Heard at the Shiva for Chaya Miriam Proctor A"S

On Sunday the eighth of Sivan tof’shin’samach’tes Chaya Miriam’s neshama was returned to its maker. She was the wife of my dear friend Alan Proctor. Because of Alan’s great work in the world of Kiruv, many great people came over be menachem avel. Among them was Reb Pesach Krohn. He mentioned a conversation he overheard in the streets of the Old City. A baal teshuva asked the son of Rabbi Willig, “Why did Hashem make me a baal teshuva and you an ffb (frum from birth) and not the other way around?” The ffb couldn’t answer the question so the baal teshuva said, “I’ll tell you why. Because Hashem trusted me and he didn’t trust you.

Wow! That was one powerful statement.

Reb Ephriam Waxman was also there. He was trying to answer a question that was bothering Chaya Miriam’s mother. “If I understands that everything is for the best, and that there is a reason why I had to bury my daughter, so why am I so broken? Reb Waxman responded, “The Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim explains that when a person takes a baby bird out of the nest in front of the mother bird, that mother bird is in the same exact emotional pain that a person is in when their child is taken away from them. It doesn’t matter that the bird’s intellect is minuscule compared to that of a person, because the pain of losing a child is not an intellectual pain, it is an emotional pain. The intellect and the emotions are two different systems. You can’t squelch the emotions with an intellectual understanding.