On Social Work

When I was in social work school full time for two rich years of my life I wrote a lot of papers. Never has the saying of Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith that writing is the cutting open veins been more true. At that time, Sept 94-July '96, computers were foreign to me. I thought you had to put in all kinds of codes to be able to type. So I paid someone to type for me (this was long before I taught myself to peck 27 words a minute). She used to tell me that I should publish my papers and process reports of work with clients. My school - Wurzweiler - forced us to keep ourselves in the process. We had to turn in a diary. I loved it. Most everyone else hated it.

I wrote in this piece about my my social work graduate school experience. Ten months ago, during the High Holiday season in an eclectic post I wrote the following:

One of the footnotes I read in my machzor explained that matzmiach yeshuah means that yeshuah is a process that grows like a seed. Reminded me of the idea of the arba ge'ulot versus the arba leshonei geulah... So important to remember.
~
Social workers say
"Remember it's a process"
Cliched yet so true
~
On Sunday I went to a shiur and wrote this:
~
"A good place to be."
First day of social work school
The addict said this
We had reasons, he had truth
Safe, in shiur, I recalled

I'll close this post with a bit of explanation of some of the above.

In our daily prayers we praise G-d for causing salvation to sprout, a beauty of an image. In human terms, there's probably some form of pain involved for the seed and the earth as germination takes place. It's like childbirth, a process which involves pain and risk of losing life, the only way life is created. When G-d took us out of Egypt he described it four ways, and this is why we drink four celebratory cups of wine on Passover. (I know it's five but I'm trying to stay focused). Some refer to this as the four phrases of redemption. It's more accurate to call the The Four Redemptions. There were stages and each one was a salvation unto itself. That's how it is in our lives too.

Social workers love saying that something is a process. They're onto something. Life is, with or without our cooperation, a work in progress.

On the first day of the class named Foundations of Social Work we went around the room and everyone said a few words about what prompted us to start this masters program. The teacher was itching to start her lecture and said, "O.K, everyone shared? Good..." She was interrupted by a student who had remained invisible until this moment, "I didn't." He went on to talk about years of heroin addiction. He was recovered. Healthy. One of the things he regretted most was living with his pious grandfather in New York City, pretending to be righteous himself, while daily doing anything for a fix. He didn't know where to go in life. He was grateful to be healthy. A rabbi told him about Yeshiva University's social work school. "I'm here," he said, "because it's a safe place to be."

I was a social worker before I went to social work school. And I have been a social worker for these past thirteen years since receiving my diploma and earning my license. For me, it's a way of viewing the world.

Maybe I'll write more about this. Maybe.

Red Skelton thanks me

With a natural smile

From up in heaven

Or so I imagine as

I write - Good night and G-d bless