The Power in the Search

A life Lessons Story by Chana Klein

How is it that when all hope is gone, an answer often appears from an unexpected place? To a person in search of work, or a partner, or an answer to a health issue, from where does the answer come?

How often has the answer been right in front of us, yet, we were not able see it?

How often it is that we do find an answer or that the problem seems to just go away when we make the effort to search for it? Could it be the effort of the search that brings us to the solution?

In our Torah, Hagar, the mother of Yishmael was left on her own with her baby. The water that Avraham had given her was used up. I imagine that she had to bear great pain when she said, “Let me not see the death of the child.” (Genesis  21:16)

But was there really no water?

“Then, God opened her (Hagar’s) eyes and she perceived a well of water.” (Genesis 21:19)

God did not create the water, at that moment, just for her. He merely opened her eyes to see it.

Really, it was there the whole time.

Perhaps most of our answers are there the whole time. We just don’t see them right away.

“The brothers of Yosef,“ as they are called in Genesis 42:3, search for Yosef throughout the city. The brothers regretted having sold Yosef into slavery and were determined to find him, redeem him, and bring him back to Yakov. In their search, they did not go directly to the center market as Yakov had instructed them. Instead, they wandered through the city exploring side streets and alleys, markets, stores, inns, and theaters searching for their brother. Yosef’s security guards reported the brothers’ suspicious behavior directly to Yosef and they were brought before him. (Rashi 43:3 – 13)

There they were standing before the object of their search. Yet, they did not know they had found him.

How many times have we found what we are in search of, and still had no idea that it was before us?

I heard the elements of the following story many years ago. I have written it to fit the life lesson message in The Power in the Search. I call it:

The Search for Rory

It was a time of war between the people who lived on the flatlands of the desert and the people who lived high up on Mount Ramon, the highest mountain in Southern Israel.

It was night when the people of the mountain raided the people of the desert. They pillaged through homes and grabbed Rory. Rory was asleep when they climbed into his bedroom window and took him.

Rory was on the autistic spectrum. He lived alone with his mom. By two and a half years old, he had lost his speech ability. Food had to be a certain texture, color, and place on the plate, in order for him to eat it. He avoided physical touch. But he was attached to his cushy, stuffed alligator toy.

Mom heard his screams as the intruders entered.  She flew to his room and slammed the door open. His toy alligator lay in his bed, alone.

She was frantic. “He can’t express himself. He won’t know where he is. What will they do to him? How will he eat?

Oh dear God, please, please, please, make them find my baby.”

She dialed the phone number for Special Forces Unit. The police showed up quickly. They searched the area. There were no mountain people in sight. They got away and were likely headed up the mountain, already.

They police began to make way to get up the pathway that the mountain people must have taken the child.  But the police were not mountain people and were not experienced in searching the trails in the mountain or in climbing it.

Yet, they assisted each other over rocks, pushing their way through undergrowth.  It was not working. They looked for another path and began up that one. They kept trying. After hours of effort, it was daybreak. After more hours, the sun set, and rose again; and then it was night again. The rugged mountain proved to be a huge undertaking. They feared they were going to lose their men.

They were only 200 feet up the mountain that was 3,402 feet high.

The senior officer could not see that they would ever be able to reach where the mountaineers had brought the child.

They called on the army for assistance. The soldiers arrived and they, too, attempted to climb the mountain to where the toddler was likely being held. The army people knew a little bit more than the police had about getting up the mountain. They used picks and huge iron rods to make the climb. They held each other with ropes. Yet, it was appearing to be impossible to get very far on the treacherous terrain.

Night came and daybreak, and then another day and another.

The men were exhausted. They had succeeded in climbing only 400 feet.

At this rate, they will not be able to get to the child.  This was proving to be an impossible mission.

Dejected and powerless, they began packing their gear to head back down.

Several looked up in the distance at the challenging topography.

There, they saw the mom descending.

“Look! How did she do that???”

The mom was coming down the huge mountain.

She had a toddler strapped to her back, who was holding a toy alligator tightly to his chest.

The mom was coming down the treacherous mountain that they were not able to fathom how to climb.

Three of the men climbed up to where she was, in order to assist her.

She stood in front of them on the landing.

“How did you get up there? We, the protective forces, the most skilled in the country, were not able to go higher than 400 feet. How did you get to the top? How did you get the child?”

She looked at the group and explained ….

“It’s not your child!”

This story takes place in Southern Israel. But it could be anywhere… anywhere that a parent or anyone else searches for answers.

The power of a parent’s search,.. the power of that love and determination to find what is missing.

I have worked with so many parents searching for answers for their child’s issue. I find it amazing how a child who has a mother, a father, or one who cares so deeply, who searches in all places for his healing, somehow gets healed.

I often wonder if it is the search itself that offers the solution.

My story

My son was very ill, in and out of consciousness. It began at birth with difficulty breathing and within months, a seizure disorder. One illness led to another and another.

We were told he would not be with us much longer.  I screamed, silently, each day, and each night, from each additional diagnosis, from the agony of the illness, and the fear of the loss.

At the same time, I had to look ahead. I realized that if, someday, I find that there were really a cure and I had not accessed it, I would feel unbearable regret and guilt.

According to the doctors, there was no hope. His blood levels were slipping and his consciousness did not exist. It was only a matter of time. He was holding on and I was holding on to him. I decided to not leave an avenue unsearched even though I had no hope that I would find an answer. In those days before the Internet, I managed to extend my search as far as Europe. I felt I had to be sure that once the inevitable occurred, I had tried everything and searched everywhere possible.

Did I find an answer? Did I find a solution to the orchestra of sounds and gasps he made when breathing, to the non-stop seizures, to the almost non-existent platelet count, to countless abnormal blood levels, toxic liver, brain tumor, brain aneurysm, internal bleeding, subglottal laryngeal stenosis, subglottal tumors, loss of speech, hallucinations causing an inability to eat because of the worms he saw in his food, abdominal pain, urethral pain, test after test, long periods of unconsciousness, surgeries, hospitalizations, medications?

Did I find answers to these medical problems?

No! Not a one.

Did he recover? Did he improve?

Did he get any better with all that I did as a mother searching for a cure for my darling baby, for the child that I loved so very much?

At ten years old, he began to show some life. One day, my ex husband remarked to me that our son has not had a seizure in three months. His other levels were so dangerously out-of-whack and he still seemed so sick, that I had not realized that something did get better.

And then slowly, the ferritin level went up. The platelets recovered.  His pain lessened. He began breathing more freely. Eventually, he was no longer slipping in and out of consciousness.

After age ten and a half, he never again had another seizure. Dr Resor, the head of the Seizure Clinic in Colombia Presbyterian told us that no medication is able to offer 100% seizure control. (80% control is the best that a medication can offer.) It, therefore, must be that his seizures are less because he is better.

Now, when I waited outside his Hebrew School classroom for the next episode of his passing out, there was nothing to wait for. He came out of class on time, and I no longer had to carry him to the car.

And slowly, beyond my hopes, and beyond what I ever thought could be, he got better, really better, until he eventually was 100% healthy to this day. (Thank you, God.)

All along, I thought it was medical answers that I was trying to find. But there were no real remedies to point to. I had searched for a way to make my child heal from all of the maladies that affected his darling, hurting brain and body.

We never found a medical cure.

We never found a tangible remedy.

We found only healing, total and complete healing.

I did not understand, at the time, that answers might have been there all along. But to reveal them, I had to look for them.

From the place where we keep on trying, from the place where we don’t give up, that is where the answers show up, and that is from where the problems and maladies seem to disappear.

The Almighty sees our effort and then He reveals the answers that were there all along.

Hagar, in the only way she knew, searched for water for her child. The brothers of Yosef did the best they could to amend their mistake and find their brother, whom they had left in the pit. The mom who was determined to find her child and get him home, my own search for a cure for my child, all of those searches did not result in any new findings. In each case, the answers were revealed with the effort to find them.

“Ben Hei Hei says: The reward is in proportion to the exertion.” (Perkey Avot 5:26)

The answers are already here.

The Master of the Universe opens our eyes according to our effort.

He reveals the light to those who search the darkness.

Copyright © 2010 Chana Klein

www.thespectrumcoach.com

A Matter of Focus

A Life Lessons Story by Chana Klein

The power of knowing what we want…

The power of focus on that one goal …

We experience, as a people, the “focus” of an Achashveirosh on control, and then we experience the focus of Mordechai and Esther on growth? What can we surmise from the contrast? From whom do we learn the power of focus?

We can learn the power of focus on one idea, unfortunately, by watching the most evil man who ever lived.

That evil man had been kicked out of technical school as a teen. Then he was kicked out of high school after his second year when it was known that he used his certificate of completion as toilet paper.

He wanted to be an artist and was twice rejected by the Academy of Fine Arts and then rejected by a school of architecture for lack of a high school diploma.

At age 20, his home address was a homeless shelter.  In WWI he managed to receive an Iron Cross Second Class award that was very common. His greatest success was receiving the “Wound Badge” for getting shot in the groin.

This failure of a man, this man who was not able to succeed at anything, took hold of one idea, one idea that formulated into his being. That one idea was to save Germany by killing the Jews.

This man was so single minded that when offered to win the war by bringing supplies from Russia, he refused. He did not want to give up any trains that were transporting the Jews to concentration camps.

Hitler, may his name be erased, wanted only one thing – to kill the Jews even at the expense of losing the war.

The power of one idea…. The power of focus on one goal.

I met Alex (not the real name) when he was in the 4^th grade in the school where I was a teacher. Alex was what most would call wild. After the school day, I saw Alex in the after-school daycare program. I watched him climb the monkey bars in the playground with vigor. I saw him run around on the pavement of the schoolyard without stopping. His energy was endless. His mom was very friendly. She shared with me that when asked to do his homework, it was a clear “No!” Yet, when Alex did not get his own way in a game with either of his brothers or his sister, he lashed out with a fist.

When I began my coaching career, I ran into his mom during an adult education class. She cried to me that Alex, who was by then 15 years old, had been expelled from several schools. She cried that Alex screamed at the top of his lungs for hours when he did not get his way in the house and continued even when they went someplace. She told me that just the day before he had punched a hole in the dining room wall and then assaulted him mom.

At this time I was beginning my coaching practice, not yet sure of what my niche will be. Somehow when I heard his mom describe him, I found myself almost drooling at the prospect of working with this teenager. I offered to coach him for a very low price, an offer she could not turn down.

Alex and I worked great together. He trusted me and we got to the essence of his issues. He was complicated and interesting for me and I loved the work with him.

Alex eventually did well in school, He completed high school and college and advanced degrees as well.

Alex also learned to be a friend and to have a friend. By any standard, Alex became a successful person.

But, really Alex taught me perhaps as much as I taught him.

Alex had a passion for climbing. He loved climbing ropes. He had all kinds of ropes, ropes that were thick and then ropes that were wiry, and then ropes that were more and more challenging to work with.

In his junior year of high school, Alex set up his ropes to climb to the top of the six-story school building. Of course the school administration was not too happy with him. Despite a few trips and falls, though, he got to the top and then back down.

Alex, later, climbed to the top of his friend’s apartment house building, 16 stories high. The police arrived as he was on the way down and so most of the climb went uninterrupted.

In Alex’s senior year, the students were planning a fundraising event. They were selling goods, hiring a bouncing box with colorful balls and other entertaining events. Alex raved to his classmates about how he can do a tightrope walk.  But no one took him seriously. After all, it was Alex, and it takes a long time to change people’s perceptions. They felt they already knew him.

But Alex paid no mind to that. He set up a system of ropes hung from the nearby water tower to the tall pole in the corner of the field. The day of the event came and it was time for Alex to climb that rope and walk across it in front of the crowd.

On his way up, all the attention was on Alex. It was so high up that people feared he would fall and break his body in two or three or four pieces. But no one stopped him. Alex got to the top, very high up in the clear sky. He walked across the thin wire. The silence was thick. Alex turned to go back go to where he began. He slipped.

The audience was tense. All eyes were on Alex. But Alex fell like a cat, flexible, and unhurt. He got up and made his way up the ropes again. He once again went across and just at the point in which he had to turn around, lost his balance and landed again. The audience, gripped with the journey of this young man, filled with tense anticipation, kept their eyes focused on Alex.

Alex got up again. He walked the journey from one end of the rope to the other and back again, smoothly and purposefully. The crowd stood up and cheered.

At our session the following week, I wanted to know. “Alex, everyone is talking about what you did. How did you do that?”

Alex said it was no big deal. He knew exactly how he did it.

“Do you know what the hardest part of doing that was?” he asked.

I could not imagine. Was it the height? The balance on the wire? I could not imagine what he was going to say.

“What was the hardest part?” I asked.

“It was turning around,” he said.

“What is it about turning around that makes that the hardest part,” I asked.

“It is that for a split second,” Alex explained, “I have to lose focus of where I am going. I have to take my eyes off of my goal for that moment and then I have to reorient myself as fast as I can.”

“Alex, do you realize what you are saying? You are saying that when you keep your focus on your goal, on where you want to go, nothing stops you. It’s only for the moment that you look away that you fall. With your focus on where you want to go, you were able to do what no other person can.”

I learned from Alex in such a real way the power of keeping my focus on what I want. Alex learned that from his own rope-walking as well.

What does Alex do now?

Alex is graduating at the top of his class in medical school. He keeps his eye on the “A” and he gets it. After he completes his requirements, he plans to travel to Africa to offer his services there.

I imagine he will have lots of trees to climb and ropes to walk there, if he chooses. Alex used his knowledge of focus to reach his other goals as well. He did not take his eyes off of his goals and from what I can see, he may have had some falls but got there each time.

The power of wanting one thing ….

The power of focus on where I want to go…..

The “focus” of an Achashveirosh on control,

The focus of Mordechai and Esther on growth…

The power of wanting something with one’s whole being.

Anyone who focuses on one idea succeeds.

Copyright © Chana Klein 2011

Break His Teeth

A Life Lessons Story

by Chana Klein

Are we commanded to break our child’s teeth?

The words of the Haggadah:

“What does the wicked son say? What does all this mean to you?” Since he excludes himself from the community, and by excluding himself, he denies the basic principle of our faith. Therefore, you should break his teeth and make him feel uncomfortable by saying  “it is because of this that Hashem did all these miracles for me when I went out of Egypt but not for him. Had he been there he would not have been redeemed.”

The holy Haggadah tells us that one of the children is wicked (a rasha) and tells us the remedy is to break his teeth and also tells us to exclude him.

Break his teeth? Am I reading this correctly? Exclude him? Is that what we are told to do to our child who already, as the text says, feels excluded?  Do we exclude him even further?

May the Creator of the Universe forgive me for not agreeing on this with the holy rabbis  (if I understand it correctly) who wrote the Haggadah. Millions of Jews read this paragraph in the Tanach and in the Haggadah. I fear that they may take the advice at its basic level.

The Haggadah speaks of  “The Four Sons.” Each is different. But isn’t that the case for everyone who has four children? … that they are not alike and that each brings with him a different challenge and, of course, a different blessing?

The wicked son, it says, is excluding himself. But why would a child exclude himself?  From my experience, with too many children to count, a child excludes himself when he feels excluded. So does an adult. Understanding that the child is a rasha means to me that you don’t understand the child.

I wonder what would happen with that “wicked” son if people were to consistently believe in him. There are studies that show that a child who is believed-in becomes more honest and generally of better character. I don’t think we even need a study to know that.

It says to break his teeth.

What does that really mean?  Some commentaries explain it as meaning to blunt his teeth or to set them on edge.

I have used the term “break my teeth” when explaining to people how I finally learned to read after being illiterate until my last year of high school.

You see, I was one of those kids who I am sure many people wanted to break my teeth and I did feel excluded.  In the 4^th grade, I was placed in a kindergarten class for the rest of the year. I thought I was lucky because the teacher took us to the park everyday.

By the time I reached the summer of my senior year in high school I had remained unable to learn how to read. My nickname with my peers was “Simple” which was a short way of calling me “Simple-Minded.” What it meant to me was that I was stupid. I was certainly confused. I felt kind of lost and small in a huge world of stuff that I felt unable to understand. One of my greatest confusions was how to decode a bunch of letters and words on a page.

I had a summer job on the beach in Far Rockaway as a mother’s helper for a baby and his 7 siblings. Neil, who had been a lifeguard, showed up wherever I happened to be. At first, I had no interest in Neil. But then as he persisted, I slowly began to like him and to enjoy spending time with him.

Pretty soon he was driving me home from the beach everyday in his sun-roofed Peugeot sports car. We went to movies together, played tennis together, went bike riding together, laughed a lot together, and over the summer we become inseparable. We were in love.

When the summer was almost ending, Neil brought me to his house in Long Island He talked often about his parents, stressing how educated each of them was, his father, a scientist and his mother the assistant principal of a junior high school. Neil, the pride and joy of his parents, was a premed student.

They weren’t particularly warm to me. But I didn’t give that much thought. After all, they weren’t the first ones to treat me like that.

The next day, as usual, before I went to work, I visited Neil at his lifeguard stand. As soon as he saw me, he handed me a book. I’m not sure of the title, because I wasn’t really able to read it. I looked up at him sitting in his tall lifeguard chair.

“Read the first four pages,” he drilled me.

I knew I couldn’t read that book or any other. “Does he know?”  My heart was pounding. I took the book and stared at it. I slowly turned the pages. I looked at the first page and then went to the second and after I turned to the fourth page, I handed the book back to him.

“What did it say?” he snapped.

I mumbled…  “I don’t know,”

It’s more than 40 year later and I still remember his words as if it were this morning:

“Well if you didn’t understand the first page, why did you go to the second page?”

I stood silently at the side of his tall lifeguard chair hoping he would reassure me. He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t even look at me.

My stomach churned. I felt a sense of panic. I went to work with the children I was assigned to, but was not really present as I went through the motions.

At home, after work, I hoped Neil would call and make it all better.

He didn’t.

I couldn’t stop thinking about him, dreaming about being with him. The loneliness was torture – the contrast of going from such wonderful love to overwhelming emptiness. There was no one to comfort me.

I tried going on a date with someone else who had been interested in me all summer. We saw the movie Splendor in the Grass.  It was the story of two teens in love who were forced to break-up because of his parents. The girl was so distressed that she tried to commit suicide. I so related.

I went home and cried and cried as I tried to fall asleep. But I stayed awake all night thinking and crying.

I realized that we weren’t together now because he found out I couldn’t read.

I didn’t know why I never learned to read. It’s not like I didn’t try. It was just so difficult to figure out what the letters on a page were saying. And when I could make out the pronunciation, I still couldn’t put it all together to make sense of what it meant. In school, I had been taken out for remedial instruction. But it just didn’t make a difference in my skills. In those days, no one knew about ADHD or dyslexia. If you couldn’t read, you were just stupid, and that’s what I used to tell myself after each struggle with the words on a page.

Now, my not being able to read created more than just heartache. Now, not being able to read was a catastrophe, for it meant I can’t have a boyfriend.  I foresaw constant and repeated rejections in my future and visions of having no friends and no future family. All because I wasn’t smart enough, which showed up in my not being able to read. As I cried, the feelings of powerlessness turned into determination.  “This will never happen to me again,” I assured myself. “I have to learn how to read.”

That Monday, after school, I went to the library and searched for a book that I could read. I tried so many different sections of books in that library. It became more and more frustrating when there wasn’t even one page in one book that I could read.

Finally, I snuck into the little-kids section, hoping no one from school would see me. I looked at some picture books – the ones with 5 or 6 words on a page. And there, I found a book that had a few words that I could read. I would have to figure out the rest. It was one of the books that others called baby books. But that did not matter today. That is what I was able to read, at least some of the words, anyway. I found a hidden corner of the library so that no one I knew would see me and make fun of me, or tell anyone else.

I sat there in the corner of the library, looking at the words of the book that had lots of colorful pictures.  But it was not the pictures that interested me. It was the words. I wanted so much to read them. I struggled with almost every word. But I wouldn’t give-up. I literally “broke my teeth” on every word. “If I look at it long enough, I will get it,” I told myself. And I looked, and looked, and looked at the words. By the end of the 5th day with that book I was able to read it to myself.

Then, I looked for another book from the shelf. That, too, was a picture book, a baby book. I checked it out of the library and stayed with it until I finally fell asleep. By the end of the next day, I was able to read that book also.

After two weeks, I was able to read most of the picture books in the library. So I decided to try comic books. I used to be fascinated by the pictures of Archie and Veronica. But until now, I had to use my imagination to figure out what the words in the dialog circles meant. Now, I was determined. I opened the first page that had dialogue. I felt like weeping from the frustration. I couldn’t really read it. I took a deep breath and again told myself that if I look at it long enough I’ll get it. I forced myself to concentrate on the letters in the words and not the pictures of Veronica talking with Betty. I again, “broke my teeth” on every word. It was just so hard. But I couldn’t give up. If I did, I knew that my life would continue to be filled with rejection and heartache. I had to figure this out, no matter how long it took. By the following Friday, I was able to pick up almost any comic book and understand the gist of what it is saying. It wasn’t perfect. But I was on my way.

I went from comic books to Nancy Drew books. I read and read until I read my first real book. I was reading the classic, Exodus. I couldn’t put it down. Each page fascinated me and I understood it all.

In school, the guidance counselor called me in to commend me on my scholastic improvement.

By February, six months after that dreadful day at the side of Neil’s lifeguard chair, I was placed in the Honor’s English Literature class, where the students were assigned a new classic to read each week. I kept up and relished each day with each book. Reading and learning became my passion.

It makes me wonder if what is meant by “break his teeth” is to teach him how to learn. For some they must break their teeth, strain their brain, as I had to. Setting someone’s teeth on edge means getting them to fight back, as well. That is what it means to break one’s teeth. When excluded, when rejected we need to show our children how to fight back and use that to become successful.

Today I speed-read English. I am a licensed teacher of Spanish in NY, NJ and California, and I survive with Hebrew. But I really broke my teeth to do that.

Today, after a 34-year career as a teacher, I am Chana Klein, MSEd, PCC, EEMCP, ACG, PCACG, DIAMBP, NET, AGI. That is, I am a Certified Professional Coach, a Certified Eden Energy Medline Practitioner and have more Coaching and Alternative-Medicine certifications than anyone on the planet. I serve as the International Coach Federation (ICF) ADHD Leader and as an ICF Certification Assessor. I am the co-founder and Ethics Chairman of The Professional Association of ADHD Coaches.  I am proficient in Chinese Medicine, Chinese Medicine Face Reading, Interactive Guided Imagery, Korean Hand Therapy, Sleep Medicine, Homeopathy and much more. I am an Autism Spectrum Expert. That and much more is the result of perennially breaking my teeth to learn more and more, breaking my teeth to fight back against the feeling of being stupid and against being excluded.

I think rather then telling us to break his teeth, the Haggadah is saying to get that child somehow to work hard at learning. Then, he will not be excluded. Perhaps it is telling us to break his teeth so that he will learn what he needs to know to be connected to God, to His people and to himself.

These are our children. It is just the beginning for them

To say that any of them is wicked or simple or any negative judgment is ignoring the fact that Avraham Avinu was a product of pagan civilization.

Moshe Rabbeinu was raised in the Egyptian palace. Perhaps the greatest of us start off as the simple one or the evil one mentioned in the Haggadah. Rabbi Akiva was considered an ignoramus who cannot learn. His father in law had said that if he had been able to do even one pasuk (passage), he would not have disowned his daughter when she married him. But it was Rabbi Akiva whose advice he later sought, not even knowing that this was the one he disowned.

We as parents, as teachers, as anyone in contact with that child, don’t know who a child will become. It is our role to let them, to encourage, to inform, to be a support.

No, it’s not easy. It’s not simple, and sometimes it’s not even clear.

But, it is our responsibility in order that our children may find their own greatness, and in order that we find ours.

Copyright ©Chana Klein 2011

www.thespectrumcoach.com

The Lesson Through The Tears: The Curses and The Blessings

A Life-Lessons Story by Chana Klein

The Torah tells us of the blessings and the curses. (Devarim 11:26)

It tells us that if we listen to what God commands, then, we will be blessed and if we don’t, then we will be cursed.

To me the blessings and curses are the Almighty’s way of shaping us. I think of them as “Life Lessons from God.”

Life is not easy for any or us. I have worked with many, many clients and others who have shared with me stores of their joy and their pain. I find that for most, it is mostly pain.

This week, I cried my heart, my frustration asking God for relief from the things that are making me cry. But then, I had to put my tears aside to be present for my clients.

I realized, though, that my own tears help me to be there for another. How else could I understand? How else could I wipe away their tears if I had not had my own?

How else could I understand things like the fact that each child is a great blessing? But at the same time that each child is the greatest burden and sorrow, and pain, and of course, joy that a person can ever know.

How else could I understand the hours a parent may spend in a hospital where a child lay? And then the experience of seeing another child who makes my ill child look well, because what that child suffers from is so much more serious.

How else could I understand what it is like to be told that my child may not attend, be it a school, scouts, friendships, birthday parties, teen get-togethers or joining the little-league team?

How else could I understand what it is like to listen to the screams of a sibling that he hates his brother because he is ashamed of him, and not be able to fix it?

How else could I understand the pain of a waiting list for the special services that I want for my child? How else could I understand what it is like to wish my child did not need the special services, anyway?

How else could I understand having a baby or a toddler scream for hours and hours and not know why, or where, he has pain. How else could I understand that powerless feeling? How else could I have known to reach out to my God, to my support?

How else could I understand the feeling of judging eyes while my child is having a melt down in the supermarket? Or in the playground?

How else could I understand the loneliness of raising a child who is so different that my friends no longer call or spend time with me?

How else could I understand the parent who does not know where to turn for solutions, or what to believe?

How else could I understand the inner agony of a parent watching her teenager unable to make friends or to keep friends?

How else could I have understood the fear of hearing the doctor’s hopeless prognosis, not realizing that he is not God and does not really know?

How else could I understand the humiliation of a spouse, be it the husband or the wife, when put-down in front of the children,

How else could I ever understand the awkwardness of being insulted and not responding until hours later, in my own head, and only then thinking of what I could have, should have, replied.

How else could I understand what it is like to feel too sick to keep my head up and get my paper work done?

How else would I understand excruciating pain that another has, had I never had a day of that myself?

How else could I understand having an adult child who does not speak to me?

How else could I understand having the need to make a decision between buying gas for the car and food for dinner?

How else would I be able to understand the mom who loves, loves, loves her special child and will go to any length to do whatever can be done, had I not been there and done that, and cried a lot over it as well.

The blessings and the curses, It is the tears that teach me, though I would rather not need them.

It is the tears that force me to connect with the Almighty because really there is nothing else.

And then it is the tears that later, make me marvel at the miracles that happen in response to my tears. It is the tears of sadness that eventually bring me to the tears of elation because it is clear that I am heard, and clear that something Great really does care about me.

Perhaps it is the curses in the first place that are what really brings the light to the blessings.

The Prophet Isaiah tells us (Isaiah 9:1)

The people that walked with darkness have seen great light.

They that dwelt in the land of the shadow of death,

Upon them has the light shined.

It is through my tears that I eventually see my blessings shine.

The Curses and the Blessings: Those are The Life-Lessons from God.

Copyright©2010 Chana Klein

Written by Chana-Chaya Klein

Can my friend have a problem that does not affect me?

Can I avoid being touched by my enemy’s difficulty?

Isn’t it all none of my business?

A ChanaParable:

A field mouse moved into the home of old Farmer Mike and his wife Lucy. The mouse watched from his place under the stove as Mike and Lucy were ripping open a box that had been delivered by the postman. “What could be in such a package?” the mouse wondered, as he waited to see what new foods the box might contain.

As the farmer and his wife took the contents of the package out of the box, the mouse stifled his words “Oh my Lord,” and his scream so as not to be heard. Out of the box they revealed a mousetrap!

The mouse ran outside, all over the farmyard. He warned each of the creatures proclaiming, “There is a mousetrap in the house. There’s a mousetrap in the house.”

The chicken was the first to respond. She raised her head as she clucked and scratched. “Mr. Mouse,” she told him, “I can tell this is of grave concern to you. But it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by this problem.”

Next, the mouse appealed to the pig. “There’s a mousetrap in the house!” he cried to him, “There’s a mousetrap in the house.”

The pig sympathized with the mouse. “I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse. But there is nothing I can do about it, other than pray. Rest assured that you will be in my prayers.”

The mouse then called to the cow. The cow replied, “Like wow, Mr. Mouse, a mousetrap. Why would that bother me? Am I in grave danger or something? Duh! I’m a cow.”

A few more animals, a few more pleas. But no one heard or cared or even wanted to help. The mouse returned to the house, frozen with fear, shoulders bent down, and a very sad expression. He went to face the farmer’s mousetrap all alone.

That very night a loud sound was heard throughout the house. It was like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.

Lucy, the farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. It was so dark that she could hardly see. She got closer. Snap! Ouch! Poor Lucy got bitten by a snake, whose tail was caught in the trap.

She had not realized it was a snake until it was too late. She was already poisoned. Farmer Mike rushed Lucy to the hospital.

He brought her home, even though she still had a fever. Everyone, Jews and people who are not Jewish, all know that the best cure for everything, especially a fever, is chicken soup. So, Farmer Mike had no choice but to take his hatchet to the farmyard to obtain the soup’s main ingredient.

Lucy ate some of the soup. But she was too sick to eat very much of it. Her sickness continued. Good friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. Farmer Mike had to feed them. But with what? The farmer had to butcher the pig to feed the people who visited Lucy.

Mrs. Lucy, the farmer’s wife, still did not get well. In fact, she died. So many people came for her funeral that Mike, the farmer had to slaughter the cow in order to provide meat for all of them to eat.

Just think what would have happened in the first place had the chicken, the pig, the cow, and other animals reached out to help the mouse to avoid getting trapped.

Was the mouse’s problem really not going to affect anyone but that mouse?

Isn’t it true that when the least of us is threatened, we are all at risk?

My story – Excerpt from my book:

The Tulips

I am eight years old and I see beautiful, tall tulips growing on the side of a house on our block. I do not realize that they are the pride of the woman who planted them. I have zero awareness of the fact that they belong to anyone but G-d. I look at how pretty they are and I pick them and give them to my mother to show her I love her, and probably to get her to love me.

While in my room, both my mother and father come at me with great anger and beat me and beat me. They say because I picked the flowers. I did not know that it was wrong. I had no idea. No one ever explained.

As an adult, I look back and feel so badly for the lady whose flowers I took. But as a child, how could I know that?

Everyone Hears

Other times, I am beaten. I scrunch up my body with my arms over my face and my knees against my stomach, so that the blows cannot reach me.

I am screaming as loudly as I can.

Kicks, strap, fists, all at me. Broken bones, strap marks on my body, hurt feelings.

Screams and more screams.

All of the neighbors hear. They hear me screaming.

Everyone knows.

No one helps.

No-one questions what is happening to me, a little girl in that house.

No one protects me.

People think it is none of their business.

I go to Dr. Brandstein, whose office is on the next block. He tells me I need to see an orthopedic doctor who can fix my broken bones. How can I go? I don’t know how. I hurt and eventually the pain is less.

Was I really no one else’s problem? Was I really none of their business?

How different are these stories from the reasons we lost our second temple?

There was a wedding. Someone got hurt. Someone was shamed, thrown out. No one spoke up. It was as if the people who heard Bar Kamtza being publicly humiliated were accustomed to hearing people being treated like that. The Gomorrah (Gittin 56a) tells us that even the sages heard the mistreatment and did nothing. No one was shocked. But, they should have been.

And, of course, it was none of their business.

What do we do today when we hear a person cry? When we see a person hurt? When we feel a person’s need? What if it is a person we deem not very important? Do we hear beyond the words? Can we see beyond the smile? Do we care enough to really listen?

Do we make sure that each troubled person sees that s/he is not facing their worry alone?

May we correct this belief, that goes at least as far back as the Temple, that “it is none of my business.”

May we correct it in our time.

May we be open to hearing the screams of little children, and the screams of our neighbor, and even, and especially, the silent screams.

May we rush to their aid and kiss their boo boos.

May we get involved, knowing that we make a difference.

Copyright 2010 Chana Klein

Dear Chana,

Thank you for speaking at the ACO conference last weekend.  I’ve had the honor of reviewing your evaluations and I am thrilled to tell you that of all 15 evaluations submitted, you received the highest possible marks from virtually all of them! People were not only very inspired by your presentation; they adored you. I can attest to how wonderful your presentation was.  You were loving, brilliant, engaging.  Here’s what others had to say “amazing!” “Outstanding, fascinating, informative”.  “Loved Chana’s passion; it is infectious and opened an interest in ASD for me.”  “Great! Brilliant, so much new information!”

Chana, you are a well-loved presenter and person.  I’m delighted to call you my friend and proud to be considered your colleague.  You’re magnificent.  We welcome you to present again at a future ACO conference.  You truly helped us raise the bar for all of us. We are most grateful.

With Appreciation and Respect,

Viveca Monahan PCC
2010 ACO Conference Chair