Separation Anxiety

It has always been difficult for me to drop off one of my children to school when she or he cries and protests.  The older of my two eventually grew out of this behavior and now separates smoothly each day.  On occasion she may even ask me to leave!  My youngest though is still adjusting to the new rhythm.

I wonder if I, and other parents who experience the anxiety of separation, contribute to the anxiety with non-verbal communications that we do not ourselves recognize.  Often I hear parents and teachers say that it is more painful for the parents than it is for the children.  The first time around I felt guilty, pained, and agitated long after I walked away.  As I watch how the kids calm down in class later on, years later I am more comfortable and confident that the ability to function in a social environment outside our home is worth the temporary discomfort at goodbye, and that my regular presence at drop off is reassurance that the leave-taking is as temporary as the discomfort at drop-off.  As Arnold Schwarzengger likes to say, my son knows that, “I’ll be back.”

In a wider context, separation anxiety is a key part of faith.  We are meant to feel anxious about separations of all kinds, separation between people an God, between people and other people, and within ourselves – between the person we are and the person we want to be.  These gaps, or separations, are the most painful in our lives since they impact us both physically and emotionally.  The wounds are deep and take a long time to heal, if they ever heal. 

On a recurring, weekly basis, nothing reflects personal and communal desires to close these separations better than Shabbat afternoons, the time and melodies of Mincha and the Third Meal, “Shalo’shiddus”.  Between the meaningful and thick work of prayer and study of the morning service and the bittersweet end of Shabbat at Havdalah, the Shabbat afternoon time is the great weekly liminal moment, the time that we are warmed-up, in the fullness of the holy day, when the music turns to melodies of longing, as with the repetition here of Yedid Nefesh, the statement of God as our soul-friend, full of love and compassion for us, that helped to bring Shabbat in on Friday evening.  Now the music says, “Would that this were the case, now and always!”  We sing Psalm 23, “God is my shepherd” in a melody that does not shed tears at our mortality, but that celebrates life’s journey.  After all, in Psalm 23, the valley is really not in the ‘shadow of death’, it is simply a valley, a valley where as the shepherd leads his flock into its floor, the walls block out the sun and cast a shadow – the warmth and reassurance of the sun disappear only until the shepherd leads the flock back up and into the plain, armed with a walking stick to help us endure the journey and another pole to beat away predators that may come after us along the way.

Longing is a feeling we need to cultivate, the sense that our sincerest visions of a self and a world renewed have not been achieved yet.  Longing is a positive and strong heart-filled feeling, not a flimsy wish on a star for an item we want or a person whose company or relationship we seek. 

God longs for us, too, and the Divine energy that comes our way is likely what makes the music of Shabbat afternoon so strong, so uninhibited, however tired or in-between we may feel at that time.