Page 30 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Pneumonia and pessimism

nine when we lived in Pelcovizna, I was sick again. That time Mama
made me drink milk, and once my father bought a bottle of Carmel
wine made in Palestine for me to drink, to have more iron in my
body since I looked pale. My father did not buy any more, as money
was scarce. The next time I drank Carmel wine was in New York at a
banquet of the Ahavath Zion Society; I still have a group picture of
that event with me and my brother Ben in it. I did not have any of
the other childhood diseases, like measles, whooping cough, or
diphtheria, but the pneumonia left a scarred lung, which is usually the
case with that illness. In later years, whenever I happen to catch one
of those ordinary colds which are so prevalent among the people in
Europe and America, especially one with a cough, my thoughts turn
to that childhood sickness; I become morbid and begin to think my
end is approaching. It is also probably the cause of my pessimism,
although it may also be traced to serious reading, thinking, and
observing nature
Few people can see life in its nakedness. Most exist within life
subjectively, whirled around in the vortex with no opportunity to see
themselves. Men are carried away with the few trifling joys of life,
which do not compare with all the suffering, pain, and anguish that
their short lives contain. Yet pessimism does not necessarily mean
despising life, or hating oneself or others. On the contrary, it makes
one feel more kind and humane toward other living beings because
he feels the universal pain and suffering. The optimist is in reality an
egotist: he does not wish to hurt his own pleasure by feeling others’
suffering. His own suffering he minimizes by hoping soon to have
better things and forgetting the true facts.
There are things that give joy to body or mind when we receive
them. I would rather expect the unenjoyable things in life and receive
by accident the joyous things than expect the joyous and be
disappointed. In the Midrash is the story of a rabbi who went away
from his home to teach in a university. At certain periods he returned
home to visit his wife and child. One time he returned and found his
wife standing in the doorway crying. He asked her, “Is my child
dead?” She nodded her head. The rabbi said, “God is justified. He
gave and he took away.” When he entered the house he found the
child alive. He asked his wife why she had told him the child was
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