Last week I crafted my drash around an e-mail that had been
forwarded to me. I’m sure you get them
all the time, as I do. People are
forever sending me essays, manifestos, jokes, links to articles or videos…you
name it! Sometimes I have actually time
to look at them. If you’re like me, you
pay attention to such forwards from certain people, and ignore them from
others. If you’re like me, you sometimes
feel far too busy to read all of them and delete them unread, lest they clog
your inbox.
Having used my ten
minutes last Friday to bring one such e-mail to your attention, I mention
another one tonight with some trepidation.
I don’t want you to think that I have excess time on my hands to read
all these e-mails! But this one contains
a great story, one worthy of repeating and of comment.
Two men are sharing
a hospital room. The one in the bed next
to the window is able, and advised, to sit up for an hour a day to drain his
sinuses. The one in the bed adjacent to
the door cannot sit up. During the hour
each day that the guy at the window can sit up, he describes to his roommate
what he sees looking out. He describes a
park where there are green fields and copses of leafy trees. Where children play games and adults watch
on. Where runners and cyclists use the
paths for their daily exercise. One day,
he describes a festival that is underway, where there are marquis’ set up and
all kinds of shows and booths catering to the throngs of people. The man in the door bed asks why he doesn’t
hear anything, any music playing or any cheerful yelling by the
participants. The man in the window bed
simply tells his roommate that the festival is far enough away that the sound
doesn’t seem to be carrying.
For the man in the
door-bed, these hours when his roommate is looking out the window and
describing what he sees, are the highlight of his day. He can hardly wait until the man has the
strength to sit up and begin his description of what he sees. Unable to sit up and see for himself, he finds
that the other man’s descriptions of what he sees are so vivid as to make him
feel almost as if he were seeing the view and activity himself.
One morning,
the man in the door-bed wakes up to find that the man in the window-bed is
gone. The nurse later tells him that the
other man died peacefully during the night and was taken out. Later in the day, an orderly complies with
the surviving man’s request to be moved to the window bed. Then, with a herculean effort, he manages to
sit up and look out the window. It faces
a blank wall! No park, no green fields,
no copses of trees.
The orderly comes
back in and engages the man in conversation.
It comes out that the other man, the one who was in the window-bed
before, was totally blind. It became
immediately clear to the man that his late roommate was describing things from
his own imagination. And that imagination
was so real that he felt he was seeing it vicariously from his supine position.
It’s a lovely vignette. As I read it, I realised that it had been
used in a variant form by the author Chaim Potok in his 1967 novel, The
Chosen which was made into a feature film in 1981. A lovely story…but it comes to teach us some
important lessons. What are those
lessons?
One lesson from the
story is that seeing isn’t everything. If
we do have the use of our eyes, then we have a tendency to rely on them
to a great degree. If their use is
denied us, though, it doesn’t mean we cannot ‘see.’ It means that we must rely more on our other
senses…and our imagination and memory. It
means we must simply work a little harder to experience the world around us. Those who are blind can lead useful lives, and
transcend their disability through the use of guide dogs, braille books and
other tools. Those who have the use of
their sight can broaden their perspective by relying on other sensory input,
and on their imagination and memory.
Another lesson is
that, when we can ‘see’ something that someone else cannot, it is a good thing
to share it with them. We are used to
sharing specific knowledge and opinions.
When we are able to share such things, it sometimes feeds our egos and
makes us feel somehow superior. But are
we used to sharing the beauty that surrounds us? Are we used to sharing a vision of a world
more beautiful than that, which we’re able to see? That’s the real measure of a person’s
willingness to share. Not that which
makes me feel smarter, or more educated than you. But that which means simply that I took the
time to really look around at the beauty that surrounds us. And to appreciate it. And to share it with you, so that you, too
would be able to appreciate it..
But if we can do
what the blind man in the window-bed did, that’s the best case. He not only was willing to share the world’s
beauty with his roommate. He was also optimistic
enough to share it from his memory. And
he was willing to share it as if he had no disability, and let his roommate
think he was actually seeing it!
Imagine if we were
all able to do that! To push aside any
and all kvetching about our own limitations.
And give someone else a gift. Such
as telling the man in the next bed, who can’t raise himself up to look, about
the beauty that exists out there. Somewhere
beyond that blank wall.
It’s inspirational,
and it is a wonderful goal for each one of us.
How much are we willing to give one another? Are we willing to ‘give’ our optimism? Our appreciation of the world around us? Or are we too selfish to share this wonderful
gift? Think about it. Shabbat shalom.
No comments:
Post a Comment