Because Not All Stories Have Happy Endings

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By Zvi Gluck

The Jewish community is once again plunged into mourning, grieving the loss  of a young woman from our community who died tragically this week.

There are so many dramatic statements I could make here, but you are probably as tired of hearing them as I am of uttering them.

And yet the nightmare continues as the death toll rises.  75 dead since Rosh Hashana.  23 suffered from mental illness.  52 were victims of drug or alcohol abuse.   All were less than 35 years old.

There are no tears left.  We grieve dry-eyed, as we try to abate the torrent of death that continues to sweep through our midst.

As a people, we are reluctant to admit weakness or to ask for help.  In this latest tragedy, the young woman was getting help for the issues that plagued her and had a strong support system yet, here we are, once again, mourning one of our own.

We try.   We try so hard.  We do our best to get help for those in need, but not all stories have happy endings.    It doesn’t mean that our efforts are pointless.   It just means that we have to keep trying.

We cannot throw up our hands in frustration and let the darkness win.   We need to soldier on, fighting day by day, empowered by the knowledge that the success stories dramatically outnumber the losses, no matter how devastating they may be.

At Amudim, we have no choice but to keep fighting, hoping against hope that there isn’t going to be a number 76.

Zvi Gluck is the director of Amudim Community Resources, an organization dedicated to helping abuse victims and those suffering with addiction within the Jewish community and has been heavily involved in crisis intervention and management for the past 15 years.  For more information go to www.amudim.org.

{Matzav.com}


7 COMMENTS

  1. tzvi is wonderful but you answered your own question, we have to reach out for help! and then a sentence later she was getting help , the family and gov services spent tons on most of the 75 ppl that died so its not lack of care and concern or denial,its a lack of real etzos that work

  2. “75 dead since Rosh Hashana. ………..All were less than 35 years old.”

    Can we have details, documentation on these astounding numbers?

    How do we know that they are totally accurate, and not exaggerated to dramatize the situation?

  3. to ” Information please”, its sweet that you are so naive, but my town has had four deaths alone (that I know of) due to drug overdose, and we are a medium sized community, not big not small…..the drug problem is amongst many adults as well, including married with kids etc.

  4. not exaggeration, but i believe it includes all Jewish communities in North America, still too much!
    (and these are only the under 35)

  5. then there the cases which aren’t even know, i heard from the son of a medical examiner that in many cases of suicide it is requested that cause of death is listed as aneurysm or such r’l.

  6. So, is this an ad? What’s the point of printing this? What are we, plain people, supposed to do about it?

  7. As Rav Simcha Zissel walked down the main road into Kelm, his face was lined with pain. He explained that the road was constructed by political prisoners, who were forced to lay the pavement in blistering heat and freezing cold weather. He wondered how people could calmly walk down the street going about their business and not feel the pain of those who suffered tremendously in constructing that very road.

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