![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Sukkah-space-jpg-1.avif\")
<\/a><\/p>\n(JTA photo illustration)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The first, from the progressive group New Jewish Narrative, had the subject line \u201cHolding complexity on October 7th.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second, from the women\u2019s educational group Svivah, read, \u201cHolding Their Light, Holding Our Loss.\u201d<\/p>\n
In each case, I could imagine a synonym that might work just as well, like \u201coffering\u201d or \u201cproviding\u201d nuance, or \u201cremembering\u201d their light and \u201cmourning\u201d our loss.<\/p>\n
But I trusted both organizations in their use of language, and I\u2019m glad I did. It turns out the term \u201cholding\u201d has become widespread among many Jewish writers and activists, usually in therapeutic or comforting contexts.<\/p>\n
I also found out that I\u2019m late to the \u201cholding\u201d party, and that the term sort of blew up last year when two Hollywood stars used the expression in a video that went viral.<\/p>\n
When Jewish writers use \u201cholding\u201d this way, it means something like \u201cto leave room for,\u201d the way a good friend or therapist indulges your feelings without trying to contradict or explain them away.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do we talk about October 7th? How do we share everyone\u2019s grief and also hold how isolating and scary it has been?\u201d Svivah wrote, in an email promoting an event marking the two-year anniversary of the Hamas attacks. \u201c \u201cHow do we hold the enormity of the loss \u2014 knowing that each and every life lost was a whole world?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHolding\u201d in this sense is usually followed by \u201cspace,\u201d as in this recent message from Hillel International ahead of Succot:<\/p>\n
This year, as the holiday overlaps with the two-year commemoration of the October 7 attacks, may we enter the succah holding space for both joy and grief, honoring the victims and their families while embracing traditions that root us in resilience.<\/p>\n
The term \u201cholding space\u201d as it is understood today was popularized by Canadian writer and facilitator Heather Plett in a 2015 blog post. Plett defined it to Psychology Today as \u201cbeing willing to walk alongside another person in whatever journey they\u2019re on, without judging them, making them feel inadequate, trying to fix them, or trying to impact the outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since then, \u201cholding space\u201d has become a common term in therapeutic, coaching and spiritual communities, emphasizing the importance of being present and supportive.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also the definition that launched a thousand memes. Late last year, \u201cWicked\u201d stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande were being interviewed by journalist Tracey E. Gilchrist, who told Erivo that \u201cpeople are taking the lyrics of \u2018Defying Gravity\u2019 and really holding space with that, and feeling power in that.\u201d Fans and haters couldn\u2019t get enough of the two stars\u2019 deeply emotional response.<\/p>\n
I apparently missed the \u201cholding space\u201d hullabaloo that followed, but the phrase apparently triggered people inclined to dismiss therapy-speak as jargony, cloying or imprecise. <\/p>\n
Despite the mockery, \u201cholding space\u201d has become useful, especially at a time of deep political and cultural polarization, and particularly in a Jewish world still reeling from the attacks, the war and a rise in antisemitism. <\/p>\n
Rabbis and other Jewish influentials using the term suggest that people are hungry for settings where they can express their feelings without rancor. That hunger has only increased with the trauma that followed Oct. 7, when many Jews felt isolated and unable to express their grief in public, and wary of airing their political views even in Jewish settings. <\/p>\n
Last year, one year after the attacks, Sarah Sokolic, the co-founder and executive director of Lab\/Shul, told JTA how her New York-based congregation planned to negotiate its political divides on the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have community members that span the spectrum of Zionist, anti-Zionist, and every nuance in between, and holding nuance and holding space for both \u2026 is something that we\u2019ve really leaned into,\u201d Sokolic said. <\/p>\n
Similarly, the Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies is holding a series of monthly online seminars for Jewish professionals called \u201cHolding Space.\u201d In announcing the series over the summer, NJHSA said it was in response to the war in the Middle East, but also to the upheavals surrounding political violence, anti-Israel protests around the country and immigration raids that \u201care compounding widespread anxiety and fear.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c[A]mid this turmoil, the demands of leadership, caregiving, and showing up for others remain relentless,\u201d it explained, \u201cThat\u2019s why The Network is reaffirming its commitment to holding space for you \u2014 to pause, connect, reflect, and support one another.\u201d<\/p>\n
In February, after the bodies of hostages Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were returned to Israel for burial, Rabbi Chaya Bender of Bnai Israel Congregation in Wilmington, Delaware offered her own take on \u201cholding space\u201d as the congregation dealt with its emotions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis past Saturday, I spoke about holding space for horror,\u201d she said in a sermon. \u201cWhen emotions are so large, and are so raw, the only thing that one can do is to pause and to allow the feelings to flow. In the aftershock of horror, of tremendous loss, it is not the time to act. After the initial shock waves have subsided and grief begins to become true mourning, that is one when can act.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second anniversary of the attacks coincides with the first day of Succot, a holiday in which Jews move out of their comfortable homes and eat and sleep in temporary booths set up in their backyards, balconies and communal spaces. For some, it is a holiday about hospitality \u2014 having friends and relatives over for a meal, and even inviting biblical forebears, known as \u201cushpizin,\u201d to take a symbolic seat at the table. <\/p>\n
On Succot, \u201cholding space\u201d is both literal and metaphorical.<\/p>\n
On the first day of the holiday, the Hostages Families and Survivors Forum planned to gather in front of the White House in a \u201cSuccah of Hope.\u201d With talk of a peace agreement in the air, the group announced, \u201cWe\u2019ll honor those we lost, hold space for the 48 hostages still in Gaza, and continue the fight to bring them home.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n