Shalom In The Waiting Room

There was only one patient in the waiting room.  “Shalom, Dr. Goldstein,” was what I heard.  I answered in the only possible way. “Shalom.”  It means “peace” in Hebrew, and is a traditional greeting.

She was excited to have a doctor with a name like “Goldstein” who might actually be Jewish.  She was a Jew from the east coast who had landed in the semi-rural place where I found myself; no synagogue, no Jewish community, “only a couple of Messianics.”  These are Jews who consider themselves “completed” having “added” Christ on to their belief system.  I am not, and won’t be, one of them. This woman wanted a “Jewish word” so badly that she took my hand.  She also wanted at least three prescriptions, one of which would be for Xanax (alprazolam), the most addictive of the benzodiazepines.  She had run out several weeks ago.  No wonder she looked so nervous. I told her I used to be a cantorial soloist — someone filling the role of a cantor (which is a formal title of the temple choir leader, the singer of liturgical solos and who also leads the congregation in prayer).  So, yeah, I really was Jewish.

…But I could only see her when she got an appointment. She wanted to hear me sing something Jewish, Cantorial.  She curled up in a corner of the waiting room sofa.  We were being watched by a couple of therapists and the entire front desk crew. I said neither “yes” nor “no.”  I closed my eyes and I was back in the synagogue where my father of blessed memory played the organ.  I was experiencing the Sabbath liturgy.  I had not heard or done anything like what she wanted to hear in more years than I can count.  My first attempt to sing to her faltered.  I think the range of my voice had dropped more than an octave since last I had done this. I sang a big hunk of the traditional Ashkenaz melody for “Hashkivenu,”  in which the Lord is asked to spread over us the tabernacle of his peace.  I sang it in the ancient Hebrew, as it has been sung for generations, and could not have sung it better had I rehearsed for weeks. My eyes were closed, and I had the strange sensation that it was coming from somewhere outside of me, through my brain and out of my lips to her ears. This felt like absolutely the best thing to sing to someone who was in extended Xanax withdrawal. She fought back tears. “She’s great; she really knows this stuff,” she told the front desk personnel.   “Just like in New Jersey!” she exclaimed.  She was happy, and also almost magically relaxed. My staff was staring open-mouthed.  She was calmed, certainly, and smiling.  I told her she could go to the emergency room if she felt too ill to wait, or she could wait for a no-show or cancellation, or make an appointment. She nodded smiling again, and said “Shalom,” to which I answered “Shalom.” This is what makes psychiatry “special” among medical specialties.  I do whatever I can do, whenever I can do it, and I call not only upon knowledge, but upon some kind of mystical sensibilities which even I do not do a very good job of describing.

Intuition?  Universal intelligence? Of this I am convinced.  As long as I have the intent to do well for my patients, to heal them, and to immerse myself completely in the relationship, I will do the right thing. It will somehow come from who I am and what I do, and it is not something I can prepare for, but I will do the right thing, and it will ring true.