The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Finding meaning in a drastically altered life
There’s a Chassidic saying that, “Man plans, and God laughs.” You prepare for the day ahead, but reality doesn’t always keep to your schedule. As a rabbi, it can take just one phone call and your whole week’s plans change.
Sitting in the office a few weeks ago, I received a call from a dear friend. His mother, Janet, has always been a very active person despite her advanced age (or maybe because of it.) For the past nine months though, she had been cooped up in her nursing home. Having no way to properly exercise, spend time with her family and do the many other things she used to enjoy, had taken its toll: she had lost so much of her vitality, her energy, her will to live. “Rabbi, my mom has always been so careful to maintain an active and independent lifestyle. What is she supposed to do now? How can she make sense of her life when she can’t do anything?”
What came to mind was the story of my colleague, Rabbi Yitzy Hurwitz. Yitzy was the rabbi of the Jewish community in Temecula, Calif. Yitzi was warm, popular and succeeded in building a community from the ground up. Then, in 2013, he was diagnosed with ALS. As the illness has spread to more and more of his body, Rabbi Yitzy could only communicate using his eye motions, which are read by a special computer system. Yet with his eyes — and with the mind that they express — Yitzy shines a beacon of hope to countless people. He sends out weekly emails, writes columns for magazines and corresponds with thousands. People fly all the way to Los Angeles to meet with him for advice and inspiration. Thousands are joining a mitzvah campaign this week in his honor. Far from having his reach limited by his disability, Yitzi went from being the rabbi of a relatively small community to being someone who uplifts countless people around the world.
In his New York Times bestseller Rebbe, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin relates that in 1986, his father Shlomo, an accountant by trade, had a stroke. A couple days after he awoke from his coma, the Telushkin family received a call from a secretary of the Rebbe — Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, considered the most influential rabbi in modern history. To their surprise, the Rebbe wanted to ask the senior Telushkin’s advice on an accounting issue. It hardly seemed appropriate to be asking a person in that state for business advice. Shlomo, still very weak from the ordeal, was equally surprised by the request, but he was able to resolve the accounting problem to everyone’s satisfaction. It was then that the family realized what was going on: the Rebbe knew how devastating a loss of purpose could feel. With this one simple question, he helped Shlomo realize that “you still got it.”
So I shared with Janet that yes, her life looks very different, but her mandate to find purpose within life had not changed one iota. All that had changed was the situation. And if that’s the situation you’re in, there’s something you need to accomplish in this situation.
Finding the meaning in challenging situations is something we do every day at Friendship Circle, where teens volunteer to help children living with disabilities enjoy the fulfilling and meaningful life experiences. In a sense, helping others find meaning in adversity has equipped me for the new reality we’re facing, because in truth, each of us is facing the same challenge.
Over the past year, everyone’s life plans have had to change — some more, some less, but who can truly say they came away unscathed from 2020? (As someone said, whatever anyone answered in 2015 to the question “Where do you see yourself in five years?” was definitely wrong.) A whole slew of questions that used to be struggles faced by a minority of people have suddenly come up for practically everyone. What is my purpose? How do I fill my day meaningfully? Where do I go from here?
Now that each of us is confronting those questions, it’s easy to forget the other people close by who face many of the same challenges and more. Pain is an inherently lonely ordeal — no two people experience pain in the same way, and the English language is ill-equipped to express pain properly, making it a challenge to communicate.
For the past five years, ShabbaTTogether, part of the Ruderman Chabad Inclusion Initiative, has sought to raise awareness for mental health and disability inclusion within the Jewish community worldwide. Locally, Chabad of Fairfield has used this weekend each year as an opportunity to bring awareness to the importance of including community members living with disabilities and mental conditions. This year, ShabbaTTogether is focusing on addressing the crisis-within-acrisis than this year has wrought — the overwhelming toll that the pandemic has taken on so many people’s mental and emotional health and well-being. With suicide on the rise, this year’s ShabbaTTogether is coinciding with a series of mental health first responder courses that myself and my colleagues will utilize to become better equipped to serve our communities.
So this Shabbat, I ask you to think of your friends and neighbors. Who might be struggling? What gesture, small or large, can you do to make them feel loved, important and hopeful? The world may never be the same, but we can find meaning, direction and purpose in our new lives — however they turn out.
Over the past year, everyone’s life plans have had to change — some more, some less, but who can truly say they came away unscathed from 2020?