Parshas Yisro 5785
- Torah Tavlin
- Feb 14
- 3 min read
נבל תבל גם אתה גם העם הזה אשר עמך כי כבד ממך הדבר לא תוכל עשהו לבדך ... (יח-יח)
An expert in the field of understanding the human mind and psyche, Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski zt”l recalled an episode that he witnessed when he was a psychiatrist in a large state hospital with hundreds of mentally ill patients. Medical students would visit the hospital periodically and he would deliver lectures as well as show them the various cases that were described in psychiatric literature but rarely seen outside of an institution.
On one occasion, while touring a chronic care facility, Rabbi Twersky pointed out a man who was the “senior” patient in the hospital. He was admitted fifty-two years ago at the age of seventeen. He hadn’t spoken a single word for the last fifty-two years. On top of that, he maintained a very unusual routine. After breakfast he would stand in a corner of the community room and assume an absurd contorted position with his hands directed upward, and he would maintain this position for hours until he was called for lunch. After lunch, he would return to this position till supper, and thereafter till bedtime. No therapy or medication, even electroshock treatment, had served to alter his behavior which he had maintained for all these years. No amount of urging could get him to sit down except at mealtimes.
One of the young medical students on the tour asked if he could talk to this patient. “Certainly,” Rabbi Twerski said, wondering what impact the young man thought he could have on this patient when decades of psychiatric efforts had failed.
The student approached the man and told him that he must be tired from standing for so long, so why don’t you sit down? The man gave him a blank stare and did not move. The student then assumed the contorted position of the patient, equaling his posture with great precision. Looking directly at the patient, the young medical student said, “I’ll stand here like this. You can go sit down.” Without a word, the patient sat down on a bench for the first time in fifty-two years!
The entire facility was in an uproar! What they could not understand or remedy for over half a century, this young medical student figured out in less than 5 minutes. Rabbi Twerski was impressed and said, “While it’s impossible to know what was going on in this man’s mind, it is likely that his delusion may have been that by assuming this weird position, he was holding up the universe, and he clearly could not submit to all entreaties to leave that position, lest the world collapse.” (You may ask, as we all did, why did he leave to eat and sleep? But there was no rationale to his behavior.)
For all those years no one had understood this person until this ingenious medical student solved the mystery. But why? Granted this was irrational behavior but what we suddenly understood was that this unusual behavior had great meaning to the patient, and yet no one had tried to understand it. This strange behavior was just dismissed as “crazy” and no more consideration was given it or him. By showing this patient compassion and understanding, the medical student did a mitzvah, he showed kindness allowing the patient to feel some relief. A connection was formed between the irrational mind and the rational. Who knows how far such an understanding might have gone if it happened many years before.
Sometimes the biggest chessed one can do for another is attempting to understand someone else’s situation. Even if we don’t agree with that person, and he may even be doing something weird or strange, we should try to understand where he is coming from and help him. Unfortunately this is a big problem with many people, especially with today’s youth. They act sometimes not the way we want them to. To label them with derogatory names (bums, OTD, at risk, etc.) will not help and can only hurt them more. What we need is to use our compassion and ingenuity to try to understand that there is a “method to their madness.” We must befriend them and find out what precisely is bothering them. We must try to understand them no matter how far apart our beliefs might be. This is true kindness, a connection. If more of us tried to build this bridge, there’s no telling where such kindness might take us. Think about it the next time someone around you acts in a way you do not immediately understand. You might just help him or her in a way you never thought possible.