Lazer Beams

Dealing with insult

If we knew the blessings that happily accepting an insult (especially from our wives!) invokes, we'd beg for insults. See here:

Anger part 3 - How to come home at the end of the day

First of all, we apologize for the faulty Beams transmission yesterday; our server, Sixapart-Typepad, had a massive power outage it its main facility in San Francisco. That's par for the course on Tisha B'av, and all for the best. Baruch Hashem, everything is back up and operating.

Here's part 3 of this week's anger series; today's clip is a short 4-minute coaching session taching a husband how to come home at the end of the day. Internalize this lesson, and it'll make a big difference in your marriage.

No More Anger - part 1

Many people are asking why I've been quiet on current events lately. Truthfully, I'm a lot less concerned with Achmedinejad, Assad, and Abu Mazen than I am with the dog-eat-dog way people treat one another. No enemy of Israel can harm a Jew until one Jew harms another. That's why we here at the Beams, thanks to our wonderful Emuna Outreach crew in Bet Shemesh, are devoting this week to uprooting anger. As soon as we do, our enemies will fall on their faces - wait and see. Enjoy the series and have a good week.

POW's PTSD - the living dead

Today is Israel's Memorial Day; for some, it's theoretical. For many of us, it's a day of opening up old wounds and 24 hours of tears in the eyes. Sorry, but I can't be responsible for typos in today's post, because it's hard to type through a film of glistening eyes. Mount Hermon in 1973 awakens from its slumbering corner in a deep compartment of my memory. So does the Litani Mission in 1978 and Beirut in 1982. Beirut sounds like "Et tu, Brute" - more fallen comrades, more cemetaries to visit.

We all honor the cherished memory of the fallen martyrs who sacrificed their lives so valiantly, so that Jews can safely walk the face of the Holy Land.

Few people know about the living dead: No one honors them. Few care. These are Israel's combat veterans that suffer from PTSD - Post Trauma Stress Disorder. Let me tell you about one, a special forces veteran from my old unit, that spent 4 months as a POW in Syria after having falling captive in the attack on Mount Hermon in 1973.

My buddy "Yuval", a kibbutznik, like an estimated 40 percent of the Yom Kippur War prisoners suffers from PTSD. The symptoms include sleeplessness, flashbacks, tension and nervousness, paranoia, panic attacks, concentration problems, social and emotional detachment, relationship difficulties, and inability to hold a job. Yuval, divorced and what you'd call a social misfit, gets stoned before he can fall asleep.

Last year, I visited Yuval in his kibbutz. Because of Israeli polarization and stereotypes, they wouldn't let me in the front gate until Yuval told the amazed gatekeeper that I'm his former army buddy. His two-room apartment had a strange smell of spoiled food; I noticed pieces of sandwiches stashed in every corner. He is forever anxious that he won't have enough food to eat.

PTSD has been known since World War I — when it was called ’shellshock’ or ’trench neurosis’ — but it was only after the Vietnam War that the condition received wide recognition, even here in Israel. The condition has become increasingly common here since 1973.

Being a prisoner of war exposes a person to an intense and continuing state of threat, constant tribulations and torture, and a destruction of one's human image as well as one’s belief in one’s self.

In my humble opinion, The Defense Ministry rehab psychologists just don't have the tools to give the PTSD vet what he needs, as in the case of poor Yuval. As a combat vet and an emotional therapist whose tools are the teachings of Torah, I maintain that the only way to overcome PTSD is through faith and spiritual awareness.

Yuval said to me, "Lazer - I'm glad to see you. But don't preach tshuva to me - I don't want to hear about you or your G-d. Where was He when they beat the sh_t outa me every night in interrogation?"

Right at your side, Yuval - He never left you for a moment. Yuval asks questions, but he doesn't want to hear my answers.

Emuna has the answers that Yuval needs for his emotional, mental, and spiritual health. Yet, his kibbutz upbringing has conditioned him to disdain the sight of a black hat more than he disdains the sight of a kafiya. It's a tragedy. If you check around the Defense Ministry rehab clinics, you'll find that the number of religious former POW's that suffer from PTSD is almost nil.

PTSD is a living death; my heart goes out to the IDF vets that suffer from it. Yet, there's a cure - tshuva and emuna. I've seen Rav Shalom Arush, himself a former elite-unit combat vet, help several veterans beat the PTSD rap. With emuna, there's hope for the living dead.