Every now and again we meet real goodness. Such is the
situation with Shevi Gura, nee Wittow, whose story was
published in Hebrew three years ago, shortly after her
passing, and which has now finally been made available to the
English-reading public in a book entitled, No Different
Than You: Shevi's Story.
A reviewer should judge a book on its own merits but it is
difficult in my case, since I have known the Wittow family
for well over thirty years, and knew Shevi literally from the
beginning, from the day she was born -- when her mother
Hannah and I were in the hospital together, she recuperating
from the births of her twins, Bashi (tlch'a) and the
late Shevi z'l, and I, recovering from the birth of
our oldest son. Anyone with the slightest familiarity with
the family will be aware of its members' positive view of
life, their good humor and the shimush talmidei
chachomim -- something that Chazal say is greater even
than learning from the talmid chochom -- and these
aspects of their existence shine through the pages of Shevi's
story.
But a publication is for the reader, and it is from the
readers' angle that we must look at this biography.
Perhaps its most salient lesson is how a person who looks
different -- but was not created one whit different `inside' -
- feels about the way s/he is treated. It is too late for
Shevi, but it is not too late for others. Shevi had a kidney
condition that was not apparent to the casual onlooker, but
her shortness in stature was obvious to all.
One lesson all mothers and fathers must learn from this book
is to teach their children not to be cruel to the child who
is blind, deaf, lame or mute, who has an accent or stutters,
who has difficulties with certain school subjects, who is
taller than average, shorter than others, fatter than most,
thinner than the usual, who has a crooked nose or looks
somehow different in some way or other, or who is simply the
new boy or girl at school.
This review is not intended to be a story of my own life, but
I feel I must digress at this point and mention that I am
unmusical. This is a very minor disability, as disabilities
go, but I recall my deep hurt as a child when people laughed
when I sang off key. Probably only very few people mocked me -
- I no longer recall -- but it seemed like it was everybody.
I thus can identify just a tiny bit with Shevi's sufferings
at the way people made fun of her.
It is hard for an onlooker to know how to behave when loving
naturalness is what is called for. However, knowledge of how
to behave with a person who looks different is a midda
we must all develop. To care without looking commiserating,
to display understanding without coming across as
patronizing, and to accept the person for whom s/he really
is.
"Everything comes from Heaven, besides the fear of Heaven."
Shevi was not created different inside, but she became
different inside. She developed a giant personality. Among
her special facilities was an ability to put herself in the
place of others who were different. For example: when working
in a nursery school, she insisted that a physically
handicapped youngster should not miss out on activities and
took the personal responsibility that enabled the little girl
to join a class excursion. Shevi also possessed an additional
special midda: the capacity to identify with what
other people were enduring on her behalf. She didn't let on
to her mother how very painful some of the medical procedures
were, so that her mother should not suffer, and she provided
encouragement to fellow patients she met in the various
hospitals to which she was admitted.
The very this-world pain Shevi underwent was combined with an
otherworldliness that typifies her family. The book states in
connection with one of her kidney transplants, "It had been
such an enervating, harrowing, painful procedure that Shevi
had momentarily forgotten her concern about the results...
When they told her the good news, she... felt a wave of
happiness well up within her and fill her pain- racked
body.
" `My kidney is working... Please, Hashem, You who search
man's kidneys and heart, please watch over my new kidney...
let it filter my blood... and I... I promise I'll filter all
my deeds...' "
After reading this, can any of us take our own kidneys for
granted again?
But not many weeks afterwards, Shevi was found crying,
"Mommy, I was thinking about little Tali who is still in the
dialysis ward... It's so hard to think that I am healthy now
and Tali... still has to have dialysis all the time."
On another occasion, Shevi made herself stop crying. The
family was at a wedding and a child said, "Ooooh, see the
midget. Isn't she funny looking?" The little girls around
this child laughed, and Shevi was mortified. She wanted to go
home. Shevi's mother said, "If you go, I'm going too."
Shevi's sister, Esther, asked her to "Please stay for Mommy's
sake." Esther knew Shevi. This argument -- that she should do
something for someone else's sake, especially her mother's --
was bound to work with her.
Shevi lived for 27 wonderful but difficult years, years of
pain and suffering, of love and inspiration, and of avodas
Hashem. The numerical value of 27, it is pointed out in
the appendix, is zach, pure. Both people who were
privileged to know Shevi personally and those who meet her in
the biography written by her sister, will know what it is to
encounter purity and pure righteousness.
