Dei'ah veDibur - Information & Insight
  

A Window into the Chareidi World

23 Kislev 5761 - December 20, 2000 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
NEWS

OPINION
& COMMENT

HOME
& FAMILY

IN-DEPTH
FEATURES

VAAD HORABBONIM HAOLAMI LEINYONEI GIYUR

TOPICS IN THE NEWS

HOMEPAGE

 

Produced and housed by
Shema Yisrael Torah Network
Shema Yisrael Torah Network

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Home and Family
Hashem's Bounty
by Bruchie Laufer

A soft rustling sound was made by Mamel's full length skirt swishing about as she walked up the stone path to her front door.

Mamel was nobody's mother. That was just her name. Fifty years ago, she had been given that name, with the divine inspiration each parent receives upon naming their child. And yet, Mamel was everybody's Mama. Everyone within a few kilometers' radius knew that whenever you wanted to know what to do about certain ailments, you naturally turned to her. Mamel was well versed in herbs and their healing properties. She also knew which foods helped for specific problems. Why people were all but ignoring the wonderful ability we have to heal ourselves, without the aid of some pharmaceutical brand name, sometimes right on our kitchen shelf -- and much cheaper, was beyond her.

Mamel turned the key in the lock and gently pushed the door open. She deeply inhaled the pungent smells of various herbal concoctions she associated with the smells of home. While she busied herself packing away her latest purchases at the health food store, the phone rang. It was Mrs. Green from the apartment building on the left.

Yanki had a red eye and she wanted to know if there was anything natural that would heal it. "Yes, come over right away and I'll show you how to apply the warm milk treatment." Mamel filled the kettle with water and set it to boil in anticipation of Yanki and his red eye.

While the kettle whistled, Mamel filled a glass halfway with the boiling water. She then poured some milk into a disposable plastic cup which she placed inside the glass of boiling water. With the milk was warming, Mamel went about watering her plants which were cascading down from various pots hanging on both sides of her windows. The wind chimes tinkled and the curtains danced in delight, reveling in the refreshing breeze.

The doorbell rang and Yanki and his mother were duly welcomed into the country style kitchen. Depending on which way you looked at it, Mamel's home was either as refreshing as an oasis in the desert, or as incongruous as a corn field in the middle of the city. It was a one level little house located in the middle of a high rise neighborhood in Yerusholayim, which time had passed by since she had refused all offers to sell. To get to the front door, you walked through a gate, then on a winding stone path surrounded by overgrown trees and bushes, some resembling haphazard weeds, who, to the unitiated, looked like a hodge podge melange of careless Nature. To Mamel, however, each bush, shrub and tree was in the exact position that was best for optimal growth. And the roughly cobbled stone path was there for the reflexological exercise it provided her `clients' and friends every time they walked on it.

"Hello, Yanki," she said, smiling at her junior visitor first.

"We're going to give your eye a warm milk bath. I'm going to dip this piece of cotton into the milk and you touch it, here on the top side, to feel if it's not too hot."

A bashful smile from Yanki as he touched the soaked wad was his assent that it was not too hot. Leaving the decision up to him was Mamel's psychological method of involving the patient in his own healing, which was so important.

"Now we place this on your eye. Hold it there until all of the sand in the timer runs down." A huge timer, another important accessory to Mamel's holistic approach to children to get their minds off their aches, was placed on the table near Yanki, who watched it with keen interest with his unaffected eye.

"Mrs. Green, Yanki should have these milk baths for his eye at least three times today and tomorrow. By then, his eye should be completely better. Of course, if it isn't, you'll have to go to your doctor."

Mrs. Green thanked Mamel and headed for the door. Yanki tripped and some liquid in a little potpouri pot on the floor spilled out.

"That smells like vinegar. What do you use that for, Mamel?" Mrs. Green was fascinated by everything that Mamel did. She knew that there was always an interesting reason behind it.

"Oh, it's an excellent mosquito repellent. If you keep a cup of vinegar near each window, you will probably be bite free. And it's so cheap, too."

As Mrs. Green and Yanki waved good-bye following their thanks, the phone rang again.

It was Baila Sommers calling with good news, but she needed advice, as well. Her red blood count was low.

"Is there anything I can do to get it up quickly? I need all the strength I can muster for the nights and days ahead."

"Oh, yes! As a matter of fact, it will be excellent for your milk, as well."

Mamel then explained to Baila how she should juice a whole head of lettuce and drink the contents, to be repeated for four consecutive days. "Please G-d, you will feel much better and stronger."

When the phone rang again, Mamel instinctively knew it was Sheila! And she was right. Even before Mamel finished enunciating her "Hello" with the warmth she tried to convey each time, the voice on the other side was already enumerating aches and pains in a familiar whining voice.

"You must go to the dentist for a toothache, Sheila. There are things to take for temporary relief but nothing I can recommend that will fill your cavity," Mamel said firmly.

"But you don't understand. I want to do these things naturally. That's why I'm asking you. By the way, I just read that eating raisins is good for bronchitis. I made sure to eat 48 raisins three times a day, but the last time I ran out and only had 40. Do you think there might be some connection? Anyway, don't you always preach that man has to help himself?"

She wouldn't let up. For a whole week her knee had been acting up even after Mamel's ministrations, and she refused to expose herself to harmful x-rays. Which was one reason why she didn't go to dentists, either. It was anyone's guess if Sheila enjoyed feeling bad so that she'd have what to kvetch about.

Mamel knew that Sheila was sitting in the semi-dark right now because she wanted to use only natural light. Now, at dusk, she refrained from turning on the light until the last drop of sunlight had disappeared from the horizon. Even when it was night according to Rabbenu Tam, Sheila only turned on the light when there was absolutely no choice. She usually lit her aromatic candles made from beeswax because they were more natural. Anyone who was interested, and even people who weren't, were given lectures on why people living in Eretz Yisroel should drink only goat's milk and sweeten their food with honey. Not the regular bee honey, even though it might be natural, but date honey, which was more authentic. Mamel could just picture her now, wrapped up in an afghan: sweaters were too modern, reading with a big magnifying glass as opposed to eye glasses.

When Sheila had begun cooking macrobiotics, her neighbors stopped their occasional friendly visits, even though they had considered that a chessed. It was bad enough to put up with her accounts of aches and pains, and her other idiosyncrasies, but when eating cake became a sin, they just kept away. The first time Sheila offered them seaweed, and insisted on them trying some, instead of her rock-hard whole wheat health cookies, they thought she was playing some kind of joke. But all too soon, they realized she was sincerely trying to convince them to eat the green slimy stuff for their own good.

Until today, Mamel never tried talking about nature versus manmade, even though she was considered the local expert on the former. She thought it would be a waste of time. But now, after an entire week of hearing about various aches and pains, perhaps very legitimate, which were being neglected, she felt it was her duty to set Sheila straight.

"Sheila," she began hesitantly, "I want you to hear something new." She remembered that on Sheila's refrigerator there was a magnet that read, "Hear something new; it's good for you." Which somehow also fitted into Sheila's approach to life, of trying different remedies and picking up information on novel approaches to living a natural life.

"It's true that Hashem made such a wonderful world with many things built-in to help us for our aches and pains. Did it ever occur to you, though, that modern inventions and medicines also originated with them? Hashem gave man the power and imagination to come up with all of these things. He tuned Man in, so to speak, at different times in history, to these discoveries and inventions, like penicillin, in its time. When one thing doesn't help, it's time to try something new. I'm not saying that you should forget about natural methods and resources. I'd be the last to say that, you know. But at times, we have to use conventional methods as well. And who's to say that candles are less man-made than a light bulb?"

"Hmmm. I never thought about that," Sheila admitted thoughtfully. Mamel could feel that she had struck a chord in the always-ready-to-try-something-new side of Sheila.

"You may be right. You know, it just occurred to me that there may be a legitimate reason for that pharmacy next door to the health food place. And you know, it is kind of dark in here."

As she hung up the phone, Sheila switched on the light. "Sure is much brighter around here," she said out loud. She went next door to her neighbor to borrow an acamol for her toothache and then called up the dentist to make an appointment.

It took all of ten minutes (until it took effect) for a grateful Sheila to thank Hashem for His miracles of modern man made bounty.

 

All material on this site is copyrighted and its use is restricted.
Click here for conditions of use.