"Secrets of the Soul" beckoned to me from a shelf in one of
Jerusalem's finest Jewish book stores, inviting me to take a
fascinating journey into the rich inner world of nonverbal,
non-literate special children. It called me to discover the
startling spiritual messages revealed by means of
Facilitated Communication, a new method for communicating
with the mentally disabled. The warm endorsements of some of
the most illustrious gedolei Yisroel who feel that
the astounding, searing messages of these children should be
taken to heart by all of us, assured me that this book
wasn't science-fiction but truth, black on white.
The very moment I began reading, I knew that a tremendous
adventure awaited me. How could I not feel that way, when
the book opens with a haunting, most unusual message,
composed by an autistic child named Menachem. "Everyone
knows my name. I am the sadness of your soul. I am the
broken heart which brings you closer to the Redemption. I am
the embodiment of Hashem's rachmonus toward you. You
need me. Our generation needs Menachem. You need many like
me to mitigate the terrible sentence which hovers over our
heads. A broken person with a broken heart searches for
Hashem."
While I don't know any autistic children named Menachem, I
do know an autistic little girl named Rina who lives across
the street from me, and a CP child named Yossi, three houses
away. Come to think of it, nearly every morning I see a
group of four mentally disabled children trudging down the
block, accompanied by five counselors -- four to control the
children, the fifth to ward off the curious eyes of
passersby who still don't know that Menachem is the sadness
of their souls, and that they need him.
Do Rina and Yossi, who seem trapped in wordless prisons,
unable to express themselves except by unruly, unsociable
behavior, feel like Menachem? Do they also sense that they
are the sadness of our souls?
"I have to read on," I told myself.
Although the purpose of the author of "Secrets of the Soul",
Rabbi Yehuda Srevnik, a noted scientist, Torah lecturer and
ram in a yeshiva, is to explain Facilitated
Communication from a scientific, religious, sociological and
educational point of view, the book doesn't read like a text
book but rather like an exciting novel which transports us
into the realm of the soul -- that pure and untainted Divine
entity which Hashem has placed into each and every one of
us.
Actually, as I read through the book, I realized that the
mentally disabled are, by means of FC, not only opening
windows to their pure souls, but also to the souls of each
and every one of us. After reading the poignant and stirring
dialogues of these children, I understood that we, the able
bodied, may learn much about the power of our own souls by
lending an ear to the 'disabled'.
Deftly, and in an amazingly thorough manner, Rabbi Srevnik
refutes the allegations of the scientific disclaimers of FC,
one by one, presenting solid, documented proofs of the
validty of FC. By the same token, he presents a lucid Torah
view of this phenomenon, basing himself on the insights of
some of our greatest sages, among them R' Yonoson Eibshitz
and R' Eliyohu Dessler.
When FC first appeared on the scene, many felt that the
childen were merely repeating the thoughts of their
facilitators. Rabbi Srevnik demolishes this theory very
systematically and clearly. However, anyone reading the
dialogues, vignettes and essays presented in this book, will
immediately realize that the thoughts of the children
originate in their own minds. The touching dialogues and
vignettes speak for themselves, like this one about
Rivky:
"Rivky is currently eight years old. She suffers from a
serious case of CP. Rivky refuses to live in the residential
facility in which she is registered. She claims that she has
nothing to do there and feels out of place. She is treated
like a baby, when she is really interested in studying
Torah. At home, she asks her family to help her skim through
sifrei kodesh, indicating to them which one she wants
to study. She even advises them in which store to purchase
the sefer! She also insists on being taken to the
lectures of great rabbis. When her parents demanded that she
return to the residential facility like all of the other CP
children, she staged a hunger strike. Of course, the
facility wasn't willing to assume responsibility for a child
who doesn't eat, and her parents were forced to keep her at
home. Whenever the members of her family are lax in a
particular area in Yiddishkeit, she rebukes them and makes
certain that a high ethical level prevails in her home.
"Once, when her mother was on the telephone, she heard
screaming. The mother asked her daughter Miriam, who knew
how to facilitate, to find out what was wrong. It soon
became clear that the mother had spoken loshon hora
and that Rivky was trying to prevent her from continuing the
conversation. Rivky wrote: `Ima, stop talking right now.
You're speaking loshon hora.' Obviously, neither
Rivky's hands nor thoughts were being guided by anyone but
herself."
For whom is this book intended? It is hoped that when
parents with disabled children read about FC's benefits,
they, too, will be helped, and both they and their children
will be given new leases on life. However, our gedolei
Yisroel regard the messages in this book as having
further reaching ramifications, with pertinence for all of
us. In his endorsement of the Hebrew book, R' Nosson
Wachtfogel, zt'l, the Mashgiach of Beth Medrash
Govoha of America in Lakewood, wrote: "The Creator, Blessed
be He, pitied His nation and in His vast kindness, sent us a
means for arousing people from their deep slumber, in the
form of Facilitated Communication." The great gaon,
R' Aharon Yehuda Leib Steinman shlita, personally
told the author of the book that FC is a manifestation of
Divine compassion meant to arouse the slumbering... and is a
means for strengthening bnei Torah."
Sadly, this book is timely. Why do we say `sadly'? In their
essays, many of which are presented verbatim, the children
stress that we are living in difficult times and must do
tshuva. We wish we weren't living in such difficult
times. But "eis tzoro hu l'Yaakov umimena yivosheia."
Following is a compelling message written by an autistic boy
named Yossi:
"It strikes me funny that precisely autistic children have
to tell regular people something that is so clear. It's
really a shame. Hashem sends so many messages. But who
listens... The religious Jews receive messages on a daily
basis. Every day young people die. Every day more children
are orphaned. How many sick people must there be? How many
widows? How many widowers? How many children have strayed
from the Torah way of life? How many bizarre tragedies? How
many? How many? How many? How many couples suffer from
sholom bayis problems? How many? The numbers are
incredible. Yet we don't understand that these are messages -
clear messages. We must scrutinize ourselves, and not point
to others. Everyone must examine himself and his social
circle, because something is wrong."
I could go on and on describing the vast treasures I found
in this book, issuing not from the mouths or the pens of the
mentally disabled, but from their pure souls. But then I
would have to write a book, and not a succinct book review.
I urge you, then, to read "Secrets of the Soul." You will
never be the same - only better!
NOTE: All the dialogues in this book are authentic. Its
author has precise records of the names of the children who
authored the messages, and the names of the facilitators
involved in all of the FC sessions. Among the subheadings in
this comprehensive book are: "How Did FC Begin?"; "Unique
Capacities of Special Children"; "The Controversy"; "Court
Verdict"; "Scientific Theory Toppled by an Infant"; "Torah's
Light Burns Forever" and "Startling Implications of FC" by
Rabbi Yechiel Sitzman, a leading expert on FC. Among the
exciting features it contains are accounts of the past lives
of these children as written by the children themselves;
interviews with a CP child named Galia, which open with
"Ima, I love you"; profound essays written by a unique
autistic young man named Ben Golden, and interviews with
children in Pisgat Yehuda, a special yeshiva for autistic
children.
"Secrets of the Soul" is currently available at good Jewish
bookstores.
