Recap: Michal has asked the Rov to put the divorce proceedings on hold.
When you just need someone to hold your hand…
“Tell me, Ima,” she said hesitantly, “about the divorce…”
Ima finally looked up from the sefer. (prayer book)
“Are you certain that we have to do it?”
“Are you crazy or what?” Ima was taken aback.
“Yes. I told the to’en (Rabbinic advisor), Rav Moshe, to put it on the back burner. I want to check out a few things.”
“What is there to check out?”
“I spoke with Elchanan.”
“What? How?”
He’d called her yesterday, just when she got back from work.
In her cell phone, his number was saved under the name “my brand-new husband,” something amusing she’d done two days before the wedding. Now, her “brand-new husband” called and he spoke so nicely. He asked forgiveness and asked to explain what had happened.
“You tricked us,” Michal said laconically. “It’s simply a mekach ta’ut (transaction based on misinformation) .”
“Not really,” he said, his voice breaking, literally. “I wasn’t diagnosed until now.”
“What do you mean, not diagnosed?” Michal got angry. “The psychiatrist knew you well!”
“True,” he said. “He knew me from a specific incident that took place…”
And he told her about that day, two years earlier, when he found himself at the scene of a terrorist attack in Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) and, against his will, was witness to unspeakable horrors.
“I went back to yeshiva, headed for my room, lay down in my bed, and couldn’t function,” he related. His sentences were complete, but his voice was crushed. “Everyone was certain that it was because of the terrorist attack. They sent me for psychological therapy, but it didn’t help. I continued lying in bed, while scenes of the attack appeared in my mind, pictures of the terrorist cruelly plunging his knife… I couldn’t get out of it. Nobody blamed it on anything other than the trauma. Even the psychiatrist. But I, I couldn’t get out of it until the psychiatrist treated me… We all attributed it to the terrorist attack. Wouldn’t you have thought the same?”
Michal admitted inside that, yes, she would.
“And then, what?” he asked.
“After that, I got back to myself in a big way! I was shteiging (growing spiritually) away and I felt fantastic. When I got to shidduchim (dating to find a wife) , I went to the Rosh Yeshiva (head of the Yeshiva) and asked if I have to report the incident. He weighed the matter and looked into it and then responded that since it was a one-time thing, I didn’t have to mention it. It could happen to anyone. But Michal, something apparently collapsed inside me then, and opened a window to problems that must have been hidden inside me from before. I was never diagnosed with mental illness. Once in a while, I’d experience mild depression or bad moods, but nothing regular or unusual. Michal, I’m begging you. Please look into it. Maybe Ezer Mizion. They’re very knowledgeable. And they have a very big Mental Health Division. To be continued.
