A Message to our Readers

I once had a conversation with the mother of a severely handicapped child who was having a hard time coping each day with the constant demands on her strength, time and patience. She said that she sometimes felt the challenge of raising her son was a punishment and she was basically a good person who didn’t deserve to be treated unfairly. I explained that a basic concept for Jews to recognize is that all that emanates from the Aibeshter can only be good. We merely need the wisdom to appreciate it. To raise a child with a developmental disability is challenging no doubt, but one can never say that they are afflicted with this task as a punishment, G-d forbid.

The parent responded by saying that while those were nice words it didn’t make her feel any better. Why is that? How come we can talk about these concepts and accept them on an intellectual level, but we find them difficult to apply to our own circumstances when the need arises? We can all cite chapter and verse when we address a friend’s situation, but we fall into despair and grief when we face our own nisyonos! How can this be explained?

We can understand this by recognizing that it is human nature to feel one’s own pain much more acutely than for another person. Therefore to use cold logic to explain to someone else why they should not attach such importance to their pain is easy. But applying that same logic to ourselves is much harder and requires a lot more effort. It is then, consequently, easy to see how someone can imagine that they are being “punished”. Two lessons emerge from this:

First, true Ahavas Yisroel dictates that we should be careful to make a conscientious effort to really put ourselves into our friend’s shoes and feel their ache deeply before attempting to console, commiserate with or encourage them to work through their challenge. That will create a heightened level of awareness, understanding and sensitivity on our part which in turn will be conveyed to our friend.

Secondly, we should try to refrain from letting our challenges become a destructive force. Our job is to train ourselves to channel whatever hurt we may feel personally into a positive action. For example, when we do feel down, we must seek out opportunities to take immediate constructive action - like doing a chesed for someone else or simply saying Tehillim. This will help us refrain from wallowing in negative self-pity, which only serves to fuel or feed upon itself and makes the pain of our challenges seem impossible to deal with.

With best wishes for a sweet, healthy and joyous new year.

Rabbi Simon Lauber
Founder & CEO

Founder & CEO
Rabbi Simon Lauber
slauber@spiritmag.org

Editor-in-Chief
Gershon Sabol
gershon@spiritmag.org

Rabbinical Advisory Board
Rabbi Chaim L. Rottenberg, shlita
Rabbi Avrohom Chaim Feuer, shlita

Editor
Dini Sternhill
dinis@spiritmag.org

Copy Editor
Arielle Miller
Yakov Steinhart

Magazine Layout & Design
Mark Weisz Design
www.markweisz.com

Web Layout & Design
Baruch Lebovits

Editorial Advisory Board
Chaya Yitty Rottenberg
Elisheva Stein
Michelle Steinhart
Gitty Stiel

Contributors
Chaya A.
Rabbi Shmuel Abramson, Ed.D.
Elizabeth Chanin, PT M.E.
Ruchi Eisenbach
Tziri Frank
Zahava L.
Sally Meyer
Rosemarie Rossetti, Ph. D.
Meira Samuels
Rivky S.
Nancy Silberman Zwiebach, MA, PD