Soothing an Aching Soul

Soul Food, Part 2
 
It was a gorgeous, cold, sunny day at the Kotel. The ‘Winter Festival’ was long gone, and there were no other Jewish festivals or bar mitzvahs happening, so it was pretty quiet. I pulled up a chair, sat in a sunny spot, and started talking. I did an awful lot of thanking for my eyes being funny, for my neck hurting, for all the profound realisations that He’d sent me so far this year about my own mortality, and what it really means to try and have everyday emuna.
 
And then, He started to give me the beginning of an answer about why at least some of it was happening. For the two years’ before we moved, I didn’t have internet. When we moved, I thought I’d have to work to cover the increased living expenses, so I asked my Rav if it was permissible to have internet back. I was told I could only have it if it was either on a PC that was behind a permanently locked door that no-one else could access; or if I had a modem on a portable ‘stick’, that I could pull out and disconnect as soon as I’d finished.
 
I opted for the latter and tried to find some work from home. But I never found a job – Hashem had other plans for me. And in the meantime, the internet was slowly creeping back. Not a lot – an hour or two a week – but it was still unnecessary, and I felt very uncomfortable about it.
 
As I sat at the Kotel, I realised that was part of the reason my eyes had gone funny: too much time looking at the internet. I decided to get rid of it. I also decided I needed to look into going to Uman again.
 
I came back home feeling much happier, got rid of the stick, found a trip to Uman (which is a tale for another time), and waited for my eyes and neck to get better. The eyes did, quite quickly. But the neck got worse. And then, something else started to hurt as well – and I cracked.
 
I booked an appointment to see a doctor about the latest ‘health’ issue and within five seconds of sitting in front of the very nice, very professional doctor, I realised I’d made a mistake. He talked and I tried to listen, but I had no idea what he was on about. I talked, and he tried to listen, but he had no idea what I was on about.
 
I came out of the surgery and burst into tears – my yetzer hara had duped me again! For a day, I was very fragile and bemused. G-d clearly didn’t want me to go to a doctor to fix all these health issues. But then what? Did He just want me to collect more and more physical symptoms and worries? To what end?
 
Then, I found out about a religious ‘natural’ healer who spends a day every week in my community. I had older relatives visiting from outside of Israel who both had a number of on-going chronic health issues, and I asked them if they wanted to try something ‘different’.
 
They agreed, and I booked them appointments and went along to translate. Within a couple of minutes of talking to them, the healer had pinpointed the source of their problems: for one, it was a very bad diet and an unhelpful way of thinking; for the other, it was diet combined with a deep-seated emotional trauma that had never been properly dealt with. I was amazed.
 
And I decided that I’d go and see him too, not for a ‘cure’ – only G-d could heal me – but to get a diagnosis about what was really going on, so then I could know what to pray for.
 
I made the appointment, and made it clear that I wasn’t interested in any ‘healing’; I just wanted a diagnosis. Within two minutes of talking, he asked me if I’d been waiting for something for a long time that hadn’t happened. I went quiet for a bit, because I knew immediately what he was talking about. My youngest child is seven and a half, and I’ve been waiting for years for more children.
 
But, as I told him, I have made my peace with Hashem about it. I know it’s been for my good, and a kindness, and I’ve been actively trying to thank G-d about it for at least two years.
 
But the healer explained that the neck is the bridge between the mind and the heart. “You’ve accepted it up here,” he said, pointing to his head, “but in your heart, you’re still not 100%.”
 
He was right. Practically, he also told me that I needed to do more gentle exercise, like walking, Pilates and swimming, and to eat more leafy greens.
 
I left feeling very strange. On the one hand, I’d had my diagnosis, and I knew it was correct. All my unfulfilled yearning to have more children was coming out in physical symptoms. On the other hand, what more could I do? I’d already been doing my best to try and have emuna about it all, and to be thankful for it all.
 
For a day, I felt very unbalanced and volatile – it was one of those pivotal moments in a person’s life where if they don’t cling on to G-d, they can get themselves in serious trouble.
 
But then, Hashem had mercy on me and started to explain it. All these years, I’ve been ‘forcing’ myself to have emuna. And mentally, it worked 100%. But spiritually, a person can’t make themselves ‘do’ or ‘be’ anything – only G-d can. I’d done as much as I could do to try and have emuna; now, G-d was showing me that I’d reached my limit, and the only thing left to do was to ask Him for emuna as a free gift; and to ask Him to make my heart whole, and to give my heart the emuna that everything was really for the best.
 
And then, just to sit and wait.
 
This all happened a week ago, and my neck is already feeling so much better. My diet is healthier than it’s ever been, and I’m getting more and more insights every day about why the last few months have also been ultimately only good for me.
 
Conventional doctors deal with symptoms. But they don’t deal with the root causes. The root cause of every illness is to be found in the soul, and only G-d can heal that. If people don’t understand this, they can ping around for years taking more and more pills and getting escalated up to the ‘serious medical condition’ list.
 
But even healthy eaters have to understand that it’s not the lettuce, or the probiotics, or the exercise class every day that keeps them healthy. It all helps, because it’s self-discipline, and self-discipline is the beginning of real service of Hashem. But self-discipline that’s disconnected from the Creator is just as unhealthy, spiritually, as junk food and cola.
 
Real health combines body and soul. Real health means looking after your body’s needs, because it’s the ‘house’ of the soul. But it also means looking for the root causes of our ailments in our neshamas.
 
If I’d gone down the conventional medicine route, they may or may not have found out it was a physical deficiency, and may or may not have prescribed something, which may or may not have worked.
 
But even if it worked, I’d still have the root of the problem, and that ‘root’ would flower again in time, and manifest in a different physical ‘problem’.
 
If I wasn’t talking to G-d every day, I simply wouldn’t have had the courage to try and wait it out, and see what was really at the bottom of it all. I’d have a knee-jerk reaction to ‘make the bad go away’ as quickly as possible – and ironically, all I’d be doing is making the symptom of the bad go away, while the ‘bad’ itself continued to rampage through my soul unchecked.
 
I believe that G-d sustains my life every second of every day. For as long as He wills it, I’ll be here, and as soon as He doesn’t, I won’t (may it be in a good 80 years’ time…).
 
In the meantime, I’ve learnt that He wants me and my family to eat healthy, nutritious food; to make our blessings on it, and to try our best to eat it in holiness; to not completely ignore our bodies just because the main focus is on our soul; and that everything, even a real pain in the neck, is only and always for the very best.