Let’s end this pain of exclusion

Let’s end this pain of exclusion

By Harav Y. R. Rubin Shlita

It’s in the eyes, the sadness and the sense of despair. Young people, our children, excluded, lost, unwanted; their eyes tell it all. We talk about the problems, write long articles in all the right magazines, yet we don’t act, and so the pain grows with no sense of hope. You must ask yourself: where are the eyes, the eyes with the will to see?

The numbers of children excluded from our schools grows; whole families are left devastated, yet all we offer is a sigh and silently beg Hashem that we never have to suffer such pain. Last week a father ended his own life after learning his five year old daughter had no place in a school. The story was “live” for a day or so, part of something called a “news cycle” which describes the length of time a subject can hold the interest of readers. A few days passed and we were on to the next story. A life gone, and a child left orphaned, yet we somehow find it possible to move on.

 

“Have we allowed our neshomas to become hardened to such an extent that we no longer feel?”

 

Let me fill the reader in on some of the latest studies on the subject of exclusion.  Doctor Kipling Williams writes in his book, The Pain of Exclusion: “our need to matter and our need to belong are as fundamental as our need to eat and breathe. Therefore, ostracism, rejection, silence, exclusion, are some of the most powerful punishments that one person can inflict on another. Brain scans have shown that this rejection is actually experienced as physical pain, and that this pain is experienced whether those who reject us are close friends, family or total strangers, and whether the act is overt exclusion or merely looking away.”

 

Psychologists Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary argued in a paper in 1995 that belonging to a group was a need, not a desire or preference, and when thwarted, leads to psychological and physical illness. It seems that telling parents that their kids aren’t the right fit for a school causes more damage than we ever imagined. Except in truth it never took much imagination to understand this, just a particular bad case of emotional blindness.

Let’s take this beyond the school years to the stage of maturity. Many Yidden go to shul regularly, attend shiurim, even go to simchas, but they don’t feel they belong to any group. There is much snobbery in our frum world, and being it is a time for spiritual reflection now, it is appropriate to address this issue.  There is some sort of invisible pact some have that they will only accept those who dress like them, think like them and have come from the same background.  Hence, many people conduct their lives with no real attachments to their community, excluded for no reason other than small mindedness. You can go to some shuls and daven, leave and never even be greeted. Let us remember that in the times of the early Chassidim the typical Chassidic gathering was made up of a diverse group of neshomas: there were horse cart drivers, stevedores, Rabbonim, kollel members and professionals, all sitting at one table singing one niggun and hearing one Rebbe. Today we are happy to be nostalgic about olden times, yet without accepting the inclusiveness of our forefathers.

We are all preparing for the Days of Awe of Rosh Hashonoh and Yom Kippur. We will ask Hashem to notice us, grant us a future and give us of His bounty. Yet, we enter into these holy days with our eyes blinded from seeing all those who are being excluded from our midst. I have written on this painful subject before, and suspect I may have to do so in the future. What I find sad is that many will thank me for these words, feel better because someone is saying something, yet nothing will change. Kids will still be driven onto the streets because they were not made to feel they count. Adult Yidden, sweet caring souls, will go on living in isolation because they sense that no one cares.

I walk the streets on Shabbos in a city which is statistically the fastest growing Torah community in Europe. I do so with a shtriemel on my head and a long bekesha, yet although I will make it a point to greet every passer-by with a “Gut Shabbos” there will be those who will not answer. A few may be shy, others, well, they just don’t feel it necessary to include me into their world. Rosh Hashonoh is about creating the circumstances where the entire world can be bound together in their acclamation of Hashem’s Sovereignty over us all. Yet we exclude so many, and do so for the flimsiest of reasons. As the Pnei Menachem of Ger ztl used to say, “Alla Yidden zenen hielig”, “all Jews are Holy.”

So what justification do we have for snubbing another person? How is it possible that we daven in the morning, learn our Daf, even say a few chapters of Tehillim, yet we do nothing about this aching festering sore? Is it because we have been given a “Compassion By Pass”? Have we allowed our neshomas to become hardened to such an extent that we no longer feel? Or, are we just too busy with our own small world and can’t make room for others.

I know I stand on a soap box, one well-trodden by others. No matter, we must not give up crying. Those eyes haunt me, and they should haunt us all. The tears of rejection must sting our souls, or we risk losing even more holy neshomas. Let us beseech Hashem this Yom Tov for our total Redemption, one that will of necessity include all of Klal Yisroel.

Permit me if you will to come down now from my soap box and wish all of my loyal readers a Kesiva Vechasima Tova and thank you for your patience in reading this missive.