LIFE LESSONS IN FAITH

Drora lost her son after devotedly caring for him for five years following a tragic car accident. Faigy’s husband has a degenerative neurological disease, which started after they married; together they are raising 12 children. Esther married, knowing that her husband was sick with multiple sclerosis. * Three women who are dealing with serious challenges, who chose not to break. They accept their lot in life with emuna and even with gratitude.

By Hila Crispin

Nearly everybody faces difficult trials in life that seem insurmountable. Sometimes, it is within these very tribulations that a person discovers strengths she did not know she had. These strengths continue to serve the individual even after the nisayon. How are these strengths discovered during a crisis? How does one feel close to Hashem within a hardship?

THANK YOU FOR THE GIFT

Drora lost her son Uriel this year. Uriel fell from high scaffolding when he was 19 and injured his head. At first, he was hospitalized in Hadassah Ein Kerem for three months. When he did not regain consciousness and was declared to be in a vegetative state, he was transferred to an institution in Tel Aviv for five years until his death.

Drora devotedly cared for her son and, together with her family, tried to do whatever could be done for Uriel and beyond. The institution became her second home. She spent Shabbasos and holidays there and met sisters in sorrow who were caring for their loved ones.

Drora lived through both the experience of being the mother of a child with a brain injury, who is unresponsive and in a condition that nobody knows how long it will last, and that of being a bereaved mother.

“The five years at the institution were the most meaningful in my life. I met women who are mothers and wives. Each of them was there with either a child or husband. As long as they were caring for their child or husband, it was hard, but harder still is when there is no one left to talk to and all one has is yearning, which sometimes sears the heart. I thank Hashem that I went through both experiences.

“When Uriel fell, it was so hard, but he was still there. When he died, I didn’t have that anymore. It is not about being in a crisis and getting out of it, but about changing the picture, taking the difficult space you are in and turning it into something else entirely, into a gift from G-d with which you see tremendous siyata d’Shmaya in every detail.

“Every person gets his experience and his tools, and there is no point in comparing. We all have hardships and we have to get through them, not as a “default option,” but because Hashem wants us to get close to Him. Through the hardships, I intensified my connection with Hashem and the concept of life took on meaning.

“It happened on 14 Kislev while I was attending Uriel in Hadassah. In the evenings I would read Igros Kodesh. One day, I read a letter dated 14 Kislev and I was amazed by the accuracy of the answer as it pertained to me: ‘Yehi ratzon that things improve. This is the entire lesson of Chanuka, which is that we need to increase in matters of holiness.’ I thought that maybe Uriel would wake up on Chanuka, but Chanuka passed and nothing happened. He was unresponsive. We realized that this was serious, and that is when the journey of faith truly began.

“I constantly spoke to Hashem. One day, I came home and heard what seemed like a voice saying, ‘Don’t you realize that this boy does not belong to you at all?’

“I went back to the Rebbe’s letter and read the next part: ‘And the body of a Jew is, as our Sages say, G-d’s possession, and holy. And Hashem chose the corporeal body out of all the nations, and brought it close and with great and excessive compassion.’

“I said to myself, one minute! There is something here. And I looked at Uriel and understood that this is a Jewish body and it belongs to Hashem. The Rebbe was explaining to me that the Jewish body is His, and all I want from you is for you to care for it. That’s that. I saluted and said to Hashem, ‘Now, I am working according to Your will.’ I went to my son every day and cared for him. I sang to him, spoke to him, hugged him and kissed him, but was not ready to take this experience as a tragic one. I had a very strong share in walking hand in hand with Hashem, because He relied on me and gave me a very special responsibility. I even felt proud, as a mother: Hashem holds of me! It was like He was saying to me: I chose you as a mother for this child because his journey is not a simple one and I rely on you. This gave me so much strength.

“Thanks to the Igros Kodesh, I felt that I had a shlichus to do with the department employees and with the other parents, most of whom were not religious. Many parents were angry at G-d. I tried to show them how much giving the experience was bringing out in them, how much warmth and love, tenderness, softness, patience and acceptance. There were arguments, but there were those who accepted what I said.

“Uriel died one night when we were at home. When they called and said, ‘Come right away,’ we knew. We did not speak; we drove immediately and got there and said goodbye to our son who remained beautiful and pure. I thanked Uriel for the wonderful gift he gave me, because thanks to him, I discovered closeness to Hashem. That’s the best thing that happened to me in life. I asked his forgiveness for my needing the pain he went through to get close to Hashem. I have a lot of gratitude to him and a lot of gratitude to Hashem for having the great privilege of bringing this neshama into the world.”

I FEEL THAT I MERITED A GIFT

Faigy, around 40 years old, relates:

“I have the privilege of being the mother of 12 children. This year, we started marrying them off. The youngest is two, so the house is a busy one.

“When we married, my husband was healthy. A year later, he felt a tremendous weakness and a paralysis in part of his body. We went to top doctors and they diagnosed it as a degenerative neurological disease with no cure. We were shocked at first, of course. But as a practical, determined, and energetic person by nature, I quickly realized that our first priority had to be investing in a good relationship, and to take it through fire and water. Over the years, his condition worsened and two years ago, my husband was fully confined to a wheelchair.

“I grew up in a Chassidishe home. My parents put a lot into us and without saying much, invested in a good relationship as a basis for a strong, Jewish home. I saw investment on the physical plane like food, laundry and cleanliness and on the emotional and spiritual plane as well. I saw a lot of giving and giving-in. Obviously if the baby is screaming, you won’t prepare a gourmet meal for your husband, but even in busy times, you don’t let your relationship drop from the first order of priorities. It is very important to me to emphasize that if you truly want to invest in a good relationship, you need to find rabbanim and mashpiim who will help achieve this.

“At first, he had attacks once or twice a year, but they became more frequent as the years went by. Now, he has an attack about once a month and it lasts a week or two. A doctor told us that at age 40 there will be great deterioration, and that’s what is happening.

“We tried all of the preventative treatments, but it didn’t prevent him from ending up in a wheelchair. My husband teaches Chassidus and Tanya at home and learns Torah in every free minute. The disease affected his body but, Boruch Hashem, not his mind.

“Investing in our relationship was my foundation. Therefore, it was important to me to personally give him the best possible care. I persisted in this until Hashem, in His great kindness, sent me back pain. I realized I had to accept help. Although this meant forgoing a lot of privacy, which is so important to me, we brought in foreign help.

“It is interesting that despite the disease, and maybe because of it, not only wasn’t our relationship adversely affected, it became better and better, and spiritually too. I learned what simcha is, what bitachon is about, what a Jewish home is, and what the proper order of priorities is. To run a normal family, and a Jewish home, is always necessary and possible under all circumstances. These are things that become clear to a person if he or she merits it, and I feel that I was granted this special gift.

“My husband sits and learns all the time. Previously, he was a big askan. I remember telling him on the eighteenth day in a wheelchair, that now I got what I wanted for eighteen years: a husband who sits and learns.

“The situation is hard. It’s galus. It’s hester panim. It’s about finding Geula within the galus. Understandably, there are moments, minutes or days that are very hard, but it is still not a breaking point, because nothing is broken here. Things are merely settling down. One insight that I got from this challenge is that you can never judge anyone. A person cannot understand someone who is in a particular nisayon, because he wasn’t given the tools to understand it. You get tools along with a nisayon as a package deal. Hashem gave me the abilities and tools to deal with my challenge and nobody can understand what I am going through. It is an intimate place between me and Hashem. But one can share insights.

“The physical and technical difficulties are not the hardest part of this nisayon. Even in earlier days, when my husband worked outside of the house and had to provide for a large family, I took help, as needed. The main point is how you are building up your children. We see a simple thing, that how I accept things and how my husband accepts this, is how it is replicated in the children, period.

“I remember that a teacher, who had very good intentions, called my daughter over and said to her, ‘Kudos that you continue to smile and to handle your nisayon.’

“‘What a fool that teacher is,’ my daughter said to me. ‘What is she thinking? I have a father Baruch Hashem. He talks, he smiles, and he jokes with me at the Shabbos meal. So why is she congratulating me for handling a nisayon?’

“I saw that this teacher did not understand that if a child does not smile, it is because those around him don’t smile at him.

“When my husband’s condition deteriorated to the point that he could not walk, I sat the big children down, those from about 10 and up, and explained everything that I thought a child would be nervous about. I told them that Tatty has this disease and not to worry, it is not hereditary, it does not hurt, it is not contagious, and it is possible to live with it until 120. I encouraged them to talk and share everything with us or someone on the outside, because in the teenage years it is good to have someone on the outside to be a mashpia, aside from the parents.

“I once heard in a lecture: Don’t panic, because panic leads to fears and terrors. This approach strengthened me a lot. And t’filla, to ask again and again of Hashem for everything you need, and to feel that we are worthy of receiving it. I also learned to take care of myself, and not to let myself overlook my own needs. Boruch Hashem, I have good children who are Chassidish and who laugh and learn well, yerei Shamayim, and my husband sits and learns, and I have a good, full life. On Motzaei Shabbos, we sit outside on the porch for a little while to get some air and enjoy each other’s company, and we live constantly with emuna.”

NOT A PUNISHMENT, RATHER TIKKUN AND SHLICHUS

Esther Gur of Beitar is a speaker and swimming instructor, who gives lectures on empowering women throughout Eretz Yisroel and the world. She has an invalid husband whom she tells us about:

“I come from a frum family from Vancouver. I was introduced to my husband who is a baal t’shuva and we became engaged. Then I found out that he suffers from multiple sclerosis. He limped a bit and had problems with his right hand. I had to decide whether I should marry him or say goodbye and look for another shidduch.

“Inside me, a voice said that he is the father of my children. I decided I was willing to deal with all the difficulties and we married. I was 25 and had a degree in marine engineering and a good government job. He worked in computers and made good money and life seemed fine.

“We soon came to Chabad and connected to the Rebbe. We became more involved after Gimmel Tammuz when we went to Eretz Yisroel with six children (now seven sons and a daughter) and settled in Beitar.

“Our idyllic life ended very quickly, because a year and a half after we married, his condition worsened and the good parnasa ended very quickly. I had to support us, care for my husband, and raise the children who came one after the other.

“Financial difficulty was one of the hardest things we went through. There was no help from family or anyone else. The burden of the home fell solely upon me, but with time, I gave up responsibility for his care and he is completely independent. He rejects anyone who says he is sick, because he decided he is not sick.

“After more than 40 years with MS, he is still walking, talking, and functioning. After returning home from being hospitalized for six weeks after collapsing, he threw away his walker and stick and began walking.

“My husband is home most of the time, and only goes out to shul to daven and to an English-speaking kollel to learn. His perspective is that people must be independent, and so it is very important to him that I help women be independent and empowered.

“I am quite free these days. Even during his last hospitalization, he sent me home. I am a secretary in an office and our joint mission is to empower women through lectures, phone conversations and classes. He greatly encourages this. He always pushed me and greatly valued this. He is my strongest admirer and the most enthusiastic partner in our life’s work. I recently returned from the Chabad on Campus Kinus where I gave lectures on practical Chassidus. I also held personal conversations and attended the gathering of my students from all over the world who gathered in the US for a two day vacation. I also gave interactive talks, farbrengen-style.

“The most important insight I got from my situation is that Hashem gave me this test, not as a punishment but as my life’s journey that my neshama needs to go through, to achieve its tikkun and do its mission. If I ever considered leaving my husband, I realized that Hashem could bring me the same test from somewhere else. I could fight it or go with the flow and grow. This is my conscious free choice to recognize that everything is given from Above and I have no control over events.

“A good marital relationship is something that varies among couples. I don’t think there exists one ideal relationship for everyone. As far as I’m concerned, it’s good that he enables me to work and be successful, and he is happy with my success. I once thought that marriage means mutual dependence, until I realized that this is not at all the point.

“Doctors said that my husband won’t walk, and he walks; only because he insists on doing so. He also decided he is living without medication, and he decided that nothing hurts him. So even when he falls and is injured and breaks ribs, he does not complain, because that is his choice.

“Another bonus is that the children learned from him that it’s not so bad to be stubborn. Because after 40 years of MS, he is walking, and that is not a given; it might be a miracle. But it is also a lot of work. I am also stubborn in my own way, but in order to achieve goals and awareness I had to first grow up and see what my responsibilities are mine and what aren’t.

“There were times there was no money in the house, no food, nothing. My worldview at the time was, as I had been taught, that the husband works and the wife stays home with the children. But who says it must be that way? I learned from my husband to change preconceived notions, and mainly, to think. Our children are also very independent. They know how to think and how to express themselves well, and each one has his own views.

“Another relationship I would like to address is my personal connection with Hashem. I realized that all the things I went through in life are for my good, and the good of my neshama, and I accept it with love and do what needs to be done. It is clear to me that I work for Hashem, and everything I do is for Him. It is also clear to me that He loves me dearly. Every day I see miracles and I know that these miracles are from Him, and from nothing that I’ve done. Sometimes, it is still hard for me to thank Him for this nisayon, because true gratitude is also an avoda. I realize that it’s for my good, but I’m still working on it.”