Communal fatigue

Image by Herbert Aust from Pixabay

Living according to an attitude of  אין ברירה, no choice, has been a choice made by Israelis throughout our history. So much so, when my father, z”l, was asked by Canadian colleagues who knew my father had served in the IDF since 1948, how Israel won the war in 1967, he replied that Israel has a “secret weapon, a general who leads us named General Eiyn Brera.”

The human capacity for resilience under traumatic experiences is a life-saving one. And we hear of this resilience time and again. The energy necessary to maintain our resilience in the face of traumatic events, however, is not accessed from a bottomless pit. We need to replenish that energy to sustain our resilience.

In 2014, I wrote on ToI, Your Kid Knows About the Kidnappings. The opening line was:

With the country experiencing yet another traumatic event, we all need to ensure that our children are protected and grow emotionally strong. But as parents, caregivers, and teachers: How do we take care of the children? How do we protect them from the impact these events can have on them?

In 2016, I wrote on ToI, It Must Be Compassion Fatigue. In the first paragraph, I wrote:

“I feel tired. It must be ‘compassion fatigue’.” I am a therapist who works in trauma. When I started working decades ago, anyone who worked with trauma survivors was considered at risk of experiencing ‘secondary trauma’. This was changed to ‘vicarious trauma’ and the last I heard it is now being referred to as ‘compassion fatigue.’ Bottom line: we are all in this together. We must be aware that whatever label we give this experience, the impact is the same.

The article continued: I outlined 10 ways to help your children say what’s on their minds. Today, I will repeat the list for your children and add a list for you on how to cope through these most difficult times. I am placing your list first because, as they say on the plane, “put your oxygen mask on first.”

Today, 2025, I return to ToI with a variation on the theme. Today I write about the phenomenon of communal fatigue. I googled this term I made up. I couldn’t find it anywhere in this form. I came across many terms with fatigue and many with community, but none as – communal fatigue. No other term describes what happens to us as a community after waking up to another day of war, responding to sirens, and another day of waiting for the hostages to return.

This fatigue is different from my individual experience. It is a communal one with its language and essence, both verbal and nonverbal. We look at each other with a disoriented expression in response to the question, “How are you?”. We shrug, and say, “You know…day by day…” Then we add, “I feel so tired.”

Yet, when I bumped into an acquaintance on the street and asked the question and received the answer, I observed the person in front of me who, despite not sleeping well, got up this morning, attended to the morning routine, had a plan for the day, and was active and engaged. My take on this is as follows:

The energy we use to cope, be resilient, and choose the “no choice” attitude is causing us this fatigue, this shared experience on all levels; physical, emotional, and social.

While we focus on how to help our children, do our self-care, and acknowledge that we are all in this together, we are now required to take in the communal needs. As we continue to care for those more vulnerable, practice self-care, and socialize, we must be aware of this new entity called the communal experience. This is distinguished from engaging in a social experience.

The social experience can be expressed through both leisure and socially conscious activities. For example, going out with friends, attending a protest or vigil, volunteering to help the displaced, preparing food, and delivering supplies to the soldiers.

A communal engagement is experienced as part of the communal body, as part of a whole with its own identity. Just as practicing self-care attends to replenishing depleted energy, so too, will engaging in the communal experience have an energizing effect.

Here are 8 suggestions for how we can meet this need.

1. Gather neighbors and have a “clean up the neighborhood” party.
2. Have a barbeque to honor the elderly.
3. Meet up for a communal poetry reading.
4. Connect with someone in a neighboring city/town, and help each other learn things about where you live.  Invite others.
5. Meet up and share photographs of what you saw taking a morning walk.
6. Get a community center to help host a wine and cheese evening with Israeli-only products.
7. Gather for a night of storytelling.
8. Gather for an evening of making music; singing, drumming circles, or bring your instrument and improvise.

And don’t forget to invite Eiyn Brera.