The Invisible Woman

Rachel is a widow with grown-up children. She has been divorced for 15 years. Although she has wanted to re-marry she has not been able to. When she called me she was clearly in a major depression. She had not been having any pleasure from her life for many years. Over time, she had became progressively more socially isolated and fearful to venture out of her house. She had stopped driving completely.

During her years of widowhood, Rachel became progressively more insecure about her identity as well. Previously as a married woman she lived through her husband. For years she denied her own feelings and lost touch with what she thought or believed. Rachel is very bright yet she never disagreed with her husband because she wasn’t aware that she had an opinion of her own.

Rachel married a super religious man because that was what she felt her father expected. So she married a man who gave her no love or support from the beginning of their marriage. He never considered Rachel’s feelings or preferences. He was busy all the time with learning and religious activity but there was no love or connected-ness in their relationship. She felt like the “invisible” woman.  She learned to “accept” that G-d’s will was for her to clean this man’s house, wash his clothes and raise his children. She sent her children to a school that would not allow them to visit Israel even though she didn’t feel this was right. Ultimately, her son was expelled from this school without any warning or attempt to deal with the concerns that they had about him. According to Rachel, her son hadn’t done anything at all to warrant being tossed out of yeshiva. This had a terrible effect on the boy’s self-esteem and he subsequently gave up his religious lifestyle. He changed his dress to a more modern garb, married a secular woman, and raised a family that is completely secular. Of course, Rachel still loves her son but she doesn’t speak about what happened her anguish is too great.

Rachel had been to numerous psychotherapists during this time but none of them helped her. She just continued to sink deeper into despair and became more alienated from herself. Most of the therapists although they were religious, encouraged her to talk about her past in order to understand it better. But revisiting the pain on a regular basis, even in the presence of an empathic listener, only intensified it.  Her search for spiritual advice also hadn’t yielded the results that she had hoped for. She was losing faith not only in herself but in G-d too. Rachel felt that G-d had abandoned her for some reason and didn’t know how to get a connection back with Him.

When Rachel discovered Rabbi Shalom Arush’s international bestseller the Garden of Emuna, she enjoyed it but had many questions about how she could apply it to her own life. She read other books by Rabbi Arush and slowly became intrigued by the idea of being attached to a tzaddik, a great holy Rabbi who could help her come closer to G-d. It was a foreign concept for Rachel because she had been taught that the concept of a tzaddik didn’t apply in our day and age. So she wondered how a flesh and blood person could intervene in her life and bring her blessing and happiness. So she read more about the subject of connecting oneself to a tzaddik and saw that Rabbi Shalom Arush said that the blessing of Rabbi Nachman of Breslev was on the emuna coaching programs that were being advertised.  She decided to try it and enrolled for 6 sessions.

In our first session Rachel said that she wanted to find a man who lived in her country and in a particular city because that was where she felt most comfortable. She said she knew this was a tall order but that at her age it would be difficult to deal with someone of a different background and who had different customs. She also wanted a man who was “into emuna” and Rabbi Shalom Arush.  Her dream marriage was to partner up with a man who she could spread emuna with in her country.

After our first session she was told about a man who sounded like a real possibility. He actually gave lectures on emuna. Before meeting him though, Rachel decided to listen to one of his lectures on the radio. She liked it and they arranged to meet.

Unfortunately it didn’t go very well. As he was speaking, Rachel quickly felt herself slipping back into being the “invisible woman” again. It was like she had lost her brain. She couldn’t think of anything to say. She had no opinions to share. She could barely comment on anything that he was saying. She had lost her “voice” again and was feeling even more hopeless than before.

In our second session Rachel was able to relax a bit better. She was able to shift into an altered state of consciousness that was profoundly spiritual, peaceful, and pleasant.  We both prayed that if it were G-d’s will that she marry this man that she would get some sign from Above that she should continue to see him.

In our third session Rachel told me that she was engaged!

She said that their second date had been completely different than the first one. She didn’t understand it but he seemed to be another person to her entirely and she had somehow “found” her voice again. The conversation had proceeded easily and spontaneously and they saw how much they had in common.

Rachel married the man of her dreams. She was given exactly what she wanted. He is a fine man who lectures on emuna and who even lives in the exact city that she had prayed for. Suddenly her life was back on track. Her loneliness and financial worries were over, so were her fears of driving. Now she is excited about  teaching people about the Torah and emuna that changed her life.