“I’m so scared! I can’t go back there. The yetzer hara will get me!”

Rabbi Efraim Stauber

Acclaimed lecturer and educator, passionate about making spirituality relevant, maintains a counseling practice.

Giv’at Ze’ev

Dumbstruck? Not often. I like to talk too much for that. Silence isn’t my thing. But I remember a moment so powerful it felt as if the air had become too thick to breathe and goosebumps ran up my spine.

I was counseling Chaim and Shira*, a couple in their early 30s. Shira came from a difficult background, and her brother, who’d been through far too many schools and was now treating life as one long party, was coming to one of the alternative yeshivos in Yerushalyim. Shira was eager to open up their home to him, to let him come whenever, and bring whomever he wanted.

But Chaim was adamantly opposed. He didn’t want Shira’s brother in their house at all, claiming it would be a bad influence on the kids. His wife was aghast and deeply hurt.

The couple came for multiple sessions about this issue, and we attempted a variety of approaches to broker some sort of meeting of the minds, but Chaim seemed resistant and unmovable.