by Rachel Ginsberg
Ruth Shaingarten Uses Her Professional Skills and Torah Knowledge to Mend Families
At a recent simchah in Jerusalem, rabbis, elderly chassidim, and roshei yeshivah discreetly made their way to the women’s side of the room, hovering around the mechitzah, waiting their turn for a few words with the grandmother of the bar-mitzvah boy. Without doing anything to attract notice, psychologist Ruth Shaingarten, fresh off the plane from New York, had become the unofficial center of attention.
In an age when Torah personalities grapple with the conflicts between modern thought and traditional values, especially in the areas of self-fulfillment and personal growth, Rebbetzin Shaingarten has secured the confidence of the Orthodox elite — including many who are wary of psychology — by her keen ability to improve mental health. On her visits to Israel, she prefers to take a break from the steady stream of clients that keep her busy past midnight at home in Borough Park, Brooklyn. But even on vacation, at her grandson’s bar mitzvah, her counsel is sought.
The Shaingartens are veteran Brooklyn residents. Rabbi Cudek Shaingarten, a Gerrer chassid, opened the first yeshivah and continues to lead one of the older shuls in Borough Park. Educated in the grand yeshivos of Europe, he is among the dwindling number of Torah luminaries who can tell of having met the Chafetz Chaim, zt’l, HaRav Elchonon Wasserman, zt’l, and a who’s who of roshei yeshivah and chassidic rebbes of the pre-war era.
[Note: Editor Avraham M. Goldstein, who “grew up” in Rabbi Shaingarten’s synagogue, recommends the shul and the rav to anyone seeking a special davening experience.]
Ruth Shaingarten grew up surrounded by chassidic rebbes, in the resort town of Marienbad, Czechoslovakia, where her parents, Yechiel and Devorah Leitner, owned a famous hotel. Her childhood recollections are of tranquil days before the war. “I remember the Gerrer, Belzer, Munkatcher, and Alexander Rebbes. They would come to us every summer. The Imrei Emes of Ger [Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter, zt’l] stayed with his whole family for ten weeks. In fact, I have a picture of the Pnei Menachem [the previous Gerrer Rebbe, Pinchas Menachem Alter, zt’l, son of the Imrei Emes] as a little boy in shorts. We used to play together.”
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To this day the Rebbetzin is known to spend all her free time studying Torah. One of her fans, a Jerusalem rabbi, remembers how she went through an entire sefer that had recently been published while she sat in a hospital waiting room as Rabbi Shaingarten underwent a surgical procedure.
Her memories of the gedolim who stayed at the family hotel remain vivid. One tidbit she recalls concerns HaRav Elchonon Wasserman, who insisted upon staying in the hotel's least expensive room. He explained that whereas his Baranovich Yeshivah was paying for his vacation, he had no right to spend more than the minimum.
The Rebbetzin secured passage to Palestine before the war, and continued her formal training in Jewish learning there. Meanwhile, her mother and sisters managed to get to the United States in 1941. One sister literally ran across borders holding three infants, making her way through Belgium, Holland, and London.
Ruth established herself as a teacher of repute in Jerusalem’s girls’ high schools, but after the war, her mother begged her to come to America, at least for a visit. Mother and daughter had not seen each other for seven years.
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She met her future husband at an Agudath Israel convention in Ferndale, New York. Rav Cudek came from an illustrious Gerrer family in Warsaw, but left home to attend a Lithuanian yeshivah and found himself in Vilna when the war broke out. He escaped to Kobe, Japan, and later to Shanghai with the Mirrer Yeshiva, and came to the United States in 1946.
A house full of children later, the Rebbetzin, by then a veteran teacher in New York’s first Bais Yaakov under the legendary Rebbetzin Vichna Kaplan, acquired a Masters Degree in Psychology. Rabbi Shaingarten had encouraged her to take this unusual step for a chassidic woman, and it soon bore fruit.
The Rebbetzin recalls that in the early years of her practice, many Orthodox families were ashamed to seek help in improving their emotional and mental health. One early supporter was the Lubavitcher Rebbe, zt’l, who often referred clients to her.
“People were in crisis, but were embarrassed to see a professional in their community. So I would get phone calls from Crown Heights. You live in Borough Park? Yes? You’re a Lubavitcher? No? Good, I’m coming over to see you.”
For years the Rebbetzin would have regular private audiences with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, bringing in her stack of cases — from problem children to overwhelmed mothers too embarrassed to directly ask the Rebbe about family planning. While not revealing the names of her clients, she was able to seek direction from the Rebbe for the difficult issues that came up.
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Rebbetzin Shaingarten sees no tension between Judaism and psychology. Psychology is a tool for creating better relationships within a marriage, a family unit, and even a community. Who have been more eminent psychologists, she asks, than our Torah leaders throughout the generations?
“A man once came to the Chafetz Chaim complaining about his wife. The Chafetz Chaim couldn’t tell the man that his wife mistreated him because he was a boor and a miser. The man wouldn’t have accepted the criticism. Instead the Chafetz Chaim gave the man a beautiful handkerchief. ‘Would your wife appreciate this?’ ‘Of course,’ said the man. ‘It’s lovely.’ ‘Give it to her,’ said the Chafetz Chaim. ‘Perhaps it will make her happy, and then she’ll be nicer to you.’
“You see,” says the Rebbetzin, “the sicker a person is, the more self-righteous he is, and the less you can tell him. In today’s world, everyone runs to a therapist and everyone’s getting divorced. A therapist will say, ‘This bum of a husband? What do you need him for? Get rid of him. You need to grow.’ But maybe growth is learning to teach that bum to be a mensch.”
She tells how a man complained to the Maggid of Koznitz that he wanted his wife to die. “But Rebbe,” said the man, “I’m no murderer. Perhaps you can find a solution.” The Maggid responded that according to tradition, if a man pledges money to charity and doesn’t fulfill the pledge, his wife will die. Could the man pledge 500 rubles without intent to give?
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“But,” the Maggid warned, “you don’t want to show G-d that you are a murderer. So for the next three weeks, be nice to her. Buy her a dress. When was the last time you bought her one? Twenty-two years ago? Tell me, what else does she complain about? That you’re stingy? So give her ten rubles. Why should you care? In three weeks you will be rid of her.”
The Rebbetzin sets the scene: “So now the wife has a little money, and she can go out and buy decent food for her family, and she makes him good meals. And she has a new dress, so she looks presentable. Two weeks later the man runs back to the Maggid. ‘Rebbe, what shall I do? I don’t want my wife to die!’ ‘What,’ says the Maggid, ‘that witch?’ ‘Rebbe, you don’t understand, she isn’t a witch anymore, she’s changed!’ The Maggid furrows his brow. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘the decree may be nullified if you actually make good on your pledge.’ ‘Rebbe,’ pleads the man, ‘I don’t have 500 rubles, and I never gave charity in my life!’
“The Maggid assures the man that his fellow chassidim will help him raise the funds, and comforts him that in the merit of his great undertaking his wife will have long life.
“The Maggid didn’t have a degree, but he was a top-notch psychologist,” explains the Rebbetzin. “He was dealing with a disturbed person. But the abuser in a relationship can never accept criticism, no matter how nicely it’s told to him.
“I have many clients with abusive spouses, both men and women, but ironically it’s the oppressed spouse who is seen as the sick one, because it is he or she who actually goes for therapy to save the situation. The abusive husband or wife is self-righteous and will never seek help, so I encourage the abused party to come alone, because the only one you can change is yourself anyway. If he perceives a change in her, he might say, I want to see that lady also. After a few weeks, that is what often happens. He wants to be in on the secret. At the outset, many of these men are only interested in changing their wives, not themselves, so when they see an improvement in her behavior, when they get a big thank you instead of an angry look, they like it. He sees that his wife is becoming ‘less sick,’ so he might come toward her and become more of a mensch.”
It is this tremendous insight that has made Ruth Shaingarten the psychologist of choice for men and women of all stripes, especially in the chassidic and less modern elements of the Orthodox community.
Her ability to implement elements from a secular discipline has been inherited by her son Avrohom Mordechai (he is named for the Imrei Emes). Equipped with a Masters Degree in Special Education (and a very prestigious rabbinic ordination), he recently founded Havineni. It is one of the first special education programs specifically geared to Jerusalem’s chareidi community. Rabbi Avrohom Shaingarten can be reached in Jerusalem at 02-538-5445.
Rachel Ginsberg, a frequent contributor, lives in Betar Illit, Israel.
Q Today many people are worried about rebellious teenagers and the “dropout” phenomenon. Is there a remedy?
A I’m not pinning the blame on anyone, but from my experience, much of the negative feelings results from well-meaning but ill-equipped parents. Of course parents are concerned and want the best for their children, but do the children know it? I once saw a mother clobber her three-year-old for innocently touching the Shabbos candles on the table. “Oh, he knows we love him,” she off-handedly remarked. I thought to myself: She knows she loves him, but does he? Maybe not.
I once asked a child in therapy, “Do your parents love you?’ He answered, “I think they care in a certain way, but love me? Whenever I do something, they show me how wrong I am.” You wash his laundry and you make sure his hair has no lice, so he knows you care for his body. You take a tutor for him and make sure he’s keeping up in school, so he knows you care for his mind. But does he know you care for him as a person? He’ll only know that if you listen to his thoughts and feelings and validate them, instead of saying, “I thought that too when I was sixteen, and I discovered it’s a bunch of garbage.” You mean well, you want to save him the pain of going through difficulties, but just as a good therapist shouldn’t give advice, neither should a parent, because she’s giving the advice of a thirty-five-year-old and not of a sixteen-year-old.
Your job is to put him on the right track, to direct him to reveal his own inner wisdom. A little boy once saw a butterfly struggling to get out of a cocoon. Taking pity on the butterfly, he took a pair of scissors and snipped the cocoon open. Out came a beautiful butterfly, with only one problem. It couldn’t fly. The butterfly needs the struggle in the cocoon in order to strengthen the muscles in his wings. If he’s missing that stage of development, he may have gotten out easier, but he’ll never fly.”
Q Where were all these mental health issues 100 years ago? Are people getting crazier, or is life just more complex?
A One factor is that there isn’t as much parenting — good or bad — as there once was. Bubbie lived upstairs, and there was an aunt around the corner. There were more adult authority figures involved in a person’s life.
Another factor is that today we are a critical generation. In our grandparents’ generation, a husband could have been an ignoramus, but he was like G-d to his wife. She didn’t interact with other men, so she wasn’t constantly comparing. She didn’t know better, and even if she did, she made the best of her situation. People didn’t know about saying, “It’s not fair.” Today we only learn about our rights.
Q Do you recommend secular material to your clients?
A In many religious circles, especially in the chassidic world, there is an aversion to secular media because the values expressed there are often in opposition to Torah philosophy. I have a provincial clientele, so if I recommend a book, I screen it first.
I would not advise an Orthodox person to go to a secular therapist. Today there are so many good therapists with top credentials and a proper Torah outlook that there is no reason to put oneself under the influence of someone whose values may not be in sync with Torah ideology.
I was recently involved with a seriously problematic chassidic eleventh-grader whose family was advised to send her to a top-notch secular psychologist. The doctor asked her for the name of her boyfriend. The girl replied that she didn’t have one. The professional’s remark? “No wonder you’re so broken.”
On the other hand, there are those who promote the idea that everything can be found in Torah and therefore there is no reason to delve into the world of psychology. They are correct in that ideally one can study our Sages’ wisdom and come to the same conclusions arrived at by psychology. But practically you have to be at a higher level for this to happen. The more your soul remains pure, the more you can absorb straight from the Torah. But the more one gravitates toward neurotic behavior, the less he will cull directly, because his integrative powers have been warped.
Q Seeing a therapist or having a child in therapy was once quite stigmatized. Is this changing?
A It’s funny; in the secular world, going to a therapist is a badge of honor. The Orthodox world still has a long way to go. There is less reluctance than there once was, but parents are still afraid that therapy will affect their child’s marriage prospects. They say, how can I send my daughter to therapy when in twelve years it will ruin her chances for a good shidduch? I say, if she’s left to wallow in her current state, will she be suitable for a shidduch when she grows up?
In one of the schools with which I’m affiliated, a parent was afraid to send her daughter to a resource room because she felt people would think the child is learning-disabled or dumb. We have to teach parents how to overcome these fears, how to really do what’s best for the child in helping her maximize her potential without that cloud of fear and stigma hanging overhead.