We wish that every day could be sunny and that every lifetime could be bathed exclusively in light. But, as someone once put it, “Into each life some rain must fall.” It’s just the way things are.
How do we react to those rainy days? Both the brief, mild drizzles, and those long bouts of pounding rain and damaging winds when sunshine and calm weather are only a distant memory?
In other words, how do we deal with suffering, both our own and others’?
Let’s start by taking a look at how we cope with our own problems. First, it’s not a given that we’ll even cope at all. Depending on the nature of the trouble, we may feel sapped of the will to go on. While some people are energized by trouble, there are some troubles that are seemingly simply too great to bear. Tragedy has a way of robbing a person of the ability to act, even if only temporarily.
If it’s a more practical problem, the functional thing to do is to roll up our sleeves to meet it head on. And that’s what many people do. Others, however, simply close their eyes and hope the problem will go away. Admitting that there’s a need for action means admitting that there’s a problem. One we may not want to see. Even when we finally acknowledge its existence, insecurity, despair and fear of failure can steal away our confidence, leaving us feeling too weak and ineffective to tackle it.
Suffering is very insistent. Like an uninvited guest, it’s there, whether we want it or not. It refuses to slink politely into the background so that we can focus on other, happier things. When we’re mired in a serious problem, whether in the short or long term, we can’t ask the problem to go away for a while so we can enjoy life. It’s easy to sink into a state of near-constant brooding, because suffering demands the spotlight. And usually gets it.
Some of us routinely share our troubles with others because, though it may not help the trouble vanish, it does help to ease the ache in our hearts. And some lock up their pain tighter than Fort Knox, never affording others even a glimpse of the anguish inside.
But whether we’re sharing our pain or suffering in silence, we definitely spend a great deal of time focusing on what we’re going through. Because emotional pain has a habit of taking center stage and, like a spoiled prima donna, refusing to step aside.
The Trajectory of Tzaros
As much as we can’t help brooding about our own troubles, we sometimes shy away from thinking about some-thing a friend of mine recently dubbed
O.P.T. That is, Other People’s Tzaros. Here’s how it works.
When someone we know experiences a tragic or painful event in their lives, our natural compassion wells up. We want to help. We want to ease their pain. And, for a while, we do. We cook those meals and make those calls and offer to run their errands.
The beginning of anything consumes a tremendous amount of energy. A new-born baby demands far more attention than an older kid. A new job grabs an inordinate portion of our focus. Ditto for a new marriage and, to a lesser degree, any new relationship.
A tragedy, too, creates whirlwinds of energy, pity, and action. Everyone wants to demonstrate their caring, because they do care. Sometimes very deeply. So, they’ll rally around and give that painful beginning its full share of attention.
Then, gradually, the beginning stage is over. The socially intense week of shi-vah moves into the past. The difficult diagnosis turns from an excruciating shock into sad old news. And as the news grows older, so does our first eager re-sponse. The clear-cut paths for express-ing our compassion become blurred.
Even worse, all at once the lines of de-marcation spring up. Someone who was just like you is now in a different place. How do you react to that?
When that different place is a better place, we can feel happy for them, or en-vious, or a combination of the two. But when the difference is markedly bleaker and more painful, we may not know how to respond. Our sense of comfort drifts away and a new awkwardness sets in.
I’m talking about people who cross the street to avoid having to greet someone who’s recently suffered a loss. I’m talk-ing about putting off making a call to see how an old friend is managing. I’m talk-ing about tiptoeing around a topic that’s uppermost in another person’s mind,
because it makes us feel uncomfortable to talk about it. Yes, we don’t know ex-actly how to bring true comfort to the sufferer. Yes, we hate feeling helpless to make a real difference in their lives. Yes, we’re afraid of saying the wrong thing and making them feel even worse. But is saying nothing any better?
When I wrote From Djerba to Jerusalem, the biography of Rebbetzin Shulamis Bitton, there was much to marvel at in her unusual life. But I remember being especially struck by one tidbit of infor-mation about that remarkable woman. After a young woman whom she knew lost her husband, Rebbetzin Bitton un-dertook to call her. Not just in the begin-ning. And not just once in a while. The rebbetzin called up that almanah consis-tently, every single day over the course of many years!
She knew that it’s not only at the
harsh onset of tragedy that people need a kind word and some friendly concern. A person doesn’t stop suffering just be-cause others don’t want to think about her problem anymore. To believe other-wise is just wishful thinking.
Rebbetzin Batsheva Kanievsky gave her enormous heart to the myriads of women who lined up to see her each day. She listened to their troubles and poured out the balm of her wisdom, compassion and bitachon. She swam against the cur-rent, which dictates that we immerse ourselves fully in our own problems, but less so in that of other people. Day after day, person after person, asked for and received her blessing and her caring.
A beautiful example of true devotion, not only to those she knew, but to every and any stranger who decided to stop by to drop her bundle of tzaros into the reb-betzin’s lap.
Just a Little More
Most of us are not on the level of a Rebbetzin Bitton or a Rebbetzin Kanievsky. Most of us have fairly full plates of our own. All of us prefer a com-fortable, light-filled life to one tossed by storms. And we hope that the people we know will enjoy sunny lives, too.
But the rain comes. When it comes for us, we need all our strength, our wits and our deep-rooted emunah to maintain the right demeanor in the face of suffering. And when it comes for others, we need to push ourselves just a little more thanwe may feel comfortable doing.
To make that extra phone call even though we have no idea what to say. To carry that person’s suffering in our hearts even though it makes our spirits heavier than we’d like. To reach out to someone who may not be able to show that how needy they feel, or to acknowl-edge that we’re even helping.
Rain falls into every life at times. And when it does, the only thing that can chase away the gloom of a sudden downpour is a beam of heart-to-heart sunlight.