What are you Afraid of????

I know that look. I’ve seen it before. It’s a look of fear. She’s so afraid and the fear is the source of her suffering. She comes to me to try to calm down. Her nerves are shot and she’s anxious.

What is she afraid of? She’s afraid of the birth. She’s afraid of pain, of being in pain, of experiencing pain. What if she doesn’t arrive to the hospital in time to take an epidural? What if she can’t stand the pain? What if? What if? What if? She wants this pregnancy to end already. She wants to see the baby already. She looks at me with big wide eyes of despair. She feels so vulnerable.

It’s already been at least six months. Six months of living in fear. I tell her, “You’ve suffered more by your fear in these past eight months worrying about how it will be, when it will be, what will be, then is the actually suffering or pain of childbirth.” Labor starts and ends. How long does it last? How long could it possibly last? But the fear, the fear lingers and lingers and lingers. It drags on and causes her to suffer.

It’s a fear of unknown. It’s a fear of, “How will I cope?” “What if I have to battle with this… forever?” There’s a fear of being alone. Of never finding that person-your spouse, that place to live, that group of friends. There’s a fear of danger. There’s a fear that comes with not having and not knowing, “How will we pay our bills?” There’s a terrible fear of an illness not going away or even greater a fear of death. There’s a fear that says, “Hashem just tell me that it will happen and I’ll wait patiently, but the fear of not knowing if it will happen…I can’t take that fear.” So many fears that grip a person and hold them in the clutches of suffering and distress.

It’s not the challenge or the test that makes us suffer and causes us distress. It’s our fear.

The angels returned to Jacob, saying, "We came to your brother, to Esau, and he is also coming toward you, and four hundred men are with him." Jacob became very frightened and was distressed…וַיִּירָ֧א יַֽעֲקֹ֛ב מְאֹ֖ד וַיֵּ֣צֶר ל֑וֹ (Bereshit 32:7-8)

Distressed-yetzar , zar-narrow. The root of distress, suffering is narrow.

She can’t see past her fear. The majority of times it’s not logical, not something that can be calmed with intellect or sound reason. I can explain and dissect the situation. I can say that, “You’re afraid of something that very well might not be or happen.” But that won’t help her. Not even past experiences of success and chesed (kindness) from Hashem can reassure her. So what, if anything, can help her to overcome her fear?

Crossing the bridge, one step at a time, one foot in front of the other while holding on tightly to Hashem.

The bridge? That’s right the narrow bridge of acceptance, surrender and moving on.

Jacob became very frightened and was distressed; so he divided the people who were with him and the flocks and the cattle and the camels into two camps. And he said, "If Esau comes to one camp and strikes it down, the remaining camp will escape." And Jacob said, "O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord, Who said to me, 'Return to your land and to your birthplace, and I will do good to you. 'I have become small from all the kindnesses and from all the truth that You have rendered Your servant, for with my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. him, lest he come and strike me, [and strike] a mother with children….So Now deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid of he lodged there on that night, and he took from what came into his hand a gift for his brother Esau:

Jacob accepted his greatest fear, whether it was logical or not-he confronted it and faced it. He surrendered himself to Hashem’s will, prayed for assistance, took action-he moved on. He crossed the narrow bridge of fear one step at a time with faith by holding on to Hashem. And what happened as a result of accepting instead of fighting?

And Jacob came (safely) unimpaired, whole, complete [to] the city of Shechem…(Ibid 33:18)

And Yaakov came whole.. [Only] after passing all the previous sorrow he is called whole-complete. Like The righteous fall seven times rise because they fell. Similarly, in the Zohar, there is a verse: Many evils befall the righteous and from this the righteousness itself becomes apparent. And from all of them, G-d will save us as it says, “G-d separated your father’s livestock and gave it to me (ibid 31:9).” All of the sufferings add to the righteous ones’ wholeness. Sfat Emet

You are in so much pain from fear and from suffering. You say to yourself, “I can’t. I can’t do this or take another blow. I’m scared!” You must know that it’s those very same tests and that when you confront them and broaden your vision of possibilities which build you and make you whole. You must know that Hashem is with you and you will, with G-d’s help, come out whole.

***

Her back hurts and so she comes for a massage.

“When did it start hurting?”

“Yesterday.”

“Did you do something yesterday?”

“I ended a relationship with a man.”

She’s forty. She’s been living in Israel for eight years. She’s alone, so alone.

She shows me where it hurts most, on the backside of the ribs that hold her lungs.

“Does it hurt to breath?”

“Terribly.”

“Did you cry?”

“No.”

“Maybe you need to…”

I gently massage her back giving her body permission to release and let go of all

the anguish and pain. She starts to cry.

Suddenly it occurs to me.

Jacob became very frightened and was distressed….'I have become small from all the kindnesses…(ibid 32:8-11)’

Gently, ever so gently I tell her, “G-d didn’t forget about you. He loves you.”

And she sobs and the tension in her back melts in my hands. The knots unwind and her body sinks deeper into the massage table.

The fear, the distress…”G-d, I have no doubt that you exist. I know You are Great and Big and therefore, maybe, just maybe you forgot about me?”

It hurts and you feel so sad, so small, and so alone. But no, He didn’t forget and He doesn’t forget and we all need to hear this and repeat it to ourselves over and over again, especially in those moments when you feel the most forgotten.

***

The head doctor of the department walks into the delivery room. He’s calm, cool, collected. He’s aged but surprisingly youthful with a clean-shaven head and funky pink glasses. He checks the laboring woman and with confidence assesses the situation. Within a few short minutes the baby enters the world.

The mother, exhausted, relieved and present. She thanks the doctor and what does he say, “Me? I didn’t do anything.”

And it’s so true. The more experience, the more knowledge, the more humility.

I have become small from all the kindnesses and from all the truth that You have rendered Your servant (ibid 32:11)…

I stand in front of a group of women. I’m giving a workshop to student doulas on massage during labor. I’ve been attending births for nine years. I’ve gone on hundreds of them and I stand in front of these women and I start off by telling them, “You must know that the more births I go on, the more I know that I know nothing…”

Is the natural process a miracle or is it a miracle that it’s natural?

The more you see the Hand of G-d the more you realize how little you know. A doctor tells a couple that they can’t have any children. I work with these couples, I know them personally. I’m privileged to be part of the process of the miracle of their child’s entrance into this world whether it’s from the point of pre-conception or pregnancy or birth. A woman is told she’s too old to have a child or for a man there’s no possibility. And they have a child, or two…

I have become small from all the kindnesses and from all the truth that You have rendered Your servant (ibid 32:11)…

And you know what I know? That the more I see Hashem and the more I look for Him, the more I know how small I am and that He can do anything at any time. Smallness opens up the possibility to seeing His greatness and seeing His greatness makes me so, so small.

May G-d give us the strength and clarity to confront our fears and surrender to Hashem to take care of them. May we cross the narrow bridge of fear without any suffering. May we always remember that He never forgets and that our challenges make us great and whole. May we see the greatness of Hashem and allow it to open for us endless possibility…

Shabbat shalom