Thank you for Esther Solomon Z’L Award
Judith Sandra Bendheim Guedalia, PhD.
Before I begin I would like to say *SheHechiyanu ve kiimanu VeHigianu Laa Zman HaZeh. *
I am truly honored to be a recipient of the Esther Solomon z”l award.
Coming from Israel to the Nefesh Conferences, I always came the night before to get my ‘land legs’ so to speak. Frequently that meant helping out with last minute gluing, stuffing, etc. on the floor with my swimming Chavruta, Esther Solomon.
The women’s swim was at 7 am and Esther and I would be there with another few stalwarts. After doing our laps we would chat, Esther always had great ideas for Shiduchim and made quite a few. I was less fortunate having made just one shidduch, but I benefitted from the ones that she made. Esther made a SINGLE condition for A Shidduch, a trip to Israel, and we would have coffee or lunch on my ‘home turf’ celebrating each of her successes. May we all be Zocheh to follow in her footsteps and be at Hashem’s service and be Mezaveg Zevugim, join souls.
I received the call telling me of the award just minutes after another fateful call, that one informing me that my latest CT had come back with not such good news, the cancer that was discovered a year ago and excised AND Chemo-ed, was back full force and had succeeded in making a new tumor.
My first reaction was I don't want to get the award of the best Nebbish Story of the conference. I was assured that the committee had me on the short list for three years already, well before I was ill, and that now I was the natural shoe- in.
Once hearing that, which happened to be the day after the Nobel Prize was awarded and retracted because the recipient had croaked three days previously; I said "No Backsies".
I was again assured that that would be the case. Parenthetically, the Nobel Awards committee did reinstate Professor Ralph Steinman z”l’s, Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.
And now for the difficult part; the previous honorees were, as you all know, Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski, Rav Dovid Cohen, Rabbi Dr. David Pelcovitz and Reb Ronnie Greenwald. I recalled the song from Sesame Street: "One of these things is not like the others", ME! If I was to accept the reward I had a lot of responsibility to future FEMALE recipients.
1- One, they don't all have to have a Chronic Terminal Illness;
2- Two they don't have to wear Black Suits and white accessories, and three…
3- to quote Perry, the Republican hopeful, I forget what Number three is…
What should I wear, and of similar importance, what would I say?!? Just being here today took a tremendous toll, not just on me but also on my family and my beloved husband, Rabbi Dr. Harris Guedalia. Hashem aligned the stars and moons and even as I write this I am not quite sure how and if my attendance will work out.
This time, I diagnosed the cancer recurrence on Rosh Hashana, and finagled a CT Scan immediately following the Chag which confirmed a tumor a day later. There were many ‘Sefarot’ what would be the best way to treat it. Most Docs said Surgery was out of the Question, rather Shrink it with Chemo and then surgically remove it; or the trickier more risky way, do surgery first and then do the Chemo to ensure that the little buggers will not return any time soon.
Most of the doctors in Israel and the States to whom we spoke were not in favor of doing the surgery first. But how could I let this unwanted ‘guest’ live in Me for months before evicting it??? I wanted it O-U-T, and OUT as soon as possible, before it could grow a millimeter larger. The surgeon who operated on me 15 months before in NY, when the wretched disease was first identified (by me), said he could do the surgery and felt that doing it immediately was the way to go. I had it O-U-T in New York, the day after Sukkot. Both times I had no symptoms and my blood tests were just dandy. My main ‘complaint’ was stubborn constipation; even as the bowel system seemed to independently work alright.
Since the surgeries, last year’s and now this one, the Beracha I say with the most Kavana is ‘Asher Yazar’. The more I looked into the meaning of this Beracha, the more I felt that it is an all-encompassing special prayer that was so much deeper than its mere literal translation, a Beracha with a message that we, as Torah True Mental Health Professionals, need to integrate into our personal and professional lives.
When Theodore Reik spoke of the Listening with the Third Ear, he described how psychoanalysts intuitively use their own unconscious minds to detect, decode and decipher the unconscious wishes and fantasies of their patients.
When talking to my son David about the ‘Gadlous’ of the *Asher Yazar Beracha* for its psychological insight, I noted that I visualize Hashem sitting on-high, permitting and allowing our soma and stoma to receive and express so much more than the peristaltic flotsam of basic day-to-day life. The sharpened awareness of ‘what’s going on’ is the essence of true communication with ourselves, with others, and of course with our Creator. My son David mentioned that I should look up the Queen of Sheba’s riddles to King Solomon in Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews. He was right,
Here is riddle number 7 (pg. 147).
The Queen of Sheba poses this riddle: “There is an enclosure with ten doors, when one is open, nine are shut; when nine are open, one is shut.”
King Solomon responded:
“That enclosure is the womb; the ten doors are the ten orifices of man—his eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, the apertures for the discharge of the excreta and urine; the navel is open and the other orifices are closed, but when it issues from the womb,(i.e. the child is born) the navel is closed and the other ‘doors’ are opened.”
This might be a weird association but I felt it was ‘Right-ON’ the mark as a segue for my speech this afternoon. Leah Abramovitz and I attended our first International Nefesh Conference 13 years ago, we both felt that with Nefesh International as our mother ship, our placenta as it were, connecting and nurturing us, we could attempt birthing Nefesh Israel. Rabbi Dr. Mordechai Glick and his wife Nina, the then Presidential pair, and all the Board members were very positive that our endeavor was possible, and so began the nascence of Nefesh Israel. Today the proof of the pudding is in the eating, with an attendance of around three hundred Torah True Mental Health Professional a day at our two day conferences, and scores at our year round lecture series, Nefesh Israel is more than off the ground, its flying! This year on FEB 8TH and 9TH 2012 we are having our ‘Bat Mitzvah’ Celebration, our 12th ANNUAL ISRAEL NEFESH CONFERENCE.
Thank you again, awards committee and Nefeshers for bestowing on me the Esther Solomon z”l award and as such recognizing Nefesh International’s role in the birthing and nurturing of Nefesh Israel. The ListServ which was ‘developed and set afloat’ in Israel under the combined stewardship of Elana Walhaus and myself and later spun off into two, Nefesh International ListServ, under Rabbi Dr. Mordechai Glick’s and now supplemented with Dr. Abe Worenklein’s able leadership, and the Nefesh Israel ListServ. Both are entities which have joined our world of Torah True Mental Health Professionals intergalactically as we would never have imagined possible.
To Sum up,
Blessed art Thou, Lord our Gd, Ruler of the universe. In wisdom Thou hast formed man, creating within him channels innumerable. In Thy sublimity Thou knowest that were they rent (torn) or obstructed we could not subsist even for a short while. Blessed art Thou, Lord who workest the miracle of healing for all flesh. (Dr. David de Sola Pool’s translation of Asher Yatzar)
I will loosely translate it for us today, and the present and future Torah True Mental Health Professionals:
Blessed is Hashem whose wisdom abounds and created within us many channels for getting in and releasing ‘stuff’ that we and others, our patients for example, carry about. Channels of Spiritual, Secular and Humanistic communication. Most importantly You have taught us the importance of releasing and clearing these channels so that we will be available to exist as healthy individuals doing and working for ourselves, our families and Klall Yisrael.
That is my prayer to us all, keep the lines of communication open, learn from one another, and enjoy LIFE and WORK in that order.
Thank you.
Judith Guedalia, PhD. Director, Neuropsychology Unit Chief Psychologist, Certified in ADOS Assessment Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel guedalia at szmc.org.il
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