Love Yourself-Love Others?

Rabbi Dr. A. Twerski, in his work with addicts, knew a woman, Bonnie, who had stayed off alcohol for a year.  During the winter, her furnace broke and it took three days until it was fixed.

She slept in her freezing apartment for those three days.  When a friend heard about it, she was astonished and said, you could have called me or any of your friends and stayed with us.

She said, "I don't like to impose."

The friend mentioned this to Dr. Twerski who ran the 12 Step program that Bonnie was a part of.  He called her and said he was disappointed because he had planned on asking her to become a sponsor in the program.  She said, "You can call on me anytime; I'd be glad to help."

He said, "If you can't accept help, you can't give help."

This story was included in an Ami article about marriage to convey the idea that a wife who does not respect herself, who does not take care of her own needs, may do things for her husband but she'll do it with disdain and resentment. The rationale is, if you cannot admit and accept your limitations, you will look down on others for their limitations.

The points are made categorically, as though they are Accepted Truths, while I'm left wondering, really?

Bonnie's need was to be independent, not to impose, and Dr. Twerski turned this into a refusal to accept help, and he concluded that therefore, she could not help anyone.  She said she'd be glad to help and he would not even give her a chance.  Why not prove himself correct by letting her be a sponsor and seeing whether she could help someone or not?

One of the problems with this article is that it presents it as two choices: either you love and care for yourself or you don't.  Don't we all care for ourselves in some ways and neglect ourselves in other ways whether with sleep, exercise, how we eat, etc.?

And don't we accept help sometimes, in certain ways, but not in others? Did Bonnie never accept help ever, in any form?

And can it be proven that the more you take care of your own needs, the more you will respect the needs of your spouse and others?

Blinded or Seeing What You Want to See

I read an article by Rabbi Leiby Burnham in which he waxed poetic about toddlers.  He writes, "Their life view, while limited, is not tainted.  They feel 'in power' all the time because they don't understand the concept of limitations.  They don't fear because they haven't yet been taught the concept of fear.  They truly feel that they can accomplish anything they set out to do, and will stop at nothing from achieving their desires."

As I read this, my immediate thought was - he is directly contradicting Rabbi Twerski! I remember being outraged when long ago, I read an article by R' Twerski on his favorite topic, self-esteem, in which he said that little children have less than zero self-esteem! His "proof" was, how would you feel if you had to live in a world in which nothing is your size and you had to climb up on to a chair and about the general impotence of children.

I was incredulous.  Surely, after raising his own family and seeing his numerous grandchildren, he didn't think that toddlers looked as though they were suffering from less than zero self-esteem! He knows the adage from R' Zushe of Anipoli about the three things we can learn from children: that when their needs are met they are happy, that they cry out when they need something, and are always busy.  Normal little children don't mope about their powerlessness!

This illustrates the idea that an optician notices everybody's glasses and someone who sells shoes notices what people are wearing on their feet.  R' Twerski's occupation is focused on self-esteem, primarily the lack thereof, and he sees it everywhere, even when it doesn't exist.

Magical Thinking

Magical thinking is a term that means the idea of "I can make things happen by wanting them." It is used to describe causal reasoning that looks for correlation between acts or utterances and certain events like the (non-Jewish) idea of wearing a "lucky shirt" when you go play ball. 

Those who study child development observe that in a young child's (preschooler's) view, it is very possible that it rains because the sky is sad. If your baby brother gets sick and goes to the hospital, it could be your fault if you were mad at him the day before and wished he would go away. If you want something very, very badly and it happens, then your wanting caused it to happen.

They are also examples of egocentric thinking--not that the young child is selfish. It's just that he cannot take anyone else's perspective, so that everything in the world revolves around him. When he's sad, he cries. So, it must be that the sky does, too.  And if he had a bad thought about his brother then that must be the reason he went to the hospital.

Okay.  So the questions are as follows: Can we make things happen by wanting them? Are there correlations between certain things we think or say or do and events that happen that are not as obviously connected as letting go of something and seeing it fall to the floor because of gravity? Do our thoughts affect anything outside of us? Does the world revolve around us?

The secular world would have us believe that the answer is the same to all these question: No.  But as religious Jews, don't we know we can make things happen by wanting them and praying for them? Haven't we read numerous stories in which the unlikely connection between events and a thought, utterance, or action that precipitated them was the point of the story? Isn't that what a segula is? Haven't we learned that thinking positively leads to positive outcomes? That "as waters reflect a face" - our attitudes about others affect their feelings towards us? That bringing someone to mind has the effect of arousing that person's innermost powers? That being jealous of someone or otherwise looking at them negatively with an ayin ra (evil eye), can make bad things happen? That bitachon, the feeling of trust in Hashem, can bring about what we desire? That "the world was created for my sake"?

I'm bringing this up because despite my disagreement with R' AJ Twerski on many important issues, I decided to read one of his books on relationships, a book written for the frum reader.  Early on in the book he refers to magical thinking and speaks about it in purely secular terms, i.e. that it's childish thinking.  And it stopped me short in my reading.  Whoa! One minute here! Surely he believes in prayer and bitachon and all the rest.  How does he reconcile the psychological/child developmental term with his religious beliefs?

I don't know, but it reinforced for me yet again that secularly educated frum people are confused.  Secularly well-read frum people are confused.  Ideas out in the world that are accepted as givens, do not necessarily reflect our Torah beliefs.  Beware - Be aware.

The Power of Chinuch

I was reading an account of a baalas teshuva and the woman said that she was amazed when a little Jewish child checked with his father regarding the kashrus of some treat before eating it.  She couldn't get over the child's will power.

When I read this I thought - she doesn't understand chinuch.  To a child who is raised not being allowed to do certain things on Shabbos and to wait between meat and milk, these mitzvos become second nature.  Passing a McDonalds is no temptation to me.  Domino's Pizza is a non-issue. 

As R' AJ Twerski puts it, "Every person has things which are essentially alien to him, which he would never do.  For example, I do not have to struggle with the issue of whether or not I will have a cheeseburger.  My commitment to eating kosher is such that the very thought is an absurdity, and if I were to pass by a treife food stand, even if I was extremely hungry, it would never occur to me to eat treife.  It is simply not within the realm of possibility that I would do so."

That's not to say that every religious child will avoid items of questionable kashrus.  I think what it does tell us is that if chinuch is done right there will be numerous areas of halacha and hashkafa that will be treated as a "given" such as not putting food into one's mouth without a bracha, not going to sleep without saying Shema.  Something to aim for in chinuch.

Imprinting the Positive

R' Abraham J. Twerski wrote an article called "Speaking about the Unspeakable" in which he says we should talk to our children about drugs.  He asks, "how will our children learn about the evils of drug use if we don’t talk to them about it?" As for those whose children are sheltered he says, "The greatest danger is not being aware that one exists." 

“Li'Shichno sidrishu u’vasa shama” - seek His Presence and come there (Re’eh 12:5). The Ponevezher Rov asked why is it that when the Torah tells us to build a Bais HaMikdash, the location is not clearly stated, i.e. the pasuk never refers to Yerushalayim?

He contrasts this to the Arei Miklat (Cities of Refuge) where the Torah tells us “tachin lecha ha'derech”, and Chazal explain that the roads should have signs at every junction pointing in the direction of the Arei Miklat. The reason for this, he explains, is that the accidental murderer, in his flight to safety, should not need to stop and ask directions because we don’t want everyone to know that a murder took place since it will desensitize the people to murder.  Sins, even unintentional ones, should not be discussed.   On the other hand when a person is going to the Bais HaMikdash we want him to stop everyone along the way to ask for directions to awaken in them the desire to go to the Bais HaMikdash too.

The Chinuch Malchusi says that we learn from here that you should not teach your children through negative examples. Do not point out the wrongdoings and teach them its evils and how they must avoid it. In a sense this will open up their thoughts and teach them all sorts of bad things that they would have surely avoided had they come upon it themselves.

A distinguished mechanech once related that when he was a young boy many years ago (before drugs were a huge problem) in school in the Bronx, they brought in an officer from the Drug Enforcement Agency who brought in many kinds of drugs and gave them a lecture about avoiding each one. This mechanech said that it was very educational to the bulk of his class who ended up on drugs!

Good education means monopolizing the mind with positive lessons, examples, and stories. Just like the questions on the way to the Bais HaMikdash, this attitude will help the children find the Shechina after a longer but very successful journey.

As a community, online or otherwise, we should speak about all the good that Jews do and there is so much good!  It is very demoralizing and a spiritual downer to read and hear, time and again, about sins and crimes that are committed.  Highlight the positive!