I can't-YOU CAN

I have women coming and going into my life, their stories spilled out onto my massage table, the four walls of where I work saturated by their tears. I work with many depressed women, too many. I work with many women suffering, too many, who are suffering from big things, enormous challenges. I’m now used to a woman telling me that she lives with fears and anxieties. So I’m not sure why this particular woman affected me so strongly.

She’s been coming for years for massage. Not for a specific problem. No infertility or difficult pregnancies problems. Her back is not stiffer than most and she doesn’t suffer from migraine headaches. She’s what I would call just a “normal” beautiful frum housewife and mother. Her life is dedicated to taking care of her family. She goes to classes to grow.

Now all of sudden she came to me-and I haven’t seen her in months- and I never saw her so sad, so full of tears. She’s going through a difficult time, depression. Life is completely and totally overwhelming for her. Her children, who usually bring her such joy now feel like a burden. Everything which brought her joy-taking care of her home, baking, cooking…everything feels like more than she can handle.

“I have absolutely NO energy.” She tells me. “None. I force myself out of bed to see my children off to school in the morning and then I quickly collapse back into bed. I can’t. I just can’t.

Baruch Hashem the one thing that I so admire about this woman is that in the midst of saying, “I can’t” she does force herself to get dressed each day, she forces herself to go to an exercise class once a week and she forces herself to seek professional help.

I listen to her tell me what is going on as the tears flow from her eyes my heart becomes so so heavy. She tells me that on a good day she feels close to Hashem and she’s filled with emunah and bitochen. And on a bad day…on a bad she feels like she’s falling on her face, “I can’t see the good in this, only darkness.”

I gave her as much love and warmth as I could and I tell her, words of truth that just spilled out of my lips, “You are so good and so beautiful.”

She leaves and I feel so hopeless. Why?

Because during the session, I so wanted to give her words of inspiration and chizuk and yet I sensed that it wasn’t the right time. So, I admit in all humility that I didn’t know what to say or what to do and this is difficult for me. I felt the heavy dark cloud over her and all I could think was how I wish that I could just blow it away and make the sun come out and shine its rays upon her.

The one comfort I have is knowing that she is getting help and that ultimately,

she does know that Hashem is with her. I know that I myself can’t blow the cloud away, but it will go away. She will never be the same woman as before this test-she will be so much stronger and that is where and when her simcha will come. The joy will come not in the midst of it-when she feels so low and alone (even if she can understand that this too is from Hashem and that He is holding her up and embracing her)-but when she gets over it and sees what she went through

and how Hashem is most definitely with her.

I think to myself and to my life and how there are mornings where the only shirt that’s clean-because I just didn’t have the time to do the laundry yesterday- is the one that my sensory child doesn’t want to wear and how he’s crying to me because his tzizit are bothering him and nothing feels right. I see that the crying is in one minute going to turn into an escalation. On this morning, all my technical setups to produce success are failures. My job as a home manager is not managing…I feel like I too want to cry, like I’m falling on my face and I want to run away and go back to bed and it takes every ounce of strength that I have to stay calm and take this child’s face into my hands and caress him and give him a kiss and tell him that I hear that he is uncomfortable. I take out the ironing board and the iron and in the midst of a morning rush, I iron a six-year old’s tzizit to make it so that it won’t “bunch up” under the shirt and make his day more bearable-and mine. The dark cloud, which is nothing in compared to one in depression, but the dark cloud of daily life’s challenges and difficulties blows over.

Later, not in the heat of the moment, but after he’s calm and comfortable, I explain to him how one talks and communicates with respect. I explain how one can express a difficulty without lashing out in frustration or anger. He hears me. I feel rays of warmth and see rays of light. I’m stronger.

The words keep resonated over and over as I read the lines, “Moshe heard and fell on his face (Bamidbar 16:4).”

…and fell on his face: because of the rebellion, for this was already their fourth offense. [When] they sinned with the calf, “Moses pleaded” (Exod. 32:11); by the episode of the complainers, “Moses prayed” (11:2); with the spies, “Moses said to God, ‘But the Egyptians will hear…’ ” (14:13), but now, at Korah’s rebellion, he became disheartened [literally, his hands were weakened]. ..“How much more can I trouble the king?.” - [Midrash Tanchuma 4, Num. Rabbah 18: 6]

“They (Moshe and Aaron) fell on their faces…(Bamidbar 16:22).”

And again…

They (Moshe and Aaron) fell on their faces…(Bamidbar 17:10).

Yes, they fell on their face. You can read it as tephila, as prayer. What else is there to do but pray? And you can just read the holy words and see that these great men got to a point where it was like, “I just CAN’T anymore!!!” They reached a point of falling, of being disheartened. They reached a point where there is a dark cloud and you fall with no one to catch you or save you except for the

Ribbon Shel Olam….

And then what happens? What happened with all the rebellion, with the plague, with the deaths and the accusations? What happened to Moshe and Aaron???

What happened to them, what will happen to you, after the falling? They blossomed, they grew.

The Lord spoke to Moses saying:

Speak to the children of Israel and take from them a staff for each father's house from all the chieftains according to their fathers' houses; [a total of] twelve staffs, and inscribe each man's name on his staff… The staff of the man whom I will choose will blossom, and I will calm down [turning away] from Myself the complaints of the children of Israel which they are complaining against you. And on the following day Moses came to the Tent of Testimony, and behold, Aaron's staff for the house of Levi had blossomed! It gave forth blossoms, sprouted buds, and produced ripe almonds (Bamidbar 17:16-23).

That’s right, יִפְרָח , they grew…

May we all be zoche to feeling the simcha of growth.

May we grow from all of life’s challenges and truly blossom, not in spite of them, but because of them….