A Painful Consolation

A woman described a shiva call that was paid to her mother who had lost a child.  The visitor attempted to console the mourner by noting the rest of her large family.  The bereaved mother did not appreciate this nechama which seemed to say she could manage without her child because she had other children.

I pointed out that what the woman said was correct.  The bereaved mother did not like hearing it because it seemed to imply that her other children could make up for her loss when she felt that her child was irreplaceable.  But, I said, consider Mrs. Shoshana Greenbaum of the Sbarro bombing.

Shoshana got married late in life and was expecting her first child when she was murdered in Sbarro's.  She was an only child.  Unlike the mother described at the beginning of this post, Shoshana's mother had lost her one and only child who was carrying her first and only grandchild.  With Shoshana's death, she was left with nothing.  No children, no continuity.  It was truly a nechama to the woman with other children that she had other children.

Maturity

When we describe a child, a young person, or anyone as "mature," what do we mean by that? Some characteristics are:

the ability to delay gratification
the ability to see the bigger picture
being responsible, taking responsibility
working/living for something higher than yourself
seeing beyond yourself, feeling other's pain

How do you become mature?

Maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you've had and what you do with them,
and what you've learned from them, and less to do with how many birthdays you've celebrated.

A speaker said that when he was a bachur in yeshiva, there would be a basketball game motzoei Shabbos, not for the bachurim, but for men in the neighborhood.  One of the players was a guy who years earlier, had been the basketball star in the mountains in camp.  At this point, he was older and not in fine form.

The game began and a foul was called against him and he was so upset that he took the ball and said, "It's my ball and I'm leaving."  Those who remained were stunned.  He sounded like a five year old and yet, he had children of his own!

As the speaker noted, just because you aged, doesn't mean you changed and matured.  There are adults who have married and live adult lives but are as immature emotionally as they were when they were children.  We need to actively seek change or we are likely to remain the same.

Who Are We Really?

I read a poignant story in an October issue of Hamodia's Inyan magazine, written by R' Avraham Y. Heschel.  It begins with a story that the author tells of a man, we'll call him Shimon, who protested nearly every week in shul, complaining that he should get the second aliya. 

The problem was, the rav of the shul was a Levi, but Shimon felt that as a Levi too, he should have a chance at that aliya.  The rav even frequently told the gabbai to let Shimon have the aliya at least some of the time, but the gabbai refused, saying it was the rav's aliya and Shimon had to make do with occasionally getting maftir and only receiving Levi on the rare occasions that the rav was away.

This went on for years.  Shimon remained a member of the shul but was always bothered about not receiving the Levi aliya.

One day, Shimon came to shul all excited about his older brother, we'll call him Yaakov, having received permission to leave Russia and come to America.  The rav told the gabbai that he absolutely must give Shimon's brother the second aliya, Levi, on Shabbos, and the gabbai agreed, considering the special circumstances. 

When Yaakov was called up he seemed puzzled.  He asked why he had been given this aliya.  The gabbai said, well, your brother is a Levi, so I assumed you are too.

Yaakov chuckled and said, "He thought he was a Levi? Shimon was a little kid when he had to run away during the war.  He doesn't remember.  We are not Leviyim."

R' Heschel says the story is true and he heard it from the rav of that shul.  He goes on to write a powerful lesson from the story.  For years, Shimon was upset because he thought he should be getting the second aliya.  Actually, the second aliya was not his and he could have had any of the other aliyos.  "Shimon's problem was that he didn't know who he really was."

Many people are stuck deep in negative feelings, struggling with painful memories or a difficult life.  They are convinced, he says, that they are not capable of moving forward, that their problems are too great, their hurts too deep, their challenges too mighty for them to live a relaxed, happy life.  But, this is only because they really don't know themselves!

to be continued

Strength of Character

Hamodia magazine had an article about Mrs. Ruth Ebstein, wife of a teacher of mine.  She and her husband were from Germany and survived the war.  He spent six years in Siberian labor camps.

From the age of 13 and on, Ruth experienced Kristallnacht, being sent out of Germany by her parents, living with a distant relative in France for two and a half years, living in an orphanage, and leaving with the other children for America via Spain and Portugal.  She was 15 and a half and on her own in an orphanage in New York and and was then sent to California.

"I may have been out of physical danger, but the spiritual danger was enormous.  It was so easy to be pulled in by the gashmius.  Out of the 75 Orthodox children who were on the ship with me, only ten remained frum.  Many simply had no one to guide them, for there were no religious communities [in California] back then."

Ruth attended Hollywood High School and found work.  She lived on fruits and vegetables for four years in order not to eat treif, even as she lived with Jewish people.  "The family I lived with went to temple, but they told me about a shul with a 'religious rabbi' a mile away.  I walked there every Shabbos, once in the morning for davening and again for seuda shlishis to hear the rabbi's inspiring dvar Torah and the zemiros sung by the old men."

What struck me as I read her account was the contrast between what she endured and overcame and the fragility of today's frum teenagers and their petty problems.  I am not talking about those with genuine hardships, but of the angst, i.e. emotional problems that come from not properly dealing with normal life.  Rabbi Benzion Shafier noted this as referred to in this post: here

Lesson from the Sefer Ha'Chinuch

In the Sefer Ha'Chinuch on parshas Ki Seitzei, mitzvah 534 (or 537) is to bury the person who was hung after being stoned to death for serving idols or for blasphemy.  The "Key Concept," as written in "The Concise Sefer HaChinuch" in English says, "When people see the executed person's corpse hanging on the post, they will say that such is the punishment for having cursed the Holy One's name.  When they utter these words, however, they remind themselves that such a sin is possible, and simply by speaking of the sin, they do damage to their souls."  This is why the person's body is taken down and buried on the same day that he was executed.  "As a result, there is less opportunity for people to do self-inflicted damage to their souls."

Reading this triggered the thought that I wrote about here, questioning what effect being regularly exposed to negativity has on us.  I won't repeat myself, go take a look :)

There is No Outsmarting G-d

In Aleinu L'Shabei'ach Bereishis, there is a letter from the Steipler Gaon (R' Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky, d. 1985) which sets out a fundamental outlook on life.  It is written in connection to women and children, but the message applies to everyone. 

He writes that women make a big mistake when they think that by choosing not to have many children their lives will be easier.  All difficulties in life are decreed by Hashem on Rosh Hashana and there is no getting around them.  If a person tries to escape from some burden that brings suffering with it, a different affliction will take its place so that his portion of suffering is neither more nor less than it would have been.

Hashem has many messengers: illnesses, financial woes, humiliations, controversies, quarrels between spouses or other family members, friends, neighbors or business partners, inexplicable mishaps, anxieties etc. No strategy in the world will add or detract from what was designated for us, both in pain and pleasure.  If a person chooses to lighten his burden in one way, Hashem will provide an alternative.

This reminds me of this post: here and Rosie's comment about it is Hashem who enables mankind to make discoveries such as penicillin and vaccinations.  Hashem has given us the way to eradicate many formerly fatal illnesses, but ... like it says in the Steipler's letter, whatever is meted out on Rosh Hashana is what we will experience, no matter the progress of modern medicine.

And what about the modern-day scourge of self-inflicted misery? People in western cultures are making themselves sick with all sorts of emotional problems due to unbalanced thinking.

I think it would be incorrect to say that if we were able to teach everyone healthy thought patterns, well, so Hashem would afflict us with other problems.  Just as it's a mitzva to take care of our physical health and doing so is not a matter of attempting to get around any gezeira that may have been decreed, so too and even more so, it is our obligation to guard our minds.

On another note, on the words “And they[the Egyptians] embittered their lives with hard work, in mortar and in bricks…by which they made them serve with rigor” (Shmos 1:14). “And they embittered their lives” – the Zohar says this is the Torah (of which it is said [regarding words of Torah], “for they are our life”); “with hard work (b’avoda kasha)” – this refers to a quandary in learning (kushia); “in mortar (b’chomer)” – this is the kal v’chomer; “and in all work in the field” – this is a Braisa; “and in bricks (l’veinim)” – this is the clarification (libun) of Torah law.

We learn from this that it is possible to replace and exchange all the hardships of galus – making a living, other troubles, etc. – for spiritual matters.

Me-Centered Hypersensitivity

It was refreshing to read a letter in a frum publication decrying the popular practice of castigating readers for insensitivity, for no matter what people say to the sick, mourners, childless, single, they are bound to be hurting someone's feelings.

The letter-writer (Francesca Zuckerman) recently sat shiva and she said, "Things that upset me one day, could sooth on another.  The shiva visit I found most touching, my sister found irritating.  The rav my brother felt was the highlight of the shiva for him, I was sure had overstayed his welcome."

She went on to say so eloquently:

"It seems we have traded our Jewish value of being sensitive to the feelings of others, for a Western, politically correct, me-centered hypersensitivity.  How often do we hear people crying 'insensitive' to something that really could be totally pareve, or treating an everyday event like a nisayon? ... We have become experts at tending to our own wounds, but unaware of those of others."

Then her wise conclusion:

"I am not advocating ignoring another person's tzaar.  Yes, when meeting an avel (or anyone suffering), we should try not to say something hurtful.  But at the same time, a person in pain has to realize that no one knows what is in his heart, and his pain stems from his nisayon, not from the people around him who cannot guess what he feels."

When people say and ask foolish things, let's regard the remarks as just that - foolish.  The intentions are almost never malevolent.  Don't we all have memories of words that slipped out that we soon regretted? Let us not allow those who made a mistake or those clueless people out there to ruin our day.

A Study in Contrasts

R' Benzion Shafier tells of going to visit his friend, Rabbi Simes (in picture), who became a quadraplegic as a result of a road accident, see here.  He was apprehensive, but they ended up speaking for hours.  The strange part of it was, R' Simes was so genuinely happy!

R' Simes said when he first came home from the hospital, he couldn't find a trained medical aide to help him.  He wondered why.  After all, he wasn't the only person in this condition. 

He subsequently found out the reason.  His injury, a C4-C5 injury to the spinal cord, is considered such a terrible situation that people rarely leave the hospital which is why there are no trained technicians available.  R' Simes explained that they don't actually need to be in the hospital.  They are there because they are so angry and depressed.  As for himself, he has no anger and no depression. 

R' Shafier was astonished.  Here's a man living through hell but he has joy and happiness because he's growing and changing, learning and teaching.  At a certain point, R' Simes said he believes Hashem chose him and he thinks Hashem gave him this nisayon because he can withstand it and still grow.  R' Shafier said he felt humbled.  He has spoken about these concepts and wrote a book about them, that Hashem custom designs our lives for us, but here was a man who was living it and has a simchas ha'chaim!

R' Shafier contrasted this with a talk he gave at a seminary in Israel on this subject.  A girl raised her hand and said, I hear what you're saying, that Hashem tailors our lives for us, but that's in theory, how do I apply this to my life  when I am in so much pain? The next girl said, my life is so hard - how can I apply this to my life? Out of 60 girls in the room, it seemed like 40 had the same question. 

R' Shafier looked around and saw well-dressed girls.  Someone was paying thousands of dollars for their seminary education.  They were not homeless.  He felt he was talking to a room full of Holocaust survivors when they actually came from good homes, a land of liberty and opportunity!

He concluded that so many people today are unhappy and suffering and not healthy, functioning citizens.  Although it's true we live in a time of unparalleled health, wealth and opportunity and we, as the Jewish nation, have the Torah, there is so much suffering.  The addictions, divorce, pain, anxieties, obsessions - why is this happening? R' Shafier says, it's a long bitter exile.  People are supposed to be joy-filled, living purposeful lives.  This is rare in our days.  To those who say - who needs Moshiach, the answer is, says R Shafier: look at the numbers of unhealthy people in our community which is a result of our exile.

Echoes of a Previous Post

In the Spring issue of Jewish Action magazine there was a symposium on the Orthodox Family of the 21st century.  One of the respondents, Rivkah Rabinowitz, is a social worker who is a family therapist.  I found it interesting that she wrote precisely what I wrote in a post of two and a half years ago: here, although she does not give any explanation as to the reasoning behind her wondering.

In her words:

"There are daily, weekly and monthly “kosher” newspapers and magazines published and distributed worldwide. Many of them publish well-written articles exposing important social issues and raising communal awareness. Formerly taboo subjects are often openly discussed ...

"And yet, while the proliferation of such frank discussions in frum media outlets clearly indicates revolutionary growth and thinking, perhaps there is a negative side to all of this as well.

The prevalence of divorce is one such example.

Divorce used to be a taboo topic. When I attended school in the Sixties and Seventies, I did not have a single classmate whose parents had divorced. Out of my high school graduating class of thirty-two girls, one of my classmates divorced early on, and a second after twenty years of marriage.

Out of my twenty-four-year-old daughter’s graduating class of thirty-eight, five classmates have parents who are divorced and there are already four divorces in the class itself. That’s a huge change from my day...

"I cannot help but wonder: were some vulnerable young people influenced by the constant flow of articles on divorce? Were they convinced that their marriages were so bad because they mirrored the stories in certain frum publications where the spouses divorced and then “lived happily ever after”? Did such articles provide a false sense of support and reassurance?

"These are tough questions. By bringing issues to the forefront, people are surely helped. But have we contributed to the creation of broken homes? Is all the frum media attention on the tough issues in our society a contributing factor? Does naming the pain, with titles such as “shidduch crisis,” “kids on the fringe,” “abusive spouse” and “Internet addiction,” somehow unleash a monster that feeds on itself? Is the media reporting on a particular phenomenon, or is it in fact helping to create it? This is an age-old dilemma, and the proliferation of frum newspapers, magazines, and other forms of media makes this question more relevant today than ever."

Unlicensed Therapists

There was an interesting article in "Ami Living" (issue #62) about unlicensed advice-givers, whether they call themselves counselors, therapists, marital counselors, etc.  The author interviewed three men who have no degrees and yet offer advice.  To sum up:

pro licensing/anti unregulated counselors:
1) public protection - people have been hurt by self-declared practioners
2) the material studied for a degree plus the supervised training is invaluable
3) formal schooling plus a natural aptitude are a winning combination
4) the shtetl rav knew his limits

pro unregulated counselors:

1) there are awful licensed therapists, a degree is no guarantee of competence
2) a chush (instinct, talent) for advice giving cannot be learned in school; those who are professionally trained often lack common sense and a listening and sensitive heart and go "by the book".  Being able to give good eitzos (advice) is not something you learn in school.
3) formal schooling in which you must study ideas that are contrary to Torah is not an asset but a liability
4) they can be fine for most human relationship and personal problems
5) good for those who don't want to get involved in anything medical because of the stigma (even though psychologists and social workers are not in the medical profession)

What did people do before the field of mental health developed and became regulated? Of course there were always rabbis, rebbetzins, mashgichim, pastors, chaplains, and friends to turn to for advice.

The frum psychologist Dr Sorotzkin's answer to the question of what people did before psychology is the same as for antibiotics, "Some lived and some died."  I think that is true now too, though not in the way he means it, with many people "dying" with the lack of help or outright harm perpetrated by some professionals.

He believes that all things being equal, the chances are higher that a trained and licensed therapist will be better than one who isn't.  He thinks that licensed people are more likely to be effective and quicker to know what they can and cannot do.  Sounds reasonable but until it's proven (and how can it be proven?) it's an opinion.

A frum psychologist quoted in the article said that the rav and rebbe of yesteryear "were guided by a strong sense of morality, spirituality and plain old common sense."  He thinks that many of those trying to give advice today are lacking in all three.  He also thinks that the advisors of yesteryear were focused on the person who needed help as opposed to today where many are as interested in being advice-givers as they in helping.  "There is much less listening, much more advice-giving."

The professionals feel threatened by those who get referrals even though they did not  put in years and money into a degree.  When a social worker is quoted as saying, "A person should never do anything he is not qualified to do.  A dermatologist would not promote himself as a brain surgeon," I am not impressed.  What's the comparison? How is an counselor who gives advice comparable to one type of doctor who promotes himself as having another specialty?

This same individual is annoyed by congregational rabbis who counsel.  What bothers him is the case, for example, of a couple going to their rabbi for marriage counseling and not getting the desired result and concluding that counseling doesn't work without realizing it was the unqualified rabbi who was the problem.  This social worker apparently believes that anyone with a degree or license will give only excellent advice, which is wishful thinking. 

If only a study could be done in the frum world about the efficacy of frum unprofessional counseling versus professional counseling, but that seems impossible

As for money, it didn't come up in the interviews in the article.  A sidebar said that the mental health advisor (i.e. non-professional) rarely charges, volunteering the bulk of his work for the mitzva.

Doing the Best They Can - Really?

I have read and heard many times that we should feel compassion for the people in our lives who are "doing the best they can."  Today, I was listening to a talk in which the speaker said he believes that parents, our parents, did and do the best they can with the tools they had or have.  If they didn't do something for you, it was because they couldn't.

It sounds nice.  It sounds understanding.  But I don't believe it.  Why? Because it's not true for me and I don't believe it's true for most people.  I know that I can't say about myself that in all that I've done, in all of my interactions, I did the best I could.  I could have done better! Couldn't we have said it more gently, reacted more calmly, been more patient? I know I could have. 

We are all "disordered" in one way or another

 

Eating disorders are “a coping mechanism when life feels out of control, overwhelming, disappointing or painful,” says Catherine Steiner-Adair, director of Eating Disorders Education and Prevention at McLean Hospital.

Yet, in 2006, the National Institute of Mental Health confirmed that anorexia and bulimia are biological, brain-based disorders.

Seems to me that to say that eating disorders are a way of coping with distress is vastly different than saying they are illnesses that are biological and brain-based!  

More and more behaviors are being labeled as illnesses or disorders.  ODD (Oppositional Defiance Disorder) used to be referred to as bad behavior or being a brat.  Now it's a "disorder" which is "evaluated" and "diagnosed".  The cause is "unknown".  G-d forbid that parents would be considered the cause of their child's obnoxious behavior.  That would be judgmental which is a cardinal sin.

If we categorize behaviors according to what makes people feel good and opt for a medical diagnosis rather than finding out what is really bothering the child or young adult, I am afraid that the treatment will be unhelpful.

Increase the Light

If you read frum English publications, and there are many these days and that's wonderful, you will notice that they publish the "psychological/emotional/mental issue of the week." I am inclined to think that it is psychologically detrimental, as well as damaging to our spiritual health, to be exposed, on a regular basis, to abnormal situations.

I think that children as well as adults, need to be fortified with that which is healthy and true and good, and be as underexposed as possible to that which is unhealthy, false and bad.

I think that educators must be very wary about teaching the dangers of abnormal eating practices to young girls, for example, for their good intentions might backfire! For children who weren't aware that food could be regarded in such a sick way, it gives them ideas they never entertained on their own!

When 11 year olds tease each other using the words bulimic and anorexic, I think this should be setting off warning bells in the minds of well-intentioned teachers and parents, who think exposing children to the abnormal behavior of very few individuals is beneficial.

I am concerned not only about publicizing eating disorders, but about numerous issues that have been exposed to the frum public, seemingly with positive intentions. I wonder whether the approach backfires, and the more talk there is about children at risk, the more children at risk there are; the more talk there is about eating disorders, the more people are discovered to have them; the more talk there is about spousal and child abuse, the more abuse there is; the more learning disabilities are discussed, the more children are diagnosed with them; the more mental illness is described at length in popular magazines, the more people discover they have these illnesses.

Is it that pre-existing problems are being exposed and dealt with, OR that talking about it, dwelling on it, and teaching about it, INCREASES THE NUMBERS? Maybe it's both.

The media knows that when they report some awful teen incident of suicide or violence, there is the "copycat" effect. An article in Scientific American, Feb. 2001 said:

“Less obvious, however, are the circumstances under which social validation can backfire … An example is the understandable but potentially misguided tendency of health educators to call attention to a problem by depicting it as regrettably frequent. Information campaigns stress that alcohol and drug use is intolerably high, that adolescent suicide rates are alarming and that polluters are spoiling the environment.

"Although the claims are both true and well-intentioned, the creators of these programs have missed something basic about the compliance process. Within the statement, “Look at all the people who are doing this undesirable thing, lurks the powerful and undercutting message, “Look at all the people who are doing this undesirable thing.”

"Research shows that, as a consequence, many such programs boomerang, generating even more of the undesirable behavior."

I maintain that by spending our time and energy reading and talking about how to positively change ourselves, about good marriages, about healthy eating, about teenagers accomplishing wonderful things, etc. - in other words, “light” - we will accomplish a whole lot more than focusing on the “darkness”. This is not to say there is no darkness. It's not about denial. It's about zeroing in and highlighting the good, in order to increase it, which simultaneously diminishes the darkness. 

The secular media inundates us with negative news.  If you listen to the news on the radio in the morning you can start your day with a fire, rape, robbery and some international problem.  No wonder then that we feel the need to read articles about combatting depression!  Let there be an effort to keep it 80%-20% in favor of the positive in our frum publications so we can face the world fortified with simcha and bitachon!