Rabbi Yisaschar Frand recently spoke in Israel. I had the personal privilege of hearing him talk about a topic that is close to my heart: Despair.
Although Rabbi Frand spoke in particular about the present ?matsav?/situation in Israel and for Jews around the world, I found great depth in his words of wisdom, depth that I took home and to the work in my clinic with adolescents and families in crisis.
Often, by the time parents reach my office, they are in the throes of despair. There is nothing more painful than observing a family in which the parents are giving up on their child. Children are supposed to be the hope of our future. When children are spinning out of control and leading risky lives, parents are thrust into a whirlpool of hopelessness.
Confronting that pervasive despondency is crucial in therapy. Parents have dreams. When a little boy is born and the mohel performs the circumcision, a mother and father undergo intense feelings of anticipation of what the future will hold. As one father once told me, as the mohel performed the bris, he could see his son at his bar mitzvah, at his wedding and with his wife and children. It is as if parents have their video pre-tape of how things should be, or at least, as they want things to be.
So when junior leads a life that is drastically out of synch with what the parents hoped and dreamed for, it leads to a crushing feeling of despair and defeat.
Don?t give up hope! I have witnessed kids on drugs who struggled for years and then, finally, got their lives in order and became responsible husbands and parents. I remember a girl with a severe food disorder who was traipsing all over town with all sorts of sordid social elements. Her parents had all but given up hope on her. Today, she has cleaned up her act, gone back to school, and is learning in yeshiva.
I remember also the boy who, at 16, was mechalel Shabbos and living in an apartment full of dropouts and druggies. At that time in his life, a good day was one on which he woke up. The parents kept the connection and kept trying to do whatever they could, whatever he would allow them to do. They did not give up hope. Today, this young man has a regular job, has cleaned up his habit, and is known as a mensch to both family and friends. He is still on the road back to emotional recovery, and he has a way to go, but he is recovering.
There are other stories. The parents of these kids were afraid of the future. What would happen to their son or daughter?
When I asked one mom what caused the change for the better, she answered, "I don`t know what worked. We did therapy, and it helped us. We followed through each and every channel possible to help our daughter. More often than not, she rebuffed any of our efforts to help. The bottom line is, it was really, really horrible. I never gave up though. I davened, and I davened and I davened and I kept telling G-d that, in the end, it is all in His hands. I did what I could and I never gave up hope."
In Rabbi Frand?s, pre-Tisha B?Av shiur at the OU Israel Center in Jerusalem, he spoke about this very point. Never give up. Don?t despair.
As a therapist who deals with families in crisis, I often encounter parents going through the pains of despair. Rabbi Frand gave me enormous chizuk, because the principles he discussed can clearly be applied to the families experiencing difficulties with their children.
Rabbi Frand introduced his thesis using the story of the spies, the meraglim. When the spies returned and debated whether or not to proceed to Israel, they engaged in a long and furious debate. The winning argument, the one that signed the fate of the Jews to a decision to not proceed to Israel, is the one in which the spies stated that ?we were like grasshoppers in their eyes.?
According to the Gerrer Rebbe, the Sfas Emes, it was at that point that the battle was lost. It was at that point, when the spies stated that they felt like grasshoppers, that all hope of success was lost. When the spies saw themselves as insignificant insects facing huge giants, they lost all hope. Life presents many challenges. When we perceive ourselves as beaten, then we have lost the ability to win. Rabbi Frand further emphasized that the moment we despair in the face of any challenge, we lose. It is so true. Indeed, our emotions rule. We are what we think.
Despair, ye?ush, is ruinous. If someone is ill and there is a cure out there somewhere, the cure is potentially effective as long as the person does not give up hope. The moment that a person gives up hope, the connection to any possible cure is gone forever.
Frand cited a fascinating point from the Talmud. In the Talmud, the rabbis discuss the issues surrounding lost and found items. Torah law dictates that as long as the owner of the item has not given up hope, there is an obligation to return it. The moment that the owner loses any hope of recouping his loss, the obligation to return a lost item to its owner no longer exists. Why? Because as long as the owner still hopes to get his lost object back, he is still connected to it. In his mind, he still owns it. The moment he gives up hope and despairs of finding the lost article, he relinquishes any connection to the item.
Giving up hope, despair, is destructive. When we give up hope, we sever our connection.
All this is not to say that despair is not understandable. When people are faced with enormously stressful situations, the emotional battle to hang on to hope is often unavoidable. We can understand that parents feel despair when under great strain and tension in relation to a child. However, we have to understand that when we despair about our children, then we have in some way given up our ?ownership? of their lives. A child can sense when a parent has given up on him. To quote one teen, ?My parents never call me, never check up on me, and they have little or no contact with me. I don?t feel like I have parents.?
Another repercussion of ye?ush, hopelessness, is that when we give up hope of a better tomorrow, we lose all motivation for prayer. Why pray when we feel that there is no hope? Losing hope is immobilizing. When we lose hope, we lose the power of prayer. Prayer only has a chance of working if we actually believe it can work.
The natural question, Rabbi Frand pointed out, comes from people who claim that they did pray with all their hearts for a loved one, and that person still died. In such a case, it is clear that prayer does not always give us the desired results. Rabbi Frand addressed this point eloquently. The Chazon Ish, many decades ago, predicted that there would be a baal teshuva movement. How could he foresee such a movement, which happened decades after his passing? The Chazon Ish explained that 80-100 years previous, there were many mothers and grandmothers who spilled their tears in the hope that their children would find their way back to Judaism. Those children did not find their way back. But no tefillah that is said wholeheartedly is ever wasted. Eventually, those prayers will be effective for someone.
We live in a world where we like to see immediate cause and effect. We live in a world where we witness world news as it is happening, at the click of a mouse. Well, in the realm of prayer, we do not always see the effects of our prayer, but we can be assured that if the prayers were said in earnest, then they will be effective and not go to waste. Those mothers and grandmothers might not have seen the fruits of their prayers, but, sometime, somewhere, someone will be brought back because of those prayers.
Friends: in your neighborhood, there are teens who are acting out in the most shocking ways. They are pushing limits and being outrageous by community standards. Don?t give up on these children. Don?t stop trying to help them. Don?t despair. As long as there is life, there is hope.
If you are a parent who has a child reeling off in a direction completely and diametrically opposed to everything you believe in, don?t give up hope.
It is so hard to not give up hope sometimes. Parents can be truly broken when they watch their child deteriorate before their very eyes. And yet, we have to beware the Grasshopper Syndrome, and learn from the lives of our forefathers. The spies were great people. They truly meant well and were doing what they felt was best for the Jewish people. Intentions aside, it was the moment that they lost hope that, indeed, everything caved in. The moment that they perceived themselves as grasshoppers facing off against giants, they lost.
Parents, beware the Grasshopper Syndrome. Never, ever give up on your children. Don?t despair.
Although Rabbi Frand spoke in particular about the present ?matsav?/situation in Israel and for Jews around the world, I found great depth in his words of wisdom, depth that I took home and to the work in my clinic with adolescents and families in crisis.
Often, by the time parents reach my office, they are in the throes of despair. There is nothing more painful than observing a family in which the parents are giving up on their child. Children are supposed to be the hope of our future. When children are spinning out of control and leading risky lives, parents are thrust into a whirlpool of hopelessness.
Confronting that pervasive despondency is crucial in therapy. Parents have dreams. When a little boy is born and the mohel performs the circumcision, a mother and father undergo intense feelings of anticipation of what the future will hold. As one father once told me, as the mohel performed the bris, he could see his son at his bar mitzvah, at his wedding and with his wife and children. It is as if parents have their video pre-tape of how things should be, or at least, as they want things to be.
So when junior leads a life that is drastically out of synch with what the parents hoped and dreamed for, it leads to a crushing feeling of despair and defeat.
Don?t give up hope! I have witnessed kids on drugs who struggled for years and then, finally, got their lives in order and became responsible husbands and parents. I remember a girl with a severe food disorder who was traipsing all over town with all sorts of sordid social elements. Her parents had all but given up hope on her. Today, she has cleaned up her act, gone back to school, and is learning in yeshiva.
I remember also the boy who, at 16, was mechalel Shabbos and living in an apartment full of dropouts and druggies. At that time in his life, a good day was one on which he woke up. The parents kept the connection and kept trying to do whatever they could, whatever he would allow them to do. They did not give up hope. Today, this young man has a regular job, has cleaned up his habit, and is known as a mensch to both family and friends. He is still on the road back to emotional recovery, and he has a way to go, but he is recovering.
There are other stories. The parents of these kids were afraid of the future. What would happen to their son or daughter?
When I asked one mom what caused the change for the better, she answered, "I don`t know what worked. We did therapy, and it helped us. We followed through each and every channel possible to help our daughter. More often than not, she rebuffed any of our efforts to help. The bottom line is, it was really, really horrible. I never gave up though. I davened, and I davened and I davened and I kept telling G-d that, in the end, it is all in His hands. I did what I could and I never gave up hope."
In Rabbi Frand?s, pre-Tisha B?Av shiur at the OU Israel Center in Jerusalem, he spoke about this very point. Never give up. Don?t despair.
As a therapist who deals with families in crisis, I often encounter parents going through the pains of despair. Rabbi Frand gave me enormous chizuk, because the principles he discussed can clearly be applied to the families experiencing difficulties with their children.
Rabbi Frand introduced his thesis using the story of the spies, the meraglim. When the spies returned and debated whether or not to proceed to Israel, they engaged in a long and furious debate. The winning argument, the one that signed the fate of the Jews to a decision to not proceed to Israel, is the one in which the spies stated that ?we were like grasshoppers in their eyes.?
According to the Gerrer Rebbe, the Sfas Emes, it was at that point that the battle was lost. It was at that point, when the spies stated that they felt like grasshoppers, that all hope of success was lost. When the spies saw themselves as insignificant insects facing huge giants, they lost all hope. Life presents many challenges. When we perceive ourselves as beaten, then we have lost the ability to win. Rabbi Frand further emphasized that the moment we despair in the face of any challenge, we lose. It is so true. Indeed, our emotions rule. We are what we think.
Despair, ye?ush, is ruinous. If someone is ill and there is a cure out there somewhere, the cure is potentially effective as long as the person does not give up hope. The moment that a person gives up hope, the connection to any possible cure is gone forever.
Frand cited a fascinating point from the Talmud. In the Talmud, the rabbis discuss the issues surrounding lost and found items. Torah law dictates that as long as the owner of the item has not given up hope, there is an obligation to return it. The moment that the owner loses any hope of recouping his loss, the obligation to return a lost item to its owner no longer exists. Why? Because as long as the owner still hopes to get his lost object back, he is still connected to it. In his mind, he still owns it. The moment he gives up hope and despairs of finding the lost article, he relinquishes any connection to the item.
Giving up hope, despair, is destructive. When we give up hope, we sever our connection.
All this is not to say that despair is not understandable. When people are faced with enormously stressful situations, the emotional battle to hang on to hope is often unavoidable. We can understand that parents feel despair when under great strain and tension in relation to a child. However, we have to understand that when we despair about our children, then we have in some way given up our ?ownership? of their lives. A child can sense when a parent has given up on him. To quote one teen, ?My parents never call me, never check up on me, and they have little or no contact with me. I don?t feel like I have parents.?
Another repercussion of ye?ush, hopelessness, is that when we give up hope of a better tomorrow, we lose all motivation for prayer. Why pray when we feel that there is no hope? Losing hope is immobilizing. When we lose hope, we lose the power of prayer. Prayer only has a chance of working if we actually believe it can work.
The natural question, Rabbi Frand pointed out, comes from people who claim that they did pray with all their hearts for a loved one, and that person still died. In such a case, it is clear that prayer does not always give us the desired results. Rabbi Frand addressed this point eloquently. The Chazon Ish, many decades ago, predicted that there would be a baal teshuva movement. How could he foresee such a movement, which happened decades after his passing? The Chazon Ish explained that 80-100 years previous, there were many mothers and grandmothers who spilled their tears in the hope that their children would find their way back to Judaism. Those children did not find their way back. But no tefillah that is said wholeheartedly is ever wasted. Eventually, those prayers will be effective for someone.
We live in a world where we like to see immediate cause and effect. We live in a world where we witness world news as it is happening, at the click of a mouse. Well, in the realm of prayer, we do not always see the effects of our prayer, but we can be assured that if the prayers were said in earnest, then they will be effective and not go to waste. Those mothers and grandmothers might not have seen the fruits of their prayers, but, sometime, somewhere, someone will be brought back because of those prayers.
Friends: in your neighborhood, there are teens who are acting out in the most shocking ways. They are pushing limits and being outrageous by community standards. Don?t give up on these children. Don?t stop trying to help them. Don?t despair. As long as there is life, there is hope.
If you are a parent who has a child reeling off in a direction completely and diametrically opposed to everything you believe in, don?t give up hope.
It is so hard to not give up hope sometimes. Parents can be truly broken when they watch their child deteriorate before their very eyes. And yet, we have to beware the Grasshopper Syndrome, and learn from the lives of our forefathers. The spies were great people. They truly meant well and were doing what they felt was best for the Jewish people. Intentions aside, it was the moment that they lost hope that, indeed, everything caved in. The moment that they perceived themselves as grasshoppers facing off against giants, they lost.
Parents, beware the Grasshopper Syndrome. Never, ever give up on your children. Don?t despair.