Words from the Heart

The other day, I popped off to my local fruit and veg shop to get a few bits in for the weekend. Usually, the shop is humming, the proprietor is smiling, and there's a nice, friendly, happy, crazy atmosphere. But this time, there wasn't. The usually smiley Ben the fruit and veg man looked seriously down. He was sniffling and snuffling, as though he had a bad cold, and his eyes looked red.
 
A lot of people can't handle other people's heaviness, so they pretend they can't see when another person is upset, or appears to be suffering in some way. I understand why they don't want to broach the subject – I used to be exactly the same. I'd want to reach out and try to start a conversation with the 'suffering' person, but then I'd get paralysed by the fear that I'd say something inappropriate, or that the other person would get upset with me for barging in on their emotions, so usually, I'd just keep silent, smile a fake smile and get the heck away from them.
 
Thank G-d, I've changed a lot, and these days I have the self-confidence to at least try to offer a shoulder to cry on, and not worry too much about how the other person takes it. Words that come from the heart enter the heart. I've learnt about myself that if I'm genuinely feeling the other person's pain, and not just on some big, condescending superiority trip, the other person will feel that, and respond in a gentle way, even if I haven't got the perfect thing to say to them.
 
"You look heavy today," I told Ben, when I came up to the counter to pay for all my shopping. "You look like the world is weighing very heavily on you. Life is beautiful! What's making you so sad today?"
 
Ben the fruit man sighed a very long, very deep sigh, and told me two very sad things: His sister-in-law had been married for 10 years, with no children. She'd gotten pregnant, and had gone in to have the baby – which was delivered stillborn. She was crying her eyes out, and had been for days, and so was Ben and the rest of the family. The other thing was more prosaic, but still upsetting: That day, Ben had gone to the bank to pay in his cheques, and he'd discovered that one of his biggest customers, a local factory, had been ripping him off. They'd paid for $30,000 of goods with bad cheques.
 
"Life is still good," I told him. "It's only money! Thank G-d, you still have your health, your wife, your kids. Money goes, but it can come back again just as easily." "Life is good," he responded, "but a lot of people are very bad."
 
Ben is a believing man, he tries to see G-d in his life. But that particular day, he'd got overwhelmed with bitterness and hard questions. I did what I always do in those sorts of circumstances – I ran back to my car, and gave him whatever Rav Arush CD I had hanging around. It's always but always exactly 'the one' they need to listen to, and this time was no exception. I looked at the CD I'd taken from the dashboard, and it was called: "No questions". We can't know G-d's will, we can't always understand Him, we can't always see why hard things are for our best. That's the point. If we could understand why 'bad' things are really good for us, it wouldn't be any sort of test. We'd smile, hum, and just have a cup of tea until we reached the twist in the tale when the terrible circumstance would all turn around for the best.
 
Ben took the CD and seemed a little bit lighter. The sister in law was another matter. When baby's die like that, it's clear they had a very small, finite thing to fix in this world, before they could take their rightful place in Heaven. It was probably a very holy, special soul who completed their mission just by being born.
 
But for a woman who's waited 10 years to have a child, it's still absolutely devastating, and 'pat' comments would only rub salt into an incredibly raw wound. I had no idea what to say to or about her, but then I realized, I didn't need to say anything. I just needed to buy her a 'Garden of Gratitude', and when she was ready, she could read that book and start to get some answers, comfort and strength.
 
I dropped it into Ben the next time I visited.
 
Will she read it? I hope so. Will it heal all her pain and answer all her questions? Maybe, maybe not. But words that come from the heart – especially Rav Arush's words of emuna – enter the heart. And when they do, sooner or later, they bring a lot of love, comfort and peace to the person on the receiving end.
 

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Check out Rivka Levy's new book The Happy Workshop based on the teachings of Rabbi Shalom Arush