“RABBI’S AMUSINGS (&
AMUSINGS)”
Erev Shabbos Kodesh
Parshas Devorim/Chazon
7 Menachem Av 5777/ July
29, 2017 - Avos Perek 3
When I was eight years old, I needed to have an operation to correct a
hernia. I remember davening at home with my father in the wee hours of the
morning, and then heading to the hospital. When we arrived at the hospital, the
receptionist looked at me and exclaimed, “This is the infant?” Apparently, they
had written down that I was an infant, and that’s what they were expecting. Thankfully
they found an empty bed, and I didn’t have to use the crib they had prepared.
I also remember, the nurse placing a mask on my face, and thinking that it
smelled funny. I also was quite sure that it wasn’t helping me fall asleep
because I wasn’t feeling the least bit tired. But that’s the last thing I
remember before being back in the room where my parents were anxiously waiting
for me.
For the duration of that day, my parents switched off sitting at my
bedside. My mother read me the entire Frankenstein while I listened from my
hospital bed. Thankfully, I was able to come home that afternoon.
Shortly after Pesach a few months ago, our twelve-year-old daughter
Aviva had surgery on her hand, which she broke doing gymnastics the Wednesday
night before Pesach. Although it was set and casted in the Emergency Room the
night she broke it, on a subsequent visit to the doctor a few hours before
Pesach, the doctor informed us that it wasn’t healing properly, and she would need
surgery.
On the morning of the surgery, I woke up early with Aviva and brought
her to the hospital for pre-op. Chani arrived while Aviva was in surgery (it
was the first day back to school after Pesach for our other children). We were
both there when she woke up from surgery, and thankfully, Aviva was home by
midday, and b’h has healed well.
Despite the fact that when Aviva went in for surgery Chani and I were
not in physical pain, it was far more challenging to send her into surgery,
than it was for me to undergo surgery myself. As any parent can testify, seeing
one’s own child in pain is the most difficult experience for a parent.
It reminded me of a powerful thought I heard on Tisha B’av morning a
year ago. In Camp Dora Golding, Rabbi Noach Sauber, camp’s Learning Director,
introduced kinnos by relating the following:
Before Tisha B’av a group of women from the camp families had viewed a
lecture given by Mrs. Gail Sassoon, the mother who lost seven children in a
devastating fire in spring of 2016 r’l. After the lecture ended, there wasn’t a
dry eye in the room, and it was dead quiet for a few moments. Then, one of the
women turned to another and remarked, “Can you imagine the pain Hashem felt
when He needed to cause that to happen?”
It’s an extraordinarily poignant, and very true perspective. We don’t
often think about suffering and pain from that vantage point. We know that Hashem
is rachum vachanun erech apayim v’rav chesed (compassionate and
gracious, slow to anger, and abundance of kindness). Can we imagine how
difficult it is for Him when He causes us to suffer, based on His divine reasons?
Rabbi Sauber then added that Tisha B’av is a day of tragedy for
Hashem! Hashem is crying over the losses of His House, of His People, and
of that intimate closeness. Every iota of pain and suffering we feel is
magnified before the King of kings, as it were.
If it was so challenging for us to watch our beloved child endure
surgery, even though we were fairly confident all would go well, how much
harder is it for Hashem every time He sends His nation, or any individual, for
“surgery”!
And if we didn’t leave Aviva’s bedside for a moment, despite the fact
that there were wonderful nurses all around us, can we imagine that it is any
different with our eternal and ultimate parent?!
Although we have such an incredible amount of blessing in our lives, we
hear about pain and anguish way too often. In just the last few days we are
reeling from the death of a beautiful seven-year old who drowned last week, a
family losing a married son after losing another son years ago, and yet another
savage terrorist attack at a shalom zachor in Eretz Yisroel, to name just a
few.
But above all our pain, is the pain of Hashem, who is surely waiting –
more than any of us – to fulfill His promise (Yeshaya 25:8), “And Hashem,
Elokim will abolish tears from upon all faces, and the guilt of His Nation He
will remove from upon the earth, for Hashem has spoken.”
Shabbat
Shalom & Good Shabbos,
R’ Dani and Chani Staum