Delivered from Depression
While receiving people abroad, a couple walked into my room. The man opened the conversation. “Honored Rav,” he began, “it is already twenty years that my wife has been in a depression. She refuses to receive any help and likewise does not speak to anyone about her inner feelings. This causes our family untold anguish.”
From outside my room, I heard the people in line talking among themselves. They often share stories, the idea being that sorrow shared is sorrow divided. But today, the voices that came wafting into my room were accounts of suicides. “Why are they discussing suicides now?” I wondered to myself. “It must be a Heavenly message to me regarding this woman’s thought process.”
I turned to the woman and asked, “Do you know why you are in a depression?” I asked.
She remained silent.
I pressed onward. “Do you have a father?” I inquired.
“My father passed on,” she replied.
“Did he pass on or did he commit suicide?” I asked.
The woman stared at me and began stuttering. Her husband asked, “Why are you stuttering?” But she did not respond.
“Did your father die a natural death or did he commit suicide?” I demanded.
The man wanted to help his wife, so he spoke on her behalf. “Her father did not commit suicide; he was killed.”
But I did not relent. I wanted to hear what she had to say. “Was your father killed or did he commit suicide?’ I further attempted.
Finally, the woman burst into tears. Her husband asked why she was crying.
As her dam burst, the woman stood up. “This is the reason for my prolonged depression since my father’s death. After he died, I entered his room and found a note stating that he was fed up with life and was ending it. I kept the matter secret all these years, never telling it even to you, my husband. The police filed it as manslaughter. I was so ashamed!”
“Now everything is clear,” I said. “For the past twenty years, you have been hiding a deep, dark secret. The matter has finally come to light, as the pasuk says (Kohelet 12:13), ‘At the end, all is heard.’ May it be Hashem’s will that this will be a turning point in your life. You should merit a complete recovery and become stronger in Torah, mitzvot, and yirat Shamayim.”
Baruch Hashem, this woman recovered from her depression and returned to her former state of joie de vivre.
I learned that Hashem has many messengers. It was specifically the people waiting outside my room who enlightened me to this woman’s problem and helped me cure her.
