Over the years I have often been asked by
distressed and distraught parents, who discovered that their children were on
drugs, to provide spiritual or religious support. In their desperation they
seemed to believe that if those same children could find religion, they would
be cured. “Please speak to my child about G-d and Judaism,” they would plead.
In my younger days I would rush over to the
house (or hospital), believing that once a disturbed adolescent was exposed to
Judaism, he or she would find an alternative outlet for what they were
searching for. I thought that if I encouraged the youngster to put on Tefillin
or to light Shabbat Candles, perhaps a new positive addiction would grow out of
the old dangerous one.
Needless to say, my tactics were never
successful. On the one or two occasions when I thought I was on to something, I
subsequently found out I had been horribly manipulated.
As I got a little older and perhaps more
street wise, I saw that not only did drug addicts abuse drugs, they also abused
religion. And so did people who were suffering from
emotional pathology, abuse religion.
It’s easier to sweep one’s inadequacies
under the carpet of religion, than to face or fix them.
A socially inept person could simply bury
themselves in books, don flowing garb and limit their interfacing with other
human beings, and be regarded as a hero ‘baal teshuva’ of sorts. Someone with anger management problems
could ‘legitimately’ give vent to his or her frustrations, because now they are
objecting in the name of G-d. A rude person would not have to greet
another, because they were praying a section of the prayers where talking is
not allowed. And in all these cases they would get away
with it. Religion can be a wonderful guise that
papers, with impunity, over many cracks.
The
Kotzker Rebbe teaches that an individual who is not ‘chazak benafsho’(strong in
character), has to be careful before throwing themselves into religion. (Emet ve Emunah p108, par1.) He believes that without a solid foundation
of strength of character, religion can be misleading. Giving a distressed individual religion
prematurely is dangerous and disingenuous.
Many great teachers, on the other hand,
believe that religion builds strength
of character. Expose people to religion, they say, and they will grow
emotionally and spiritually. The waters of Torah will erode the stubbornness of
our failings.
The Kotzker takes a different view: Fix the person first, he teaches. Get the individual stable, strong and functional
first. Then, and only then, does the
Torah helps them grow.
If a parent asked me today, to guide a
child suffering from the plethora of modern afflictions (real or imagined), I
would advise them to get their child well first.
I would suggest to a mother worried about her son’s addiction problem, to send
the child to rehab, first. I would
encourage someone suffering from depression to seek professional psychological
help, first.
I have seen too many cases where religious
guidance is dispensed too soon, and the healing never happens.
Religious pathology is still pathology.
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