Rabbi Marc Gellman writes a column in my local newspaper which deals with spiritual issues, not just for Jews but for the public in general. He consults with members of the appropriate religions when he gets a request for advice from someone who is not Jewish. This week he dealt with the issue of suicide, and without going into the specifics, he indicated that the Fifth or Sixth Commandment prohibits suicide for all, as it is the word of G-D, who, he indicates, owns us all.. It made me think about the first time I had to deal with this issue-it was 1959, just a short FIFTY years ago. I was finishing my sophomore year at James Monroe High School, and was 15 ½ years old. I sat across the aisle in more than one class from my friend Alan Streisfeld, who I met up with and liked, on my first day in Monroe, and I liked him right away for his great sense of humor, and as time went by, his ability to deal with the vicissitudes of high school by laughing his way through them. I had a more serious attitude, which came out of elementary and junior high experiences, but Alan refused, maybe correctly, to look at school life that way. He was a class clown in a most respectful way-he never confronted a teacher, but did things which brought laughs to those who sat around him and he did it in a very quiet way. One time, unbeknownst to others around him, he tied the window shade ropes, which were very long, to his legs and then continued to tie them around the legs of his chair. When the bell rang, and everyone got up to leave, Alan stood up, and said, “I can’t leave now, I’m tied up at the moment.” Though this might seem to be something out of Laurel and Hardy, it was funny in the way it was said as well as the look on his face-which I say in the most respectful way, was a very funny face. Teachers just rolled their eyes at his antics, and I must say they were quite patient with him, even though he had not distinguished himself academically. As a matter of fact, he was barely passing most of his subjects, but this hardly bothered him, or so we all thought. No one picked up on it-not me, not any other kid, not Miss Roshwalb our delightfully sweet homeroom and English teacher, no other teacher that I know of, nor either of the guidance counselors, Mr. Perlman or Mrs. Queen. No one knew there was some underlying demon in Alan and he never let on to any of us about any problem, be it related to school or home. We knew that he lived near the school, in a so-called normal family life, where there were his parents and a younger sister. On Saturdays, a number of us from the class would meet for a choose-up softball game in the park at Morrison and Soundview Avenues, by Bruckner Blvd. The park is still there and whenever I go past it, I can’t help remembering the experiences there, especially the day that Alan didn’t show up. It was June of 1959, it was the last day of school, a Friday, and I reminded him of the game “tomorrow” and I said “see you tomorrow”. He said “no you won’t”. He laughed, as he always did when he thought something was funny. None of us standing around thought anything of it, knowing, oh well, that’s Al, always joking. The next morning he wasn’t there for the game, which got a few of us thinking that he wasn’t kidding when he said this the day before, that he probably had something else to do. So when the game was over a few of us took a walk, which was a few blocks, to his house on Stratford Ave., to find out why he didn’t make it to the game, and when we rang the bell, …well, I am still haunted by the look on his mother’s face, and the crying, and how she chased us away from the front of the house. We realized something serious had happened, but it was upon talking to other friends who lived on the street that we found out that when his sister came home from school the day before, she found his body on the floor of the kitchen; all the facts pointed the authorities to rule that he was an obvious suicide.
To this day, when some of us who knew him talk about the old days, we still wonder what signs of his problems we might have missed, what signs the professionals never picked up, and what serious issues he was covering up, with his refreshing sense of humor. It remains a mystery, which will always be the case.
Rabbi Gelman said that suicide is an indictment of our hardhearted world that too often allows people to strangle from their own loneliness. Every friend of a person who has committed suicide asks “Was there anything I could have done to stop it? Sometimes the pain of life is just too deep and the search for hope and community too elusive for us to have prevented a suicide.”
The Rabbi’s words are comforting, … but still….I wonder to this day, about my role, my friends’ role, and how the adults involved perceived this tragic event
Jay Becker
Why Did This Have to Happen?By Jay Becker
Rabbi Marc Gellman writes a column in my local newspaper which deals with spiritual issues, not just for Jews but for the public in general. He consults with members of the appropriate religions when he gets a request for advice from someone who is not Jewish.
This week he dealt with the issue of suicide, and without going into the specifics, he indicated that the Fifth or Sixth Commandment prohibits suicide for all, as it is the word of G-D, who, he indicates, owns us all..
It made me think about the first time I had to deal with this issue-it was 1959, just a short FIFTY years ago. I was finishing my sophomore year at James Monroe High School, and was 15 ½ years old. I sat across the aisle in more than one class from my friend Alan Streisfeld, who I met up with and liked, on my first day in Monroe, and I liked him right away for his great sense of humor, and as time went by, his ability to deal with the vicissitudes of high school by laughing his way through them. I had a more serious attitude, which came out of elementary and junior high experiences, but Alan refused, maybe correctly, to look at school life that way. He was a class clown in a most respectful way-he never confronted a teacher, but did things which brought laughs to those who sat around him and he did it in a very quiet way.
One time, unbeknownst to others around him, he tied the window shade ropes, which were very long, to his legs and then continued to tie them around the legs of his chair. When the bell rang, and everyone got up to leave, Alan stood up, and said, “I can’t leave now, I’m tied up at the moment.” Though this might seem to be something out of Laurel and Hardy, it was funny in the way it was said as well as the look on his face-which I say in the most respectful way, was a very funny face. Teachers just rolled their eyes at his antics, and I must say they were quite patient with him, even though he had not distinguished himself academically. As a matter of fact, he was barely passing most of his subjects, but this hardly bothered him, or so we all thought.
No one picked up on it-not me, not any other kid, not Miss Roshwalb our delightfully sweet homeroom and English teacher, no other teacher that I know of, nor either of the guidance counselors, Mr. Perlman or Mrs. Queen. No one knew there was some underlying demon in Alan and he never let on to any of us about any problem, be it related to school or home. We knew that he lived near the school, in a so-called normal family life, where there were his parents and a younger sister.
On Saturdays, a number of us from the class would meet for a choose-up softball game in the park at Morrison and Soundview Avenues, by Bruckner Blvd. The park is still there and whenever I go past it, I can’t help remembering the experiences there, especially the day that Alan didn’t show up. It was June of 1959, it was the last day of school, a Friday, and I reminded him of the game “tomorrow” and I said “see you tomorrow”. He said “no you won’t”. He laughed, as he always did when he thought something was funny. None of us standing around thought anything of it, knowing, oh well, that’s Al, always joking.
The next morning he wasn’t there for the game, which got a few of us thinking that he wasn’t kidding when he said this the day before, that he probably had something else to do. So when the game was over a few of us took a walk, which was a few blocks, to his house on Stratford Ave., to find out why he didn’t make it to the game, and when we rang the bell, …well, I am still haunted by the look on his mother’s face, and the crying, and how she chased us away from the front of the house. We realized something serious had happened, but it was upon talking to other friends who lived on the street that we found out that when his sister came home from school the day before, she found his body on the floor of the kitchen; all the facts pointed the authorities to rule that he was an obvious suicide.
To this day, when some of us who knew him talk about the old days, we still wonder what signs of his problems we might have missed, what signs the professionals never picked up, and what serious issues he was covering up, with his refreshing sense of humor. It remains a mystery, which will always be the case.
Rabbi Gelman said that suicide is an indictment of our hardhearted world that too often allows people to strangle from their own loneliness. Every friend of a person who has committed suicide asks “Was there anything I could have done to stop it? Sometimes the pain of life is just too deep and the search for hope and community too elusive for us to have prevented a suicide.”
The Rabbi’s words are comforting, … but still….I wonder to this day, about my role, my friends’ role, and how the adults involved perceived this tragic event