"I heard an interesting story today," Boaz tells me. "To tell
the truth, I myself don't believe that this really happened,
but I thought you might be interested in hearing it." Boaz
does not wait for my green light but launches right in.
*
This is about a young man who needed psychiatric treatment
because of a strange habit of his. When proceeding down the
street, he compulsively had to walk in the gutter and not on
the sidewalk. It all dated back to something in his
childhood. One of the games he and his friends played forbade
them from walking on the cracks. "Walk on the crack, break
your mother's back." If you stepped on the crack, you got a
bad point. When he went to school or even went out on an
errand for his mother, he was careful not to step on the
cracks, even if his friends weren't around.
Years passed and he grew up -- but his manner of walking did
not change. He realized that this habit was liable to draw
negative attention towards him, so he made sure to hide it by
various means.
It became second nature with him and this nature seemed to
fetter his feet. His feet automatically proceeded according
to the rules of his childhood game. He never told anyone
about it and never consulted anyone about ridding himself of
this compulsive habit and returning to a normal manner of
perambulation.
The problem became more acute when the municipality decided
to pave the sidewalks with smaller colored stone slabs, which
made it impossible to walk without stepping on the cracks. At
this point, he began making detours via streets that still
had the old kind of pavements, but as these became fewer and
fewer, the only solution he could come up with was to walk in
the gutter. Here, there were no lines and the progress was
free, offering no mental or emotional dilemmas.
But precisely at this point, his compulsion emerged in the
open; it became common knowledge and the subject of
widespread talk. At this point, his family finally forced him
to seek psychiatric treatment.
*
"This is the story as I heard it," said Boaz. "What do you
say to it? I find it hard to believe that there are people
like that."
"I am familiar with several similar stories," I said. "For
example, one young fellow received a few cigarettes at the
bar mitzva of a friend. He smoked them and nearly choked, but
he had a strong desire to prove that he could do it. And that
was the beginning. Today he is 17 and a regular chain smoker.
But since he has no money to buy cigarettes, he must degrade
himself terribly, by mooching them and even scavaging for
discarded stubs. But he simply can't help himself. He needs
help to wean himself from the terrible habit."
"But that's something different," argues Boaz. "Smoking and
such things are not just habits. They are physical
addictions. The body has become conditioned to them and
craves them intensely."
"You are right to a certain degree," I conceded. "But the
smokers I know are able to survive each Shabbos in spite of
their addiction. Someone I know even went through an entire
Pesach without cigarettes after hearing of a possibility of
chometz in them. So we must conclude that the problem
is not physical at all, or at least not completely
physical."
The subject of habit from a young age is deeply imbedded in
the behavioral workings of a person which can be categorized
as chinuch. Training a child at a young age creates
patterns of behavior and channels of relationships which
become so deepset as to remain with him for all time. Nor
will he part from them.
They humorously say that an elderly meshumod once
confessed that he had forgotten all Jewish customs and
practices. There was one practice, however, which was so
ingrained that he could not rid himself of it. Whenever he
would pass by a church, he would involuntarily mumble under
his breath, "Shaketz teshaktzenu . . . cheirem hu . . .
-- it is anathema . . . "
We find an example of the indoctrination of an attitude from
a kibbutz member who became a baal teshuvoh. He
emerged from the kibbutz school system filled with a
prejudicial fear and revulsion towards bearded, `benighted'
chareidim. He had been conditioned to keep a healthy distance
from them. He had never seen one up close, or even spoken to
an observant Jew.
At the age of twenty-five, when he was already outside the
kibbutz, he was given an address to go to in order to provide
a service to a customer. When the door was opened by a
bearded Jew, he instinctively recoiled and would have bolted,
but logic told him to stand his ground for the sake of his
job. This is an example of the tremendous power of the
dictum, "Train a child . . . " even though in this case, sad
to say, the emotional indoctrination exerted upon him for so
many years was based on lies and was employed in so negative
a manner.
For a positive example, we shall take the case of a Jew who
refrained from taking his small children along with him to
shul to avoid their becoming used to the idea that
this was a place for games and fooling around. This attitude,
he felt, would be too difficult to uproot in later years, in
order to be replaced by a sense of reverence and awe.
Training creates habits and anchors them down; it builds
attitudes and embeds them deeply in the foundations of the
soul.
Chinuch also creates shackles. When these shackles are
negative, they are a disaster for the protege, for they
handicap him. But there are chains which are good and
desirable. Take a child who cannot take something in his
mouth without reciting a blessing, or one who is incapable of
speaking disrespectfully to an older person. He also feels
uncomfortable if his hands require washing, and lifting a
hand to strike someone in anger and violence is altogether
out of the question.
Blessed are the parents who succeed in imposing such
emotional fetters and deterrents upon their children. Up to
their old and hoary age, these shackles and limitations will
serve their masters without their having to utilize undue
effort for self restraint. The older these well-trained
children grow, the more they will be able to channel efforts
to attain higher levels of ethics and halachic observance,
and they will mature into more noble, valuable people.
"I once heard," said Boaz, "of a brilliant scientist who
became a baal teshuvoh at the age of thirty. He said
that he envied the simple, forthright approach of one who
sees the lovingkindness of Hashem and His wonders as
reflected in the prayers Yotzer or and Rofeh kol
bosor umafli la'asos, who relates simplistically to, "Who
restores souls to dead corpses" and so on. As for himself, as
a result of his scientific knowledge and his training from
childhood in logical thinking and seeking a rational
explanation for everything that takes place in this world
from a scientific point of view, he felt he was losing out
and missing the innocent wonder towards the works of Hashem
and His marvelous conduct of this world. His cold analytic
way of thinking and observation interfered with a pure,
wholesome emotional approach."
"I think," I said, "that one can have the exact opposite
attitude. A person can marvel that the act of eating bread
and cheese can provide him with sustenance, health and
energy. But one who understands the amazing process of
digestion within the physical system, how food is broken down
and utilized for food for each living cell, each different
one according to its specific need, and how the wastes are
borne away from those cells, can marvel all the more at the
Divine wisdom of Hashem and His mercy. He can appreciate this
function and process infinitely more, precisely because of
his sophisticated understanding. And his love for Hashem will
increase commensurately."
"From generation to generation, Your works are praised." In
each generation, more and more Divine wisdom is discovered
and revealed in the conduct of the world, and the praise of
Hashem increases from the very deepening of our understanding
of its workings.
Our thanks and blessings towards Hashem are also augmented, "
. . . for all He created to sustain by them the spirit of
every living thing."
