The news of Shoshana Strouk’s death has stayed with me since I heard about it in a way that is difficult to shake. When something like this happens, the public conversation quickly becomes loud. People begin debating the facts, choosing sides, and arguing about what is true and what is not. Within hours, there is pressure to form a clear opinion. People want answers immediately. They want certainty.

But before all of that, there is something much simpler that deserves acknowledgment.

Whatever the full details of her story may ultimately be, it is clear that she lived with a great deal of pain. None of us reading headlines or social media posts truly knows the entire story. Human lives are complicated. Families are complicated. Trauma is complicated. The truth of any situation rarely fits neatly into the quick conclusions that public debate often demands.

Sometimes the most honest thing we can say is that we simply do not know everything.

In situations like this, there is often enormous pressure to respond immediately. Social media encourages quick reactions and strong opinions. But real human stories do not reveal themselves that quickly. Even now, information continues to emerge that was not known earlier. That alone should remind us how limited our understanding often is in the early stages of a tragedy.

What happened and why it happened are questions that may take time to fully understand. Those questions belong to processes that are designed to examine facts carefully and responsibly. But there is something else that belongs to all of us. Something that does not require waiting for investigations or conclusions.

We can still ask ourselves what we need to learn from a life that ended in this way. What we can say with certainty is that someone was struggling deeply.

Anyone who has spent time around people experiencing emotional pain knows that suffering rarely appears suddenly. It usually develops gradually. It can take months or years. The pain accumulates quietly. Sometimes the person speaks openly about it. Sometimes they hint at it in ways that are difficult to interpret. Sometimes they withdraw. Sometimes they act in ways that confuse the people around them.

And often the people around them simply do not know what to do.

This is not about blaming families or communities. Most people are doing the best they can with the tools they have. But it does remind us how difficult it can be to recognize the depth of someone else’s suffering, especially when it unfolds slowly over time.

In my work and in my life, I have met thousands of people who carry wounds that are invisible to the outside world. Some of those wounds come from trauma, often from childhood. Some come from loneliness. Some come from feeling unseen or unheard for long periods. Some people have experienced abuse. Others feel trapped in circumstances they do not know how to escape.

What many of them share is a longing to be understood.

Not necessarily fixed. Not necessarily solved.

When someone dies by suicide, one of the hardest realities to face is that it usually did not begin on the day they died. It is rarely a single moment or sudden decision. More often, it is the result of a long internal struggle. Pain builds quietly over months or years until eventually the person feels they can no longer carry it.

For many families confronting that reality can be extremely painful. Suicide still carries tremendous stigma in many communities, including many here in Israel. The shame, the questions, the fear of judgment, and the worry about how others will react can be overwhelming.

Because of that, it is not uncommon for families to want to soften the narrative around the cause of death or the circumstances surrounding it. Sometimes that instinct comes almost naturally. It can be an attempt to protect the dignity of the person who died or of the family in which they are from. It can be a way of shielding the family from additional pain during an already devastating time.

That reaction is deeply human, and it deserves compassion.

But at the same time, silence around mental health struggles carries its own cost. When we avoid speaking openly about suicide and emotional suffering, we unintentionally make it harder for others who are still living with that same pain to ask for help. Silence may feel protective in the moment, but over time, it can deepen the stigma that keeps people suffering alone.

Even with all the progress that has been made in recent years in mental health awareness, both in Israel and around the world, the truth is that stigma still exists. Mental illness is still something many people feel they must hide. Families sometimes feel embarrassed to speak openly about it. Communities grow uncomfortable when the subject arises. Problems are quietly brushed aside in the hope that they will somehow resolve themselves.

But silence does not heal people.

Pretending something is not there does not make it disappear.

Families should never feel ashamed to speak about mental health struggles. In fact the moment someone acknowledges that something is wrong, that someone is hurting, that help is needed, that moment is often the first real step toward saving a life.

Awareness matters. Admission matters. Recognition matters.

Those are the beginnings of change.

Education and awareness about mental health are not the responsibility of professionals alone. They are the responsibility of all of us. Every parent. Every teacher. Every community leader. Every friend. Every neighbor.

And it should begin at the very top.

Public leadership has an important role in shaping how society speaks about mental health. When leaders acknowledge the reality of emotional suffering and commit to learning how to respond to it, they send a powerful message to everyone else.

Instead of pretending that these struggles do not exist, instead of pushing them quietly out of sight, our leaders can help create a culture where learning and awareness are encouraged.

That is why I believe every one of the one hundred and twenty members of the Knesset should become proficient in mental health awareness.

Not in a symbolic way but in a practical one.

Mental Health First Aid is one of the most effective tools we have today for helping ordinary people recognize signs of distress, respond compassionately, and guide someone toward appropriate help before a crisis becomes irreversible. These are not complicated clinical techniques. They are practical human skills. Learning how to notice when someone is struggling. Learning how to approach them with care. Learning how to listen without judgment. Learning how to help connect someone to support.

If our national leaders were trained in these skills, it would send a powerful message throughout the country that mental health matters and that no one should feel ashamed to seek help.

For my part, I would gladly help make that happen.

If the Knesset wishes to ensure that its members are trained in Mental Health First Aid, I would be willing to arrange that training free of charge to the State.

Because awareness is not a luxury.

It is a responsibility.

The earlier we recognize distress, the greater the chance of saving someone’s life.

A life has been lost.

But there are many other people still walking among us quietly carrying pain that we cannot see.

If we learn to notice them sooner, listen more carefully, and speak more openly about mental health, then perhaps some lives that might otherwise be lost will still have a chance to be saved.

Let the tragedy of Shoshana Strouk z”l not end in silence.

Let it become a moment that pushes us to learn more, listen more, and care more deeply.

Let Shoshana’s death become a light.

A bright light that helps illuminate what too often remains hidden, so that the skies above us may one day be filled not with silence but with understanding, compassion, and hope.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)