Caring for Yourself Through Grief: Hillel is Here to Help
Please note that the following story discusses topics related to trauma, grief, and traumatic events. Please read with care for yourself and those around you.
Florida State University Hillel’s (Hillel at FSU) Director of Leadership and Wellness, Melanie Pelc, MSW, drew on her years of experience counseling people experiencing trauma and grief to support Jewish students at FSU after the mass shooting that occurred there in April. FSU Hillel is a 2024 recipient of the Hillel International Mental Health & Wellness Talent Grant which brings mental health and wellness experts like Melanie to support students at Hillels across the country.
In the wake of the tragic mass shooting at Florida State University on April 17 that killed two people and wounded six, Hillel at FSU’s Director of Leadership and Wellness Melanie Pelc knew immediately that Jewish students would need comfort, support, and a place to process the day’s terrible events.
“The first thing we did was make sure that everyone was safe,” Pelc said. “Not just physically safe, though of course that was part of it, but emotionally as well. No matter where they were, whether they were at home or on campus, everyone felt something significant.”
Over the next several days, Pelc organized a number of gatherings to support students through the aftermath of the shooting. They painted rocks to place on a memorial to the victims, in keeping with the timeless Jewish tradition of placing a rock on a grave as an act of remembrance. The Student Life Center hosted therapy animals — dogs, sheep, and baby chicks. Pelc also created social media posts to educate students about grief and grief responses, as well as offering suggestions for managing grief and trauma after a tragedy.
Jewish tradition offers wisdom on how to process and respond to grief, and Pelc was able to draw from many of those practices and teachings as she worked to support her students — as well as caring for herself and the other Hillel staff. Here are three of her suggestions about how Jewish wisdom can help us care for ourselves and one another in times of grief.
- It’s okay to slow down.
While grief has no single timeline and the process of mourning looks different for everyone, Jewish tradition defines several “stages” of mourning that, in many ways, correspond to our modern understanding of the emotional process of grief. For Pelc, one of the most important takeaways is that we’re encouraged to slow down and simply “be” in our grief, without feeling a need to immediately “get back to normal.”
“In Judaism, we really give ourselves time to grieve,” she said. “We honor what’s going on, and there’s no guilt in it. And that really goes against what society tells us, which is to just move on and get back to everyday life. And at some point, Jews just said, ‘Hey, we need to take it easy. We shouldn’t be doing anything right now. We just need to be sad.’” And then, over time, we find our way back out into the world.
- Connect with your community.
Community is a big part of Jewish mourning, from coming together at funerals and memorials to showing up for one another during times of intense grief. “When a family is sitting shiva, the community rallies around them to make sure that the family gets everything they need, from meals to comfort,” Pelc said. “[The mourners] don’t need to think about it. They’re not supposed to be thinking or working, they just get to put their well-being first.”
With an entire campus in mourning, Pelc focused on meeting students where they were, depending on what they needed. That included Hillel extending its building hours to make sure students had a place to go where they could gather, talk about what they were feeling, and find comfort in one another.
“In times like these, we find peace within our community,” Hillel at FSU staff wrote on Instagram. “Hillel is here for you.”
- Honor what you’re feeling.
“People really think that you grieve once and then you’re done,” Pelc said. “But we know that’s not even remotely true. Grief ebbs and flows, it changes us, it leads us to grow and learn and release so that we’re able to come back to ourselves. It’s a natural process, but only if we trust ourselves, and trust what we’re feeling.”
Pelc encouraged her students to sit with what they were feeling, whether it was sadness or fear or anger or anything else, and to let themselves pay attention to those feelings. She also talked with them about honoring their feelings about other losses and traumas that might be triggered by the tragedy on campus, from losing part of their high school years to the COVID-19 pandemic to the end of their time at college.
“Even with activities like painting rocks or playing with animals, we were honoring those emotions,” Pelc explained. “We were learning what grief and loss look like, and what emotions come up with them, and how to express those feelings. Because that’s part of it with grief, isn’t it? You have to ask, what are you feeling? What do you need? When we were painting rocks, we were expressing and releasing those feelings. We were at a place of mourning and sadness, so we came together to honor that.”
“We get the grief we get,” Pelc continued. “It’s our job at Hillel to be there to help.”