The Consequences of Decisions |
King Solomon, Ruth, & Naomi: Choices! The story of King Solomon and the story of Ruth and Naomi are narratives involving two women, and both are very well known. In the first story, Solomon had to assist the two women in making a choice about how to handle the death of one of their newborn infants and who should be able to keep and raise the child who survived. The compassionate one who was willing to give up the live child to the other woman was the true mother, since she did not want her infant to be cut in two. The book of Ruth speaks
of a young woman whose husband died. She
found solace in helping her mother-in-law Naomi recover by leaving her familiar
home and accompanying Naomi wherever the older woman needed to go. Ruth
made a choice. She was a
loving, giving human being who thought of her mother-in-law instead of lamenting
her own life, her loss, her fate, her own hardships, her own grief. She was able
to love, to give. In both situations we see
compassion, understanding, the love of family, the ties that bind - the
attachment that human beings, especially kin, have to one another.
These are unlike
the criticism and negative responses that we see so often in our everyday lives
today. Families are broken,
siblings do not speak to one another, the divorce rate is nearly fifty percent,
criticisms are common, the good is often forgotten.
Mothers-in-law are blindly hated regardless of who they are and
what they have given of themselves.
Mothers and fathers are disregarded and treated with disdain.
The loving care and sacrifices that they have made are forgotten and self
centeredness appears to be the order of the day. The true value of the human being, the individual person, is
disregarded and thrown away. Material
goods and their attainment and possession is in the forefront and the immediate
desire of the responder is the “in thing”. There are two very fine
examples here to illustrate the above. There
is an adolescent who demands that the parent “stay out of his life”. He screams that at the parent.
The next sentence follows without remorse without a second thought: “I
need a ride to the mall; my friends are waiting”. There is the
forty-year-old man, Norman, three times divorced, who visits a psychotherapist
and relates the following: None of
his wives were the “right” one. He
had five children by his second and third wife.
He wanted very much to have his youngest two sons with him permanently
and deprive the very adequate mother of her two young ones.
The paternal grandmother loved her adult son very much, but she thought
of the welfare of her two little grandsons and refused to testify against their
mother. She knew that Norman was living with a woman who strongly disliked
children as well as the mother of these little ones.
Because of the grandma’s refusal to concoct a lie in court and deprive
the children of a healthy life, Norman has not spoken to his mother for three
years. Choices have to be made
frequently in all lives. What we
choose is up to us. We must live
with the consequences of our decisions, as did the two mothers in King
Solomon’s day. We must all
remember that we as Jews and as people must follow the good path - the Derach
Eretz! Lehitraot. Dr. Ursula A. Falk is a psychotherapist in private practice and the co-author, with Dr. Gerhard Falk, of Deviant Nurses & Improper Patient Care (2006). |