Standing By Your Sex-Hobbyist -Man; Because It's Your Fault Too?

MENTAL ILLNESS TAKES ANOTHER VALUABLE LIFE
Rabbi's despair ended in Empire State Building jump

All I can do is ask why? Why are those with mental illness and low funds put in this situation? This man wanted help, asked for help and got poor, substandard help.

His death is the result a seriously flawed and failed system, greed and the sad stigma of mental illness which must end in this country if we are to save valuable lives.

BY RICH SCHAPIRO - DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Jewish scholar Moshe Kanovsky jumped from the Empire State Building.

He was a scholar among scholars, a young man with an impressive mind and seemingly limitless potential.

Those who knew Moshe Kanovsky, one of six children in a family split between Maryland and Brooklyn, expected him to become one of the great minds in modern Jewish teachings.

As a boy, he mesmerized his fellow classmates with his grasp of the Torah. And his reputation for brilliance continued as he blazed through the yeshiva equivalents of middle school and high school. Whatever career path he chose, Kanovsky, everyone agreed, was destined for greatness. But in the end, only his death was spectacular.

The part-time lawyer leapt from a window on the 69th floor of the Empire State Building on April 13, becoming at least the 30th person to jump from the skyscraper since it opened in 1931.

"It's not something anybody should have to deal with," Kanovsky's father, Yaakov, told the Daily News. "Not because of the pain I feel, but because of the loss of such a promising 31-year-old man not being able to make a significant impact on the world."

Kanovsky spent his early years in Philadelphia until his parents divorced in 1984, when he was 8. He and his five siblings - two brothers and three sisters - went with their mother to San Diego for two years before settling in Silver Spring, Md., in 1986.

There, he dazzled fellow students with his intellect. He was the type of person, his friends and family members said, who would often spend hours helping another classmate learn difficult material - and expect nothing in return. "He was a mensch," said his middle school friend Aryeh Dickinson, 31, using the Yiddish term for a particularly sweet and caring person.

After graduating from Yeshiva Ner Israel in Baltimore, Kanovsky went to Israel, where he studied at one of the top schools in the country. Shortly after he returned to Maryland to enroll at the Ner Israel Rabbinical College, the movie buff and backgammon master began exhibiting symptoms of manic depression, his loved ones said.

His mental illness began taking a toll that did not go unnoticed. Kanovsky became more withdrawn and would sleep for hours in the middle of the day.

"When we were kids, he was always the brightest, the most amazing," said his cousin Donny Kanovsky, 31. "He was going to do the greatest things. It sort of didn't make sense when we were 22 or 23 and I was like what's Moshe up to, and he wasn't really doing the things we expected."

Moshe Kanovsky, who had few close friends, ultimately decided he wanted to pursue law. He was admitted to the bar in 2003 after graduating from Cardozo Law School.

But law was never his passion. During the next few years, much of Kanovsky's time was still devoted to studying the Torah. He also spent hours doing free legal work for members of the lower East Side community where he resided. And whenever a synagogue needed a rabbi to fill in, it was Kanovsky who would get the call.

His financial situation was dire. He was open about the fact that he could not afford the best psychiatric care and ended up seeing a "multitude of doctors," one friend said.

"You get what you pay for," the struggling intellect would tell his closest friend when discussing the quality of his therapy.

In recent weeks, Kanovsky's friends and family members didn't notice any significant changes in his emotional state, even as he started working part-time for an attorney in the Empire State Building.

Then, the depressed lawyer jumped out of a law office on the 69th floor during an afternoon meeting with a client.

And with him died the hopes of his friends and family members that someday Moshe Kanovsky would realize his extraordinary potential.

rschapiro@nydailynews.com

CLICK HERE TO JBLOG ME