Regarding this post, it behooves me to expand.
In life, one should always try to understand root causes and not just behaviors and symptoms.
Cases in point:
Addictions. When someone is an alcoholic the issue is not that they have a deeper soul connection to alcohol per se. The issue is that they are suffering in other areas of life and alcohol is the mechanism with which they learned to cope. So the task is to explore the root causes and deal with those and automatically the alcoholism will be cured. Same with drug abuse, overeating, Internet addictions etc. etc.
Infidelity: When someone has an affair he is doing something evil. But there is a root cause. Usually - that his marriage is not satisfying him. Otherwise, why would he look elsewhere?? The solution is to try to help him fix his marriage.
Kids acting out: Why? It is not out of the blue. Maybe ADD or ADHD or ODD [Oppositional Defiant Disorder]. Or many other possibilities. Maybe the child is feeling unloved or misunderstood. Deal with those and you solved the problem. The acting out is a symptom.
Bad middos: Anger, depression, jealousy etc. etc. - They are all coming from somewhere. Find out where and uproot the problem at its source.
When you go to the root there is another advantage - you can keep the good and discard the bad. Keep the baby and throw out the dirty bathwater.
In our examples: Someone is feeling empty so they turn to alcohol to make them forget their sense of emptiness. But this sense of emptiness is POSITIVE because it makes them search for meaning. So keep the need to have meaning and drop the bottle.
This man desperately wants love and closeness with a woman. That is positive. G-d wants that for us too!! לא טוב היות האדם לבדו. We have many halachos to ensure a happy, stable marriage. So keep his need for a good marriage and get rid of his impure behavior.
Now the child will get his love and understanding that he so desperately needs or there will be closer attention paid to his emotional needs. Very positive.
A person is usually angry because he is in pain. If we go to the root we can fix his anger AND his pain. A person is jealous because he is unsatisfied with his life. It is POSITIVE to be unsatisfied with one's life because it causes one to accomplish great things. [Alfred Adler's school of psychology as I remember from my youthful readings: Everything we do is to compensate for our feelings of inferiority].
Regarding the חילולי השם we have heard about and constantly hear about. The behavior is EVIL. רע!!! But if these people [and we] can learn to channel passionate feelings about what is right in the correct directions then it will be amazing. If at the root there is even a grain of good intentions then those good intentions should be amplified and directed towards more constructive behavior.
This is a deep topic because the human psyche and soul are deep so I devoted a short post to it in order that the very intelligent readers will take this idea further.
I thank the beloved friend who wrote me the email [imploring me to just say that they are evil and that's it] that triggered this post.
PS - I live what I write. I recently had an extremely costly and complex root canal done BARUCH HASHEM. I MAMESH got to the root. Now I am in the process of getting a crown - כתר. The highest level in the sefiros is כתר. So you see - if you get to the root you reach כתר!!!!
KESSSSEERRRRRRR YITNUUUU LICHAAA-AA-AAA!!!!
