A ri was the perfect stereotype of a Na-Nach-Nachman chassid. He had giant peyos wore his tzitzis on top of his shirt and never left home without a big white kippah and a huge smile. The highlight of his week was Friday afternoon when he danced atop his friend Yitzi’s white van as they rolled through Jerusalem.
They’d blast Breslover techno music and Ari would throw CDs to onlookers while Yitzi sounded the shofar from the driver’s seat. Ari had a bad case of schizophrenia. Baruch Hashem he had never hurt a fly but he had a pretty good history of getting into trouble when he got off of his meds. This was a guy who had been arrested twice for using a public pond as a mikveh somewhere in Upstate New York. He’d been summoned to court for “disturbing the peace” while davening too loudly on the subway near Boro Park.
There had also been hospitalizations and different medications but nothing ever worked perfectly. So when he told his parents that he was going to Israel for a while they couldn’t really stop him. All they could do was try to find a decent psychiatrist for him in the Jerusalem area and hope for the best.Enter Dr. Freedman who was happy to work with Ari. Ari happened to have a million ideas of his own and frustrations to air out. At our first meeting I listened to him for a while and won some serious points when I let him know that I had just reread The Garden of Emunah by Rav Shalom Arush.
He was happy to hear this and asked me what I thought of psychiatric medications. I told him the truth: They are sometimes overprescribed but they can also be a lifesaver for folks who have struggled with serious mental illness. He asked me if I knew they were forbidden according to Breslover chassidus and I told him that I disagreed and I showed him a letter I’d received from a prominent Breslover rabbi who happened to be on my side of the debate.
