14 Apr SEEING THE SCHECHINAH

I was tossed 15 feet by an unexpected gust of wind into the street with moving cars and sustained serious injuries requiring a joint
replacement. I wrote a piece from the heart which I want to share with your readers. I just returned home after 25 days in the hospital and acute rehab combined. Below is the piece:

A Harrowing Wind Accident Lifted Me from the Sidewalk and Hurled Me 15 feet into the Street in the Path of Oncoming Traffic … and then I felt the Schechinah

By Amy Neustein, Ph.D.

I spent 25 days between Englewood Hospital and Kessler Rehab, having sustained multiple injuries and requiring emergency surgery for a shattered hip. I had a lot of bleeding and remained a hair’s breath away from needing transfusions. I finally returned home a day after Pesach, shortly before Shabbat. Certainly, I was relieved to finally be home. But I want to talk about something far more important.

Hurled unexpectedly by a gale force wind on Parker Avenue in Fort Lee, New Jersey where I live, I was thrust 15 feet from the sidewalk where I stood into the path of oncoming traffic. I tried to get up but my right leg didn’t move. I later learned that from the impact of the fall the neck of the femur bone had snapped off leaving it totally disconnected from the acetabulum (the hip socket). And because the radial head of my forearm had fractured too I couldn’t use my right arm to signal to the motorists that I was in their way. Having rolled onto my non injured side because the pain on the right side was unbearable, my left arm was now beneath me and I couldn’t raise it to alert the oncoming cars. At that moment I called out to Hashem for help, being very much aware that I stood between this world and the next, Olam HaZeh and Olam HaBa.

Lying in the street I felt the presence of the Schechinah with an overpowering force I have never felt before in my life. In fact it’s ineffable- so hard to put into words. But I will try.

I felt an intense sense of intimacy with Hashem who I knew understood me better than anyone else. I said, “If you want to take me home now, you will spare me the pain of living … and I won’t object.” I was referring to the plight visited upon me and other mothers in the Orthodox community and outside as that of a “childless mother.”

These are mothers who have lost custody and all visitation contact with their children because they tried in good faith to protect their children from sexual abuse. Yet, in spite of overwhelming evidence of sexual abuse the family courts ban the mothers from the lives of their children. And with time children often become virulently hostile to their mothers. They show no interest in reuniting with them; some have even publicly humiliated their mothers spewing intense hatred.

The psychology literature and professionals at Nefesh International have referred to this as “traumatic bonding.” They explain that this is inevitable because children who are forcibly removed from their mothers by court order feel abandoned and betrayed by them. To cope, they identify with the abusive parent for otherwise they will be left alone in the world.

My burden was particularly heavy because after the loss of my daughter 40 years ago, I took it upon myself to use my training as a sociologist to help all mothers who had lost children as a result of cruel and draconian family court orders. I amassed thousands of case files and wrote two editions of “From Madness to Mutiny: Why Mothers Are Running from the Family Courts –and What Can Be Done about It.”

But listening to all the stories over the years, and running a 24/7 suicide watch to prevent mothers from succumbing to despair, I felt a burden too heavy to carry. And at that moment in the path of imminent disaster I wanted to return to Hashem, because for me it would be a surcease of sorrow that had plagued me since 1986 when the light of my life went out.

Hashem however had other plans. He didn’t want to take me for at that liminal moment between this world and the next a man came along offering to help. I asked him to call 911, and he obliged.

My heart was lighter, not because a passerby had come to the rescue. But because at that moment I felt the Schechinah. I knew that concerned rabbis and mental health professionals would prioritize the reunification of estranged children with their mothers and stop the cruel removal of young children from their mothers in retaliation for their good faith reports of sexual abuse corroborated by school teachers, psychologists, and others. I knew that this would be done, whether by government grants or private fundraising. But it would be done. And I also knew at that moment when I felt the Schechinah that all those who would partake in this effort would be following the Talmud, for it says in Sanhedrin (97b-98a) that when the community is righteous, Moshiach will come. Reuniting children with their mothers in the observant community will serve as a beacon of light for the rest of the country because non-Jewish children are likewise falling prey to a warped family court system that systematically places children in the custody of the abusive parent. We don’t know why this is happening so frequently and so regularly. But we will stop it. As observant Jews we will lead the way for all children of all faiths. My encounter with the Schechinah as I lay in the street injured and immobile has changed my life forever. My burden has been lifted because I know I will soon have the help of the community. Together we will hasten the coming of the Moshiach.