A Time to Weep and a Time to Laugh- At Once- Emotional coexistence

Rabbi Adi Romem

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.”(Ecclesiastes 3)

And I find myself asking: What time is it now? A time of war or a time of peace? A time to speak or a time to stay silent? A time to mourn or a time to dance?

Watching the news, trying to navigate through a "fruit salad" of emotions, wondering what I am supposed to feel. Immense joy for those who will soon embrace their loved ones? Or grief for those who will only embrace coffins? Happiness for those returning to freedom, or heartbreak for those who did not survive to see this day?

This morning, the army sent delegations- One delegation set out to tell a family that their child was coming home —and another, to tell a family that their child’s murderer was being set free. My heart plays ping-pong between joy and sorrow, and my eyes wait for instruction: which tears to shed- of happiness or of pain?

I envy Ecclesiaste How comforting it must be to believe that life is organized, that there is a time for one thing and then for another, like seasons of the soul. But perhaps Ecclesiaste was wrong- or at least, as Yehuda Amichai dared to write, Ecclesiaste was not entirely right:

“A man in his life has no time to have time for everything, and there is no season to have a season for each purpose. Ecclesiaste was wrong when he said so. A man must hate and love at the same moment, with the same eyes cry and laugh, with the same hands throw stones and gather them, make love in war and war in love. Hate and forgive, remember and forget, arrange and confuse, eat and digest what long history does over many years.”

Amichai captures exactly what we are all feeling these days- that when reality is this complex, all times collapse into one another (as Rabbi Oded Mazor writes). We have no choice but to cry and laugh with the same eyes, to mourn and to dance at once. Life compresses everything into one moment, all emotions, all contradictions, into a single beating heart that can barely hold them.

When I teach Bible, my students- and sometimes I myself- encounter verses that feel unbearable, ideas that make no sense. And my students say: “It must be a mistake! That can’t be right!” Just like Amichai said, “Ecclesiaste was wrong.” But I tell them- and myself- wrestle with the text. If it’s written that way, there must be a deeper lesson behind the discomfort. And from that wrestling, new interpretations are born- creative midrashim that stretch the seventy faces of Torah.

So let’s try that with Amichai and Ecclesiaste. Maybe Ecclesiaste wasn’t wrong (After all, this is King Solomon, the wisest man in the world.) .Maybe he was teaching us to move beyond duality- to shake off the need for black-and-white thinking, the illusion that life unfolds in a straight line-That life is not linear.

Maybe it’s not confusion- maybe it’s humanity. Not a salad of feelings, but a rich, thick soup of life. Maybe the gift of this moment is to discover that one eye can weep with joy while the other cries with sorrow; one eye can see the light while the other longs for shade; we can love and fear in a single breath.

Perhaps this is a lesson in maturity, that only those who can feel conflicting emotions at once are truly alive. Only those who can cry and laugh in the same moment, love and fear in the same breath- truly live.

We live in a world that loves clear divisions: good and evil, right and left, joy or sorrow, justice or mercy. But the human heart doesn’t work like that. As the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott wrote:

“Emotional maturity is the ability to hold opposing feelings without falling apart.”

That maturity allows us to understand that even when we rejoice, there is space within us for pain; and even when we grieve, there remains a corner of gratitude and hope.

Emotional coexistence teaches compassion. When we learn to hold contradictions within ourselves, we become less judgmental toward others. If I can love and be angry at the same person ,if I can fear and hope at once, then I can understand that others live in similar complexity. That is the beginning of true compassion- not pity, but empathy born from shared humanity.

This week, I spoke with a friend engaged in interfaith work. And I asked-honestly, how do you still find the strength? After everything we’ve been through, I, too, was filled with anger, despair, and exhaustion. I stopped all interfaith activities, telling myself: when there is danger, you must first protect your own. I fell, too, into the dualism: war or peace, hate or love.

But today, I am learning from Ecclesiaste and from Amichai, to practice emotional coexistence. Because emotional coexistence creates depth, not confusion. It’s what allows creativity, empathy, and peace to grow. Only those who can hold both fracture and hope together can truly build something whole.

As a society, we must resist the temptation of false clarity- of easy joy or total despair. We must live in the tension between them and find healing there. To carry both fear and faith, mourning and hope, and to say: They both belong to me. I am not torn- I am whole.

If we can contain the contradiction, it becomes inner peace. And if peace begins within, it can extend to the world.

As Rabbi Oded Mazor writes:

“Let us find the strength to contain the hearts bursting with feeling. To rejoice with those who can embrace today, to hold those still trembling in longing ,to cling to hope without letting go, and to leave space for the silent cry. Please, give us a place to shatter into pieces, and the spirit to rebuild ourselves anew.”

As Rabbi Chaim of Sanz taught:

“In my youth, I burned with a desire to change the world. When I grew older and realized I could not change the world, I set out to change my city. When I found that, too, beyond my reach, I turned to my family. And when even that proved difficult, I understood that I must begin with myself. When I worked on myself, my family changed; when my family changed, my city was influenced; and when my city changed, the world was transformed.”

Peace, too, begins this way — quietly, within. Only when it takes root inside the human heart can it truly blossom in the world.

In the days when each hour collides- – Kohelet wasn't right", Yehuda Amichai"

In the days when each hour collides with the nextWe have no choice but to cry and to laugh with the same eyesTo mourn and to dance at the same timeAnd the long arc of history is compressed into one day and one hourWe ask for the strength to containThe intensity of our bursting hearts.To rejoice with those who will be able to embrace today,To enfold all of those leaning into their longing, souls trembling,To hold on to hope without letting go,And to leave some quiet space for a silent scream.Please, grant us the room to shatter into pieces,And the spirit to be rebuilt, anew.

Rabbi Oded Mazor ( Gluya) Translated by Rabbi Ayelet Cohen- https://gluya.org/in-those-days/

May we have the courage to begin that inner work- to hold the fire and the water within us without fear, to choose compassion over certainty, and to let the peace we cultivate inside become light for others.

Because when one heart finds balance, the world tilts gently toward healing.