About New York; In Williamsburg, Hasidim Find A Door of Hope

The man had the long beard, sidecurls and dark clothing of a Hasid. Pulling a small boy by the hand, he entered briskly through a side door and then gave the child a push in the general direction of a roomful of children. Then the man vanished.

The child is seriously developmentally disabled. The father had brought him to what is said to be one of the few mental health clinics whose principal clients are Hasidim. It is called Pesach Tikvah, Hebrew for Door of Hope.

The staff explained that the man was likely in such a hurry because of shame over venturing beyond the time-honored ways the Hasidim deal with mental afflictions. In the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, where some 50,000 Hasidim live, these afflictions carry such stigma that Rabbi Chaim M. Stauber - who founded the clinic five years ago and serves as executive director - says parents can be seen walking with retarded children late at night to avoid detection.

The most obvious reason is the deliberate distance separating the Hasidim from the modern world. No television, movies or theater - and traditionally no contamination by such modern concepts as psychotherapy. Moreover, mental impairments are linked to sin. There is also the high regard that Hasidim hold for biblical study and the finely tuned mind.

And one other thing. ''Marriages are arranged,'' said Rabbi Stauber, arranger of many himself. ''It isn't boy meets girl and they fall in love.''

The result, the rabbi says, is that parents keep the developmentally disabled in the closet so as not to send out a negative advertisement about their other children. The average number of children per family, he says, is 7.5.

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