Swim Towards the Shark & R’eih

What is it that we are most afraid of looking at?

In what way do the things we are most afraid of looking at feel like curses?

And how can looking at them—straight on—transform what feels like a curse into a blessing?

I heard the most amazing story this week on This American Life. It was so good, and it impacted me so much, I made my husband listen to it.

The episode was about facing that which is the most scary, like swimming towards a shark that has just attacked someone to save the person.

Ira Glass asks, “Who does that?”

Truly, who does that? (And it’s a true story.)

But the story on the episode that impacted me most was of a woman who had suffered a concussion. She lost years of her children’s lives as she suffered through her recovery, unable to care for them in a normal way, allowing her husband to step in.

At every turn, doctors and friends advised her to avoid anything that might overwhelm her concussed brain and bring on a migraine: loud noises, loud conversation, loud lighting, supermarket shopping (with children, especially).

She couldn’t follow complex conversation, and retreated from normal life.

Until one day, she found a particular doctor. Despite the fact that he sounded like a witch doctor, and was American, and she was Canadian and thought it a crime to have to pay for health care (as it is), she came to the U.S. to see him. Out of pure desperation.

And he was SO American, talking loudly, yelling at her even (not his usual practice, it turns out).

But he was a big expert on concussions. For her type of concussion (and I stress that there are several types), he told her to do the exact opposite of everything she’d been told to do; any opportunity that presented itself to swim towards the shark, so to say, she was to do.

So, go to the supermarket, especially with your small child who will be screaming for something she sees, and all the choices before you, and the horrible, fluorescent lighting…

Say YES to everything. Say YES to life.

It was hard. And painful. And brought on all the worst migraines.

But, just like he said, a typical case like hers, within several weeks, her symptoms all disappeared.

She was cured. Completely healed. A miracle.

Now she is grateful for her concussion—yes, the same one that robbed her of three years in her children’s lives, of being a full parent to them.

She sees the concussion as a blessing.

Why? Because now she lives her life more fully than she ever had before.

Now, as terrified as she is of public speaking, she regularly speaks before crowds—always bringing in how terrified she is of speaking before crowds.

She says yes to life at every turn.

This week’s Torah portion begins, “See (r’eih), I set before you blessing and curse. Blessing, if you follow God’s commandments, and curse if you do not…”

But what if our very curses can become like blessings to us?

What if, from them, we learn to face our greatest fears, and look them straight in the eye?

What if we learned to “run towards the danger” (the title of the book she wrote about her experience—which she laughingly regrets, because people always throw it in her face when she is hesitant)?

What if we took more chances, and threw ourselves into situations that might seem like they will bring us curse, and then it turned into a blessing?

What if we could look at more of life that way?

May it be so.

And say Amen.