brous connected with Tamar, a congregant in her thirties who was agitated. Shabbat services had been the only time in her week when she felt anyone cared if she showed up. Without that weekly encounter with community, she feared she was slipping away. "If I disappear tomorrow," she asked, "would anyone even notice?" The Hebrew Bible speaks of darkness as the penultimate plague that descended upon Egypt. What made it so devastating wasn't just the physical discomfort, but that it was so thick and dense that "no person could see another, or even rise from their places." The deepest darkness, as one rabbi described it, is when one cannot see their neighbor, and therefore can't join them in their suffering. When we are unable to support each other, our lives are stripped of meaning. This is among the most devastating of plagues: the terror of total disconnection. Human beings need connection. This truth appears in the very first chapters of Genesis, when God creates the first human and declares, "It's not good for a person to be alone." The ancient rabbis imagined Adam as initially being male and female fused together back-to-back, fully unable to see or touch one another. This first person lived in unending desperation, longing for something they could never really know. God separated them into distinct beings so they could find their way to one another of their own volition. When we need connection most, we often retreat from it. Jonathan, in his mid-forties, abruptly lost his job and began pulling away from community. After declining multiple invitations, he showed up to a Shabbat dinner intoxicated and insulted guests before being asked to leave. Months passed before he agreed to meet Brous for coffee and revealed that his shame had driven him into isolation. Paradoxically, those who most need love and care are often the least likely to seek it out. The antidote to loneliness is social connection – but we need others to help us find our way back. This is the second dimension of the amen effect: connection heals. In a world where nearly a third of Americans report no interactions with their neighbors, and an astonishing 20 percent report having no close personal relationships at all, simply holding on to each other—physically, emotionally, spiritually—becomes a sacred act of resistance and reclamation. Our communities must be places where it's safe to talk about the dark days, where we can show up at our most vulnerable, trusting that others will see us and not look away.

Chapter 3: See No Stranger: Honoring the Divine in Everyone

One weekend during rabbinical school, Brous went on a last-minute backpacking trip with family members. They were caught in a severe thunderstorm while camping on a mountaintop in a New York State forest. After surviving a night of "rapid-fire lightning and balls of hail," they drove home the next morning. When Brous turned on the TV, she learned that a young woman named Layla had died that same morning when a tree, weakened by the storm, fell on her as she pushed her baby brother to safety. Feeling that it easily could have been her who died, Brous reached out to Layla's bereaved mother, Denise. When they met, Denise shared that the tree had been menacing residents of their housing project for years. She had even warned a city official, "What are you going to do—wait until this tree falls and kills someone?" The city offered Denise a meager settlement after her daughter's death. The city attorney advised her to take it, saying: "Your daughter was a single, Black teenage mother living in the projects." Denise replied with fierce moral clarity: "Sir, you have no idea who my daughter was, or who she could have become. She could have been the first Black woman president of the United States!" This encounter helped Brous understand the most important theological principle of her faith: every person, created in God's own image, has endless potential. The ancient Rabbis teach that the first person, Adam, was created singly to show that destroying even one life is like destroying an entire world, and saving one life is like saving an entire world. Rabbi Yitz Greenberg calls this the "dignity of inestimable worth," comparing each human life to a priceless work of art that we would never leave vulnerable to harm, yet we allow millions of human beings to sleep on the streets. Another rabbinic text declares that every person is accompanied by a procession of angels crying out, "Make way, for an image of the Holy One is approaching!" And yet, again and again, we witness the image of the Holy One controlled, humiliated, incarcerated, and killed before our eyes. How do we keep missing those angels, with their trumpets and proclamations, desperate to rouse us to the dignity of every human being? The call to awaken to the image of God in everyone is not an abstract theological claim but a genuine moral imperative. What would it mean to build a society in which every person is treated as an image of the Divine? How would this affect our relationships with neighbors, coworkers, and the stranger lying beneath the stained blankets outside Starbucks? How would it transform our healthcare, education, and criminal justice systems? The Jewish tradition tells the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, where abundance fostered a spirit of scarcity among inhabitants who sought to safeguard their riches by deporting foreigners and targeting their own poor. Supported by a legal system that criminalized compassion, they passed laws imposing torture on anyone who showed kindness to a struggling neighbor. Lot's daughter Plotit was executed for feeding a starving man, and her cry awakened God to the injustices being perpetrated. This story stands as a warning through the ages: this is what happens when we fail to see the image of God in our neighbor.

Chapter 4: Come Alive: Answering Your Soul's Calling

Micah was one of Brous's favorite people in seminary—big stature, big intellect, exuberant spirit. Shortly after ordination, he married Erin, who was erudite and sophisticated, his perfect foil. They had two little boys when life was abruptly interrupted by Erin's stage IV breast cancer diagnosis. During her final months at a cancer retreat center, Erin wrote, achingly: "What is your soul calling you to do? What is the mission, the meaning, only you can fulfill? Where have you hidden away your most profound desires and aspirations? Can you unearth them? Most importantly, how are you actively thwarting their accomplishment?" Erin's words echoed the urgent call of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel: "Every human being has had a moment in which he sensed a mysterious waiting for him. Meaning is found in responding to the demand, meaning is found in sensing the demand...There is a question that follows me wherever I turn. What is expected of me? What is demanded of me?" This mysterious waiting, this demand, has been transformative whenever Brous has felt it in her life. She felt it in college, when studying abroad in Jerusalem led to the sudden realization that she believed in God and wanted to become a rabbi. She felt it again in her fourth year of rabbinical school, when reading about catastrophic floods in Mozambique caused her to question what good her ancient wisdom studies were if they left her powerless to help real people in crisis. A professor convinced her to stay in school while simultaneously pursuing a master's degree in human rights and conflict resolution. And she felt it when her beloved rabbi told her it was time to leave his shadow and establish her own light, leading her to Los Angeles to co-found IKAR. Years after Erin's death, Brous asked her community at a beach ritual during the High Holy Days: What are you waiting for? More than three hundred responses revealed that many were waiting for someone to tell them they're beautiful, that they should write a book, that they're worthy of love. Others were waiting to not feel so sad, or for the chance to make a difference. Brous was astonished by how much waiting lay just beneath the surface. Dean, a congregant with terminal cancer, spent his final days consumed with guilt that he hadn't spent more time at the office. Another community member, Robert, experienced a profound sense of clarity and gratitude after his cancer diagnosis, only to have those feelings fade when the diagnosis proved incorrect. What would it take for us to feel that urgency, to lean into purpose, without standing at the edge of death? Rabbi Eliezer warned his students to "repent one day before you die." When they asked how they would know when that would be, he replied, "All the more so, do what you need to do today, in case today is your last." Throughout biblical narratives, angels appear at pivotal moments to transform the course of human history. Each one has a unique purpose—to open Hagar's eyes to the well of water before her, to stop Abraham from sacrificing his son Isaac, to subtly direct Joseph toward his brothers who would sell him into slavery. The Slonimer Rebbe suggests that not only angels, but each of us has a special mission specific to our time and place. Our life's work is to hone the spiritual clarity we need to live into this purpose, to answer the mysterious call. The world waits for us to become the angels, the messengers, ourselves.

Chapter 5: Grieve and Live: Our Capacious Hearts Can Hold Both Sorrow and Celebration

The High Holy Days are the spiritual epicenter of the Jewish year, calling us into an annual encounter with the deepest truth: life is precious and precarious. One year, at the start of this holy period, a family in Brous's community lost their beautiful little boy, Gidi, in a terrible boating accident. It was just days before his fifth birthday. Gidi wore bright socks and colorful clothes, and loved anything with sparkle or glitter. His death made a mockery of the world. When Gidi's parents said they would come to Shabbat services to say Mourner's Kaddish, a dilemma arose: that Shabbat was Niko's bar mitzvah, a celebration years in the making. How could the community dance and sing in the presence of such pain? Could the room bear the weight of so much sorrow, and still manage to celebrate? In seeking guidance, Brous found wisdom in two ancient stories, both stemming from the aftermath of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. In the first story, trauma rippled through the community of survivors, as the horror of the Roman conquest sank in. Many survivors became ascetics, refusing to eat meat or drink wine that reminded them of Temple sacrifices. One rabbi even decreed that Jews should no longer marry. Rabbi Yehoshua challenged this extreme grief, saying: "My children, hear me out. You must mourn. The devastation deserves our attention and commemoration. But to mourn too much, to live in perpetual deprivation, is simply wrong. Instead, the challenge is to find a way to grieve and live." In the second story, generations after the destruction, a wedding celebration was in full swing when the groom's father, a rabbi, grew agitated seeing guests dancing and celebrating as if the Temple hadn't burned at all. He grabbed an expensive white glass, held it high, and smashed it to the ground. The sound sobered everyone and reminded them of their loss. This became the tradition of breaking a glass beneath the wedding canopy – even in this wholehearted moment of joy, we must never forget the brokenness in the world. These stories, inversions of one another, form a coherent message: as long as this world remains unredeemed, the most human thing we can do is build a spiritual consciousness that can hold both heartache and happiness. Grieve deeply, and leave room for the light. Celebrate wholeheartedly, but always with humble awareness of where pain lives. Because if we're paying attention, every moment contains both pain and possibility. After centuries of enslavement in Egypt, the Israelites carried the holy ark containing both the intact second tablets Moses received on Mount Sinai and the broken shards of the first set. The broken pieces weren't discarded but treasured alongside the whole ones. The Kotzker Rebbe taught that "there's nothing more whole than a broken heart," and a medieval commentator suggested that God—the healer of broken hearts—only wants to engage those who are a little bit broken, because it's in our brokenness that beauty and truth are revealed. The holy ark is the model for the hearts we strive to cultivate: capacious enough to hold the whole and the broken, all at once. Dr. Lucy Hone, a resiliency researcher, posits that an ever-present awareness of loss is the foundation of a strong heart. Acknowledging the precariousness of life, attending to one another's grief, and honoring each other's broken hearts doesn't just benefit the bereaved – when we're willing to see pain and not run away, we all become more human.

Chapter 6: Hold the Healers: Caring for Those Who Care

Brous steadied herself on the cold metal railing lining the hospital wall; her heart was pounding. She had just stepped out of Mia's room—a teenager who had attempted to end her life. Seeing her hooked up to medical machinery was a stark reminder of the toll that living takes on us. Lightheaded, Brous navigated the labyrinthian hallways back to the elevator, deeply humbled and worried for Mia, and her own children, and all children who sometimes bear scars the eye cannot see. In many cultures and faith traditions, showing up at the bedside to visit the sick is considered not only a kindness, but a duty. For Jews, this obligation is thousands of years old. When Abraham circumcised himself at God's command, God instructed three angels to visit and comfort him. They didn't want to go, saying it was too hot and dirty, but God insisted: it is precisely the most uncomfortable, loneliest, and scariest places that demand our presence. The Rabbis teach that each visit to the sick alleviates one-sixtieth of the patient's suffering—not a random measure, but a formula often used in the ancient world. While one-sixtieth may seem small, it's significant enough to be felt. We instinctively want to help carry the burden of those we love who are suffering, to absorb some of their pain. The magical thinker might wonder: if one visit removes one-sixtieth of suffering, why not have sixty people visit to lift all the pain away? But that's not how the equation works—each visitor can only lift a small fraction of what remains. What happens, then, to the healers—the people who take others' pain into their bodies? How do they step into the breach time and again without breaking under the weight of so much sorrow? Rabbi Yohanan, a Talmudic scholar who had experienced incomprehensible loss in his lifetime, possessed an almost magical healing presence. Whenever a friend fell ill, he would visit, hold their hand, and raise them up. But when Rabbi Yohanan himself became gravely ill, he needed a colleague to hold his hand and lift him up. The Rabbis concluded that none of us can heal ourselves—the prisoner cannot free himself from prison. What made Rabbi Yohanan an effective healer was his ability to meet others' grief from inside his own. The only way to serve others is by showing up not fortified and invulnerable, but in our frailty and fragility. This is what Catholic theologian Henri Nouwen called the wounded healer: "Who can save a child from a burning house without taking the risk of being hurt by the flames? Who can listen to a story of loneliness and despair without taking the risk of experiencing similar pains in their own heart? In short, who can take away suffering without entering it?" However, the more openhearted we are, the greater our vulnerability. A whole field of study has emerged on secondary, or vicarious, trauma, examining the cumulative toll on caregivers. It manifests in unhealthy ways, from cynicism and numbing to chronic exhaustion and helplessness. Caregivers often resist seeking the same support they offer others, feeling guilty for diverting attention from those in greater need. As a result, they build internal mechanisms of pain resistance, burn out, or worse. After twenty years in the rabbinate, Brous experienced this firsthand when, during a retreat meant to help her begin writing this book, she felt a sharp pain in her shoulder after learning of her cousin Nancy's death from cancer. A healer at the retreat center told her: "This is not one loss, but many. You are carrying years of pain and grief in this arm. If you don't stop to metabolize the suffering, the suffering will stop you." Grief burrows deep into the body, and if we fail to digest and release what we've absorbed, at some point we fill up with others' sorrow. There's no shame in recognizing that our own systems require the medicine we so freely share with others.

Chapter 7: Bear With-ness: The Power of Sacred Accompaniment

Shifra called Brous just before Shabbat. She had just learned that her beloved partner, Michael, had been diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer. They had found each other later in life, but theirs was an epic romance, a big love that deserved to blossom over many years. Shifra was heartsick, but grateful that the doctors weren't tormenting them with false hope. This cancer was incompatible with life, they said. Just like that. Brous and Shifra began to talk about Jacob from the book of Genesis. After decades of estrangement from his family, Jacob was returning home when he learned his brother Esau—whom he had cheated—was heading his way with four hundred soldiers. That night, Jacob was attacked by a stranger who wrestled with him until morning. Just as dawn broke, the stranger begged to be released, but Jacob held tight: "I will not let you go until you bless me." The stranger—revealed to be an angel—blessed Jacob with a new name and a new self-understanding. For years, Brous had held Jacob's lesson as an irrefutable truth: after every battle, some blessing will emerge in the morning. Not because suffering is divinely orchestrated to teach us lessons, but because we have the opportunity to orient toward blessings after every struggle. Reverend Otis Moss of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago shares a story about his daughter Makayla dancing in their home at 3 a.m. during a time his church was receiving death threats. When he told her to go to bed, she insisted: "Look at me, Daddy!" As she spun in the darkness, he realized: "She's dancing in the dark. The darkness is all around her but it is not in her!" Brous had shared this wisdom with many congregants in their darkest moments. But after years of pastoral work, she began to question the "morning" part of the blessing. After some struggles, especially traumatic loss, it can feel too facile to speak of the break of dawn. Maybe the blessing comes not in the morning, but in the night itself. Because some are saddled with loss so profound that the night of suffering never ends. And even still, there are blessings to be found there, too. Brous told Shifra about the blessing that comes in the night—the gift of what Dr. Jerome Groopman calls "true hope." True hope doesn't patronize or deceive. It doesn't pretend everything is okay when it's clearly not. Instead, it's honest about the dangers, helping the person suffering find the strength to endure. Rather than fantasize about a miracle treatment, Shifra and Michael spent his final months taking walks, seeing family and friends, laughing together and holding hands in the quiet morning, honoring every precious moment with love. We too often run from darkness, trying to deny wounds or distract ourselves, even when doing so hurts us and those we love. After his grandfather died, Brous's father-in-law Ivan wore his finest suit to the funeral. The rabbi instructed him to tear the lapel—the ritual of kriah, when mourners externalize anguish by tearing a garment close to the heart. Ivan protested that it was his best suit, and the rabbi replied, "And this was your best father." Instead, Ivan tore his best tie, a compromise that still honored his grief. Christopher, whose son Charlie died tragically, says people in anguish need "with-ness" more than anything else. "We don't need people to fix us. We need to not be abandoned. We need people to be willing to sit with us in the pain." The work is not to repair each other's broken hearts—to heal or save or distract. It's to be present, to bear witness. When your instinct is to avoid or deny, you must not look away. When you're inclined to false hope or good cheer, choose sincerity and quiet presence. When you think you have the answers, ask a question.

Summary

The amen effect is ultimately about recognizing our profound interconnectedness – how we are bound to one another in both sorrow and joy. Through her beautiful tapestry of stories and insights, Brous reveals that our greatest spiritual imperative may be simply showing up for each other, especially when it's difficult. Whether it's sitting with a grieving parent, engaging an ideological opponent with curiosity, or allowing ourselves to be vulnerable enough to receive care, these moments of authentic connection transform us. They open our hearts to the dignity and humanity in everyone, even those we struggle to understand. In a world increasingly fragmented by isolation, polarization, and fear, the sacred practice of bearing witness offers a pathway forward. The wisdom Brous shares transcends religious boundaries while honoring ancient traditions that recognized what science now confirms: we heal in connection. When we say "amen" to each other's pain and celebration, we acknowledge not only our shared vulnerability but our shared strength. The tears in our hearts and in our society may be deep, but healing begins when we lovingly stitch the edges back together – not alone, but with many hands sharing the work. Through small, daily acts of presence and compassion, we write a new story for ourselves and our world, one in which we recognize that the only real liberation is collective liberation, and the only path to healing is one wide enough for us all.

About Author

Loading...

Sharon Brous

Read more