Month: June 2020

I am quite sure that prior to losing Ely, I never experienced loneliness before.

Sure, I have been alone.  And in fact, I generally cherish my “alone time.”  I remember once when Ely was about to fly to the US on a business trip, and he was stressed about the flight, I said to him: “I can only dream of 12 hours to myself.  It sounds amazing.”

So being alone is definitely not the issue – at least not for me.  I enjoy having time to myself, to reflect, to read, to learn.

But this is something else entirely. 

I think the best analogy I can find comes from the world of research that I was involved in when I was in graduate school.  My research at the time was focused on enhancement of prosthetic devices for amputated limbs.  It had been well-documented that amputees often still felt as if their amputated limbs were present.  We actually tried to harness this feeling by creating a prosthetic hand with fingers which could be activated when the person thought about moving them.  This wasn’t “hocus pocus.” The thought of moving the hand actually caused physical movement of the remaining muscles and/or tendons in the arm which were associated with that movement.  In case you’re wondering, the design was not successful, because it was too hard to isolate the movements that we wanted, and it was too variable among people. 

The point, though, is that the brain still “remembered” the missing limb.  In fact, many amputees not only could feel the presence of the missing limb, but also unfortunately had pain associated with it – a phenomenon called “phantom pain.” Phantom pain was in the past thought to be psychological, but in fact, has been shown to be physiological and truly present in the brain.  In any case, it is a very real experience for many amputees.

So back to the loneliness. 

Shortly after Ely passed away, a good friend of mine who had also been widowed – at a very young age – sent me a recommendation for a book called “When will I stop hurting?” by June Cerza Kolf.  It was a nice book – short and practical – and included exercises for helping a person deal with grief.  One of the exercises was to write down what type of wound most closely resembles what you are experiencing.  Immediately, and without hesitation, I thought of amputation.  At the time, I wasn’t thinking of phantom pain, but it just felt like a part of me had been amputated.

Over a year has gone by.  A very long, difficult year, I must say.  Being alone isn’t the problem – thank G-d I have my children, extended family and friends.  The problem is the phantom pain.  There is something deeply missing, and my brain still thinks it should be there, still feels the pain that it is not. 

So how do I deal with this?

One way I deal with it is by distraction.  That is certainly not the best way, but sometimes it is necessary.  Another way I deal with it is through certain friends – people who understand me a bit more deeply – and who I can connect to at a personal level.  Of course, each of them has their own lives, and I cannot expect them to “fill” this missing piece inside of me.  That would be wrong, not to mention unrealistic.  But these connections are infinitely invaluable to me.

But most of the time, without distractions and without my soulful friends, I am forced to deal with it in a very different way.  I try to do this by looking inward and upward.  Inward – to connect to myself more, and find the company that I crave within my own self.  And upward – with prayer directed to Hashem that He helps me heal this wound.

How is that possible?  If there’s been an amputation, doesn’t that mean the part you lost can’t be replaced?  Yes.  And on a certain level, my loss will never be repaired.  The analogy holds true.

But at the same time, this is different than the loss of a limb.  A limb is physical.  A physical object is finite.  But the part of me that has been amputated is spiritual in nature, and that is most certainly infinite. I have had glimpses of this infinite nature of the human heart and soul, and the ability to heal through deep, human connection.  This thought gives me true comfort, and even during my non-distracted, phantom pain moments, I continue to have an appreciation and understanding of the complexities and the beauty of human emotion.  I believe that in the future, this will become more and more clear for me personally, and I pray that in the meantime, I can be zoche to use this experience to bring additional light and love into the world. 

We are all human.  We are all connected. And in this time of heightened isolation due to the disease that the entire world is combating, we must always remember: at the deepest of levels, we are not alone.

Something about the last discussion was still unsettled.  I couldn’t really put my finger on it at first.  But this morning I realized what it was.  It has to do with “tuning in” – which is what I called the last post but without fully developing the thought.

In my personal experience, the more I pay attention to the wonders of the world, the more I am able to see and feel the presence of Hashem.  This applies both to nature and to events.  Let’s start with nature.  If I stop and pay attention to the beauty of the trees and flowers, the ever-changing sky with its cloud formations and colors, the beauty of individual human beings, our ability to see and think and feel, and many other aspects of this world, I am struck with the awesomeness of Hashem.  This is something that at times is more prominent and at times is less so, but the more thought and attention that I devote to it, the greater is my recognition of G-d in this world.

Events are a bit more complicated, as I wrote about in my previous post.  But I realized that here too, the more I look for it, the more I see it.  While it is true that there are many complexities, and that we don’t really understand HOW G-d intervenes in the world, we can appreciate that indeed He does if we only stop and pay attention. 

Have you ever been able to look back upon events that happened in your life, where things that may have seemed senseless took on meaning in the greater context of time?  To me, this type of awareness also leads to a sense of awe in how Hashem is here with us in this world.  I don’t think we have to solve the dilemmas inherent in this issue, as discussed in the previous post, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to pay attention and appreciate the details.

Here too, the more thought and attention that we put into it, the more awareness we have.  This, for me, is uplifting. 

There is one more angle to this that I have been thinking about.  Just as we tend to think linearly and logically in nature, but that reality does not always fit our logic, the same may be true for events.  Let me explain.  As an example, from our perspective, we experience time as absolute.  But in reality, it has been proven that time is relative when it taken outside of our normal parameters.  (This involves physical parameters such as gravity and velocity and is beyond the scope of this post, and also beyond my comprehension, but it is a scientific reality).  Time is just one example.  Modern physics is full of illogical and even seemingly impossible, scientifically proven facts.

So I am comfortable with the fact that we can’t really wrap our minds around this dilemma, just as I am comfortable with the fact that we can’t “know” G-d.  But I do believe that we can sense Him in different ways in this world.  If we can sense G-d through the events that happen to us, even without understanding how it can be so, it can be awe-inspiring. It’s almost like getting a glimpse or a tiny taste of something much greater than us, something that is all G00d, and wholly loving.

And maybe, just maybe, the more we pay attention and tune in, the more we can merit Hashem’s presence in our lives. I hope that it works this way. But I am happy enough knowing that our sense of the Divine is something that we can develop and work on infinitely in countless ways, and this in itself is a great reward.

How do you look at the world? How do you experience events in your life?  Do you think things just “happen”?  Do you think every detail of your life is directed?  Are we meant to see messages in the events that happen to us?  Does it make a difference if it’s a major event or a minor event?  How do our decisions come into the equation?  What about other people’s decisions?

Jewish sources have a lot to say about the matter, but like everything else in Judaism, there are many schools of thought, some of which are contradictory to one another.  There are also many internal contradictions.

At one end of this spectrum is the Chasidic view, that even a leaf that falls from a tree at a particular time is significant and is controlled by G-d.  At the other end of the spectrum (seemingly espoused by the Rambam but there too, he has conflicting statements) is the view that there is a natural order to the world and that G-d generally does not intervene.  There is also the view that an individual person’s spiritual level may determine the level of Divine guidance and intervention that he or she receives.

So how are we supposed to sort through all of this? 

I have experienced many events that to me were clearly the hand of G-d.  Sometimes they are major events and sometimes not.  I find that when I view the world through this lens, it helps me focus and cope, because I feel like G-d is here with me in this world.  This is true even when the events are seemingly bad.  I believe deep down in my soul that G-d is here in this world, directing events large and small. 

But I was challenged the other day by a Rav who I greatly respect, when in response to a comment that I made on the subject he stated: “Sometimes things just happen because people make certain decisions.”  This bothered me at first, because I couldn’t reconcile it with my world view.  So I asked for clarification, and this is what I took from that conversation.

1. It is worthwhile separating two issues: a. the question of what can I learn or take from the event that happened; and b. the question of whether G-d is sending me a personal message.  This is a helpful separation to make, because while the first question is worthwhile and can help a person grow, the second question is generally not only impossible to answer with certainty, it also can sometimes be misjudged or used improperly.

2. There are complexities here that are truly mind-bending, especially when it comes to understanding the role of free choice.  If G-d is directing every detail, where is our free choice?  Of course, this is an age-old question, the answer to which is not readily available to any of us.  We haven’t solved that dilemma in thousands of years, and it will likely remain that way at least for the foreseeable future.  These complexities remind us not to be single-minded in our thinking.  I am sure there is Truth here, but for us here on Earth, it is elusive.  The good news about that is that it forces us to be flexible and open minded in our thinking.

3. When we are too analytical about the events that happen to us, it can lead to a lack of spontaneity.  I will take this to the extreme to illustrate the point: if every single minute of the day you are looking for meaning in the events that happen, or looking for hidden messages, you will not be able to function via your own feelings and intuition.  Of course, this probably does not happen to people at that level, but it is something to be aware of in general.  We need to go with the flow, and not get caught up in over-analysis.

4. Whichever position you hold to be most true will also have drawbacks.  The way the Rav stated it: Where there is light there is also a shadow.  So if you take the more Chasidic view, it may be comforting and feel true at a certain level, but you are left with the problems of lack of spontaneity, potential misinterpretation, and the issue of free choice, to name a few.  If you take the more “Rambamistic” view, it may allow for a broad range of free choice, and for more human decision making and spontaneity and drive, but you are left with the problems of, among others, where do reward and punishment fit in, what is the role of tefilla, and perhaps feelings of being left alone in the world.

5. Lastly, the idea that being on a different spiritual level can change the amount of Divine providence that a person receives is very powerful.  On the one hand, it forces you to have anava – humility – and to not assume that you are receiving a high level of personal guidance; on the other hand, it is something to always strive for because of course, there is nothing better than knowing that you are being watched, guided and taken care of.

At the end of the day, our job is not to figure out how it all works. Our job is to improve ourselves, to reach out to others, and to try to build a relationship with Hashem. The more we can do that, the more we will see and experience beauty and love, and the better we will be able to cope with an uncertain and sometimes scary world.