Shiva’s Storytelling Power: Nurturing Resilience

Nearly three years ago, during the seven days of shiva for my father, I was immersed in listening to stories about him. Again and again the same themes emerged: his unwavering commitment to chessed, his care for every member of the community, his zest for life, his honesty, generosity, and graciousness. By the end of the week, as we rose from shiva, we had collectively woven a rich tapestry, a narrative of my father’s life and legacy.

It struck me then that shiva is, at its core, a process of narrative creation. In the immediate aftermath of loss, when memory is still fresh and emotion raw, we begin to shape the story of the person’s life. Why at that moment? Because story has the unique power to create memory and communicate values. Through the stories we tell, we distill a person’s essence, and this is what we carry forward.

Storytelling has always been central to Jewish tradition. Most famously, we retell the story of our people’s origins on Seder night, recounting the Exodus from Egypt. But narrative runs throughout the Jewish year: in the weekly Parashah and Haftarah, in the stories of Chanukah, and in the Megillot. Eichah, in particular, compresses an experience too vast for words into a form we can transmit, much like the challenge of expressing an entire life during shiva.

Shiva gives us space to construct a personal narrative, a picture of what values look like when lived by real people. These individual stories, set against our national narratives, together form the fabric of our tradition. Just as we are commanded, “And you shall tell your child on that day, saying: ‘It is because of this that the Lord acted for me when I came out of Egypt’” (Exodus 13:8), we are called to transmit not only our collective heritage but also our personal legacies.

Once we have crystallized a loved one’s memory, it becomes our responsibility to share it, with our children, our families, and our communities. In doing so, we extend that life’s impact beyond its years. We offer a model of values lived in action. Story becomes the bridge through which we transfer those values to the next generation.

Transmission does more than impart values; it strengthens identity. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes in The Home We Build Together: “A family narrative connects children to something larger than themselves. It helps them make sense of how they fit into the world that existed before they were born. It gives them the starting point of an identity. That in turn becomes the basis of confidence. It enables children to say: this is who I am. This is the story of which I am a part. These are the people who came before me…”

Psychologists Dr. Marshall Duke and Dr. Robyn Fivush at Emory University devised the “Do You Know?” scale, measuring how much children know about their family history (e.g., “Do you know where your grandparents grew up?”). Children who knew more had higher self-esteem and greater resilience. Writer Bruce Feiler similarly argues that the single most important thing one can do for family well-being is to craft a strong family narrative; the oscillating narrative, one that includes both struggles and triumphs, is most beneficial because it teaches that challenges are part of life, yet can be overcome.

Just as I listened to stories of my father and came to understand more deeply who he was, I will share those stories with my children. I will tell them about his generosity of spirit and his care for others, not only to pass on his values, but to help shape their sense of who they are. His story will become part of their story, helping them grow in moral clarity and in connection to their identity, as members of their family, heirs to their past, and participants in the Jewish future.