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4 HASHALOM March
2017
March 2017
HASHALOM
5
Love Hurts? Part 1
MISHNA IMPOSSIBLE 8
Tractate 5 discusses the benefits of prayer and the advantages of either
prayer or Torah study just before bed, to keep away either demons or
impure thoughts (two sides of the same coin I think).
The next, and biggest, part of the discussion is what troubled me. When
talking about the consequences of neglecting prayer or Torah study, our
Sages posit that one can link misfortune to a failure to do either or both.
Here is the quotation – “If a person sees that afflictions are befalling
him, he should investigate his deeds to determine which sin he may have
committed that would cause such suffering…If he examined his deeds
and did not find anything, he should attribute his afflictions to neglect of
Torah study…And if he attempted to attribute his afflictions to neglect
of Torah study but did not find anything, it can be assumed that they are
‘afflictions of love’, as it is stated:
For Hashem rebukes the one He loves.”
I really struggled with this idea – it seemed too pat, too convenient. If
you are a good person and bad things happen, it is because Hashem loves
you??
Developing the debate, the Rabbonim suggest that Hashem afflicts
those He loves in this world to elevate them in the World To Come.
This cleanses them of sin and allows them to reach higher levels of
sanctification in Heaven.
Again, this is hard to accept. It is the same as saying “However bad things
are, it is actually good because you will be rewarded in Heaven”. This idea
requires significant reserves of faith because it is so inherently incapable
of proof – it may be right or it may be an explanation that is…easy.
There are so many examples that make this hard to accept – be it the
victims of the Inquisition, or the Holocaust, or those who have suffered
and died in innumerable conflicts and genocidal acts since then. And what
of those who suffer in poverty or sickness or ongoing abuse of any kind?
What of the lonely and marginalised? Is it because Hashem loves them and
seeks to increase their reward in Heaven?
It may be, don’t get me wrong, but it is difficult to get my head around
this idea.
I have a deep faith and I do believe in a Hereafter. Heaven is a concept
that has become a lot more relevant since my dad died. I often find
myself wondering where he is and if he is OK, and praying that he is at
peace. But I also have some issues with the notion that his suffering in his
last days was a good thing!
So, how do we square these concepts – the belief in a Heaven (which
most people share) and the notion that bad things are sent to try good
people out of love, and to increase their reward?? Are our lives really
just the audition for the main role, a walk-on part in Eternity, a play in an
infinity of acts?
To be continued…
By Warren Shapiro
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A day with wounded Syrian kids hospitalized in Israel Dozens of children,
who were raised on the belief that Israel is as bad as Satan, are receiving
life-saving treatments at the Ziv Medical Center in Safed after escaping
the pain and suffering of the civil war in Syria. ‘I was afraid to come to
Israel because I was afraid of the Jews, but now I’m not afraid at all,’ says a
10-year-old boy whose hands were saved by Israeli doctors.
Seven-year-old A. sits in the isolation room at the Department of Pediatrics
at the Ziv Medical Center in Safed. She is waiting for another surgery after
undergoing quite a few treatments at the Israeli hospital.
A. is not a regular patient. She arrived at the Pediatrics Department after
being critically wounded by shrapnel in an explosion near her home in Syria.
Her concerned mother is sitting next to her. They arrived together from their
small village, which got caught in the middle of the civil war in the country.
Two war refugees alone in an enemy state, and all they have is each other.
“The girl arrived at our trauma room last November on a Saturday morning,”
says Dr. Lili Hayari, a senior surgeon at Ziv’s Pediatrics Department. “I was
called in fromhome and found a criticallywounded child, with injuriesmostly
to the abdominal cavity, where she suffered a direct hit. Her intestines
were perforated. She was brought here after the hospital in Quneitra
failed to stabilize her condition. We immediately sent her into a life-saving
emergency operation, with two teams doing everything possible to save
the girl. A surgical team stitched and patched up the abdominal cavity, and
an orthopedic team operated on her right elbow, which was crushed by
shrapnel that infiltrated the area and destroyed vital tissue.”
The mother, who is 26 years old, left her husband and their three other
children - aged nine, eight and six - at their village. “Of course I was afraid to
come to Israel,” she, smiling shyly. “I was afraid of everything.”
Like the other mothers accompanying their wounded children, she doesn’t
know what happened to her family either. “We don’t have and we’re not
allowed to have any contact with Syria, so I can only pray that my children
are alive and that they have everything they need,” she says.
During my visit to the department, I got to witness a moment which J.’s
mother and doctors had been waiting for for months. Throughout his entire
time at the hospital, they were unsure whether the hands placed in the cast
could be recovered. When the doctor removed the cast from J.’s little hands,
he discovered that the boy had recovered and that his hands would heal
completely after a rehabilitation process.
J.’s mother doesn’t know if they will have a home to go back to after the
treatment that saved her son’s life is done. In the meantime, she is focusing
on his treatment.
‘How was he chosen of all children?’
R., a six-year-oldboy, ishospitalized in the same room. Hearrivedat thehospital
with serious damage as a result of inborn cerebral palsy, whichwas not treated
with the requiredmedical measures. After studying the severity of his condition
and stabilizing him, the medical team began focusing on R.’s long rehabilitation
process, which included learning how towalkwith awalker while strappedwith
supported belts, prescribing eyeglasses by a child optometrist who came to his
bedside, and other treatments.
The treatment of the wounded Syrians is paid by the state, but only
donations from different associations make it possible to fund crutches,
wheelchairs, prostheses, toys, etc.
The escorting relatives, who arrive hastily with nothing but the clothes on
their bodies, receive a package of basic and vital products. “We think about
everything,” says Isaa. “From soap, underwear, clothing and nail clippers to
toys and children’s books in Arabic.”
The escorting relative is often a minor brother or sister, the only survivors
of a family that was killed in the bombings, “and then they are in a state of
post-traumatic stress and I refer them to a psychiatrist.”
But although Issa is one of the only people who can really help these victims
of war, he is frustrated too. “We provided a rolling walker at a cost of more
than NIS 10,000 to a child suffering from cerebral palsy, we will equip him
with medicine, clothes and all the instruments that will improve his life.
We won’t spare any effort to help him, but where will he actually go back
to? Even something of his small village remains, he’ll return to a destroyed
place, without infrastructure, in which he will have no way of using the
walker.”
Issa is not the only one finding it difficult to deal with the difference between
the hospital and what is waiting for the patients once they are discharged.
“I have no choice but to internalize that at a given moment I am saving
lives and treating the Syrian children as if they were our own children,” says
Dr. Hayari. “Even more so, because in additional to the medical care, we
provide all their additional needs. There is no HMO to help and complete
the treatment.
“Nonetheless, I don’t forget that after our extremely committed treatment,
they go back to nothing. A thought that occasionally crosses my mind, as
I look at these wounded children, is how lucky they are to be saved. Every
time a Syrian child comes in, I ask myself again, how was he chosen of all
children? Who decided that he would receive treatment and that another
child would perhaps die?”
The treatment of the 900 Syrian adults and children is overseen by Dr.
Salman Zarka, the hospital director. Zarka is an IDF colonel in reserves and
co-founder of the military hospital in the Golan Heights.
A day with wounded Syrian
kids hospitalized in Israel
By: Ariela Ayalon - YNET