Alan Silverman is in trouble. He’s a successful lawyer who’s dedicated his entire adult life to building up a major law firm. He has a loving wife, two children and a grandchild. He gives to charity and keeps a kosher home, largely out of respect for his in-laws. And “Mr. Invincible,” as he thinks of himself, is about to lose it all.
For most people, there’s probably no more humbling and terrifying a moment than when they find out they have cancer. For Silverman, being told that he has advanced-stage non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and that there may not be “a light at the end of the tunnel” (in his oncologist’s words), is about as bad as it can get.
Forced to face his mortality, this main character in Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski’s new book, “Light at the End of the Tunnel” (Mesorah, hardcover 200 pages, $18.99), begins a fascinating journey a reader described recently as “a philosophical discussion by the soul, of the soul and for the soul.”
What Silverman learns, largely through the help of one kindly and scholarly Rabbi Segal, who Twerski admits could be himself, is that the soul is eternal and that there is an Afterlife.
An Afterlife, you say? I didn’t learn about that in Hebrew school!
“Although there is a fair amount on the eternity of the soul in the Hebrew language,” said Milwaukee-native Twerski in a recent telephone interview from his Money, N.Y., home, “I was not aware of that much available on the topic in English.”
The idea for writing a story that demonstrates the concept of the eternity of the soul came to the renowned rabbi and psychiatrist during a bad period of jet lag a few months ago, when he was staying up nights to work on one of the four other books he’s writing (these include a commentary on the Chumash, due out for Rosh HaShanah, and another with the working title “The Control Freak”).
Twerski admitted that many of the book’s characters are modeled after people he has met or treated. But, he said, “I really don’t know where the inspiration for [the book] came from. Perhaps subconsciously I had been influenced by two friends who are undergoing chemotherapy.”
Anyway, he said, “I finished it in three weeks. That’s never happened before.”
Brilliant simplicity
I’ll admit to being an unabashed admirer of “Light at the End of the Tunnel.” The first time I read it, I did so because Twerski, the founder and medical director emeritus of the Gateway Rehabilitation Center near Pittsburgh, had sent it to me personally and I figured, hey, what’s not to like about an Afterlife? Don’t we all want to live forever?
The second time, though, I read it because I was fascinated by the concepts the book so clearly explains.
The beauty of the book lies in its cogent discussion of topics some of us may have heard of but never quite understood. The arguments — first for the existence of the neshama, or soul; then for an Afterlife and the neshama’s eternity; and finally, for the implications of these concepts for how we live our lives today — are brilliant in their simplicity.
And although Segal states to a study group that Silverman has joined that it is assumed that everyone believes in God before such concepts can be explored, even the atheist is not entirely left out of the discussion.
“The book is aimed toward someone who [believes and] is secular,” Twerski said, “but who can be tickled a little bit by these ideas.”
Don’t think, though, that he’s leaving the observant out of the picture.
“I know observant Jews who observe the rituals but miss much of the essence of the spirituality,” Twerski said. “I also know some who go about amassing vast amounts of wealth” and who don’t focus on what life should truly be about.
And what exactly is that? That once we understand the existence of the neshama, and that there is more to our existence than our sojourn on earth, then we must, in Segal’s words, “have some concept of an ultimate purpose. Without that we cannot be truly happy.”
Despite its seemingly dour theme, “Light at the End of the Tunnel” is ultimately about spirituality and the joy we can find in our lives. While there is no manifest change in Silverman’s formal religious observance, his perspectives change, he is able to face many of his personal demons and he does become spiritual and develops an inner identity.
“There is much talk about spirituality, and spirituality is believed to indeed be of utmost importance,” Twerski writes in the book’s introduction. “Yet many people may go through an entire lifetime without truly implementing spirituality…. It is my hope and prayer that we may strive toward spirituality because we recognize its importance, and that we may be spared from the need to be aroused from our complacency by harsh experiences.”
Reading this book may be a challenge for some because it will upend many of the concepts we hold dear, including for example, that helping other people, in and of itself, is an ultimate purpose. But it’s a challenge worth taking on.
“Light at the End of the Tunnel,” which is also available in paperback for $15.99, will be available in Jewish bookstores shortly. In the meantime, to order, call Mesorah Publications at 1-800-MESORAH.
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