“Let me tell you a story.
Now that I have your attention—and I hope and believe I do—consider with me why an invitation to listen to a story—most any sort of story—is easily the most powerful way of engaging human beings.” That is how Marshall Duke, Professor of Psychology at Emory University, once introduced his 2015 article, A Voyage Homeward: Fiction and Family Stories—Resilience and Rehabilitation.
Duke emphasized that the human interest in stories is universal. “People tell and listen to stories,” Duke underscored, “in every culture that anthropologists have ever studied; stories are told about real people, imaginary people… about times past, times present and even times yet to be…This universality places stories into a unique category [that] rises above time, place, culture, and individual differences.”
But the most important discovery of Duke et al by far – and Duke himself calls it “among our most powerful findings” – is this: “the more children knew about the history of their families (both the good and the bad things in their history!) the stronger they were, the more resilient, the higher self-esteem, the better their families functioned, the less likely they were to have difficulties in adjustment.”
“Many parent groups that I have spoken with,” Duke once disclosed in an op-ed, “fear telling their children so-called bad stories in which bad things happen to good people. However, it has been our experience that bad stories do more to immunize children and build resilience than happy ones…hearing about overcoming bad things tells children that they are part of a family that rises above and faces the problem squarely…This helps them realize that when they come upon their own “monsters”, they will be able to overcome them as well.”
Interestingly enough, this was a primary educational tool employed by HaRav Yitzchak Isaac Sher, Rosh Yeshiva of Slobodka. In the book, Sichos Im HaRav Shlomo Hoffman, the author, Rabbi Meir Simcha Stein, records how Rav Hoffman described in great detail the way Rav Sher would recount to his talmidim his own struggles with the yeitzer hara, and how Rav Hoffman did the same.
A young man who finds himself assailed by an inappropriate thought, Rav Hoffman pointed to as an example, is prone to thinking that he is a horrible rasha and must be some terrible deviant for entertaining thoughts that no upstanding Jew would ever allow to defile his mind! That feeling alone, Rav Hoffman elaborated on the basis of Rav Sher’s teachings (who received them in turn as a mesorah from the Alter of Slobodka who received them from Rav Yisrael Salanter), can be far more dangerous than the sin itself. And when a rebbi, or other mentor figure, shares with his talmidim his own struggles that he went through as a young man – and the struggles that they can look forward to in older age – it empowers them to realize that a) they are normal, and b) this is manageable. Perseverance becomes a real option.
“When we hear stories,” Duke says, “we are given the opportunity to see how other people think. This sort of inside-other-people’s-minds information is rarely available to us in real life.”
Inherent in man’s creation is the quality of lo tov heyos ha’adam levado. Humanity abhors solitude. We are creatures of social interconnection and interdependence. Isolation – whether real or imagined – can be debilitating and even arresting. Accordingly, it is very much in the yeitzer hara’s interest to induce in a person a sense of languishing lonesomeness in occupying a realm of unfathomable evil. To be sure, our ambitious youth do need to hear stories of the pinnacles of greatness attained by those who applied themselves and actualized their latent potential. Equally inescapable, though, is that an exclusive illustration of a utopia impossible, will necessarily cast them into a disillusion and despair so thick and black when they experience the inevitable failures along their life’s journey, that groping for an exit may appear entirely futile.
While we do inspire our youth with images of pristine greatness, it is equally important to recognize that the stories which most strongly immunize and build resilience are the so-called bad ones. Stories in which ugly monsters appear. Because everyone will have his or her monsters to face from time to time – whether those monsters are external or internal – and knowing that we come from a long line of people who faced monsters and managed to continue plugging along, is the single greatest source of encouragement and strength that one could possibly have.
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