THE GREAT TRIBE OF PAIN

or

WE ARE ALL PART OF THE GREAT TRIBE OF PAIN

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was written before the Covid-19 epidemic:

Every week we gather together to tell our stories.  They are the saddest stories in the world – tales of children who are sick unto death and families torn apart by guilt, grief, confusion, and pain. 

And yet, in and through the tears there is healing.  Just being with people who have walked the same tortuous pathway, who have stumbled, regained their balance, stumbled again and again, and kept on going gives us strength and courage. 

We do not feel judged and condemned.  We do not feel so alone.

For so long we kept silent, afraid to voice our most shameful secrets.  “My 22-year-old is a heroin addict.”  “My 14-year-old son is smoking marijuana daily and failing her classes.”  “My 19-year-old daughter got drunk, fell down the stairs, and has a serious head injury.”  “My gentle, considerate 17-year-old son is punching holes in our walls and dropping the F-bomb left and right.”  “My 30-year-old daughter is a meth addict facing a 3-year prison sentence for burglary.”

The stories are all different and yet they are somehow all the same.  We “see” ourselves in the mirror of another person’s story.  We find ourselves—we find forgiveness and healing—when someone comes to us and tells us our own story.

In a recent family support group, one mother listened to another mother’s story with rapt attention.  Every detail—her son’s age, the drugs he used (first marijuana and alcohol, then cocaine, then meth, then prescription pills, then heroin), the way he changed physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, right before her eyes—could have been lifted right out of her life.

Her eyes filled with tears and she reached for the mother’s hand.  “You just told me my own story,” she said, her eyes wide with wonder.

I thought at that moment about a classic Hasidic story about the Baal Shem Tov, a Jewish mystical rabbi.  This is a long story, so bear with me.

On his deathbed the Besht, as he was often called, assigned each of his disciples a task to carry on in his name and continue his work.  He asked the very last disciple to travel all over Europe and tell his stories. 

After many years of telling the stories of his beloved teacher, often wondering why the great rabbi gave him this strange task, the disciple heard of an Italian nobleman who would pay a gold ducat for each new story told.  But when called before the nobleman, the disciple’s memory went blank.  Embarrassed and ashamed, he admitted that he had forgotten all the Besht’s stories, except for one which he himself had witnessed.

The nobleman pleaded with him to tell the story. 

The story centered around an event that happened in Turkey at Easter.  Jews were not safe during the Christian High Holiday; in fact, it was the tradition to kill a Jew every year. 

But for some reason on that day, despite the very great danger, the Baal Shem Tov insisted on meeting with the Christian bishop and sent the disciple to arrange a meeting.  The bishop and the Besht spent many hours together and then, without another word, the Besht announced to his disciple that it was time to go home.

When he finished his story, the disciple was amazed to see the nobleman dissolved into tears.