B'chasdei Hashem, over the past almost 20 years, Beis Mevakesh Lev has produced over 13,300 audio shiurim and over 31,000 written posts, unmatched by any one-person website - all completely free of charge. There are no paywalls or anything else. Now we are turning to you for help so we can continue - any amount will help. Even 99 cents! Thank you to my sweetest and most beloved friends!!!:-)!!
alchehrm@gmail.com
----
Question:
I'm dealing with a deep inner turmoil. Although, thank God, I was fortunate enough to finish three masechtos this year – I finished and summarized tractate Shevuos completely, I invested a great deal in learning Pesachim bi-iyun, and Kiddushin was a real experience for me – I find myself drowning in despairing thoughts.
Every time I open a Gemara, instead of rejoicing in the privilege of learning Torah, I am overwhelmed by memories of neglecting Torah study, of idle conversations, of things I did improperly. The words from the Gemara in Chagiga, that Hashem will bring us to task for idle speech "He tells man what his speech is," echo in my mind constantly. I so want to sit and study happily, to savor every idea and innovation, but thoughts of the past haunt me.
I know I've repented and fully believe that God has accepted me, but something inside me keeps saying, 'Yes, but you still don't serve God properly,' 'You'll have to give an account for every moment of wasted Torah study.' I have every reason to be happy with my lot, to be happy that I am a Jew who is privileged to serve God, but despair is growing.
What scares me the most is that I'm starting to think – maybe these thoughts are true? Maybe I really shouldn't be happy because darkness is greater than light? How can I truly start over without the past haunting me? How do you manage to put the past behind you and focus on serving Hashem with simcha?
Answer:
I greatly appreciate your strong desire to succeed and grow in Torah and in Avodas Hashem with peace and joy. I also appreciate the seriousness with which you examine things.
The answer below is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the conceptual discussion you raised, and the second part with your inner emotional state, which is reflected in the question's title: 'Despair'. I don't know which of the two parts will speak to you more, perhaps both.
Regarding the conceptual discussion, I will start with a question: Who is the person who can learn the Torah in peace and tranquility, with the feeling that they are doing God's will? Can great righteous people really do it? And didn't it already say that there is no righteous person on earth who does not sin?
I guess you want to answer me now: what are you comparing? Even if righteous people rarely sin, they certainly generally do God's will, and they can feel good about themselves.
But it's not that simple. Imagine for a moment someone who is seemingly in a much worse spiritual state than you: they really want to be a good person and they also really want to keep the Torah and mitzvos perfectly, but it's very difficult for him. In practice, he often fails and steals or even robs people. He manages to put on tefillin once every few months and keeps Shabbos sometimes and othertimes not. Now he comes to us and asks us how he can avoid despairing in Avodas Hashem. And then I ask him what I asked you earlier: Who can feel calm in their Avodas Hashem? I suppose he'll surely say that a boy like you, a boy who, from the beginning of the year, summarized the entire maseches Shavuos and knows it inside and out, invested heavily in Pesachim, and had a real experience with the tractate of Kiddushin... who else could be calm and serene in his Avodas Hashem like you?
So what's the truth? The truth is even more complicated. After all, we're not even capable of assessing the difficulty level for each person. Perhaps it's much easier for you to do what you do than for the dubious person I described earlier? And perhaps it's easier for the greater righteous person than it is for you? How can you even rank things like that?
The answer, of course, is that it's truly impossible. Not only is it impossible, but we are also not required to do so. We have no purpose, no way, and no point in trying to rank who is truly the most righteous toward heaven and who is not. The Holy One, blessed be He, is the only one who examines kidneys and hearts, and He is the one who knows how to evaluate.
So, we're back to the first question: who can be calm and relaxed in Avodas Hashem, and who needs to be constantly stressed and prone to such despair, as you describe you experience?
It seems easy to see that since we have no way of knowing who 'should' be stressed and who can be calm, we need to act in a balanced way that will benefit and enrich our spirituality. We truly don't know which path we are being led on (as Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai put it), but our guidance in the world should be such that it gives us a fruitful and good spiritual and physical life. One that will cause us to rise and excel.
What is this way?
From many places, it can be understood that the path is a balance between a lot of peace, satisfaction, and joy, with a few sprinkles of self-criticism and a demand to move forward. From experience, it can be said that very often, excessive self-criticism harms a person more than excessive satisfaction and joy. The world says in the name of the Vilna Gaon, that 'whoever is rich and happy with his lot' is also in spirituality. I don't know if the rumor attributed to the Vilna Gaon is true, but this statement reflects a certain level of very important truth: whoever cannot truly rejoice in their portion of spirituality causes themselves terrible difficulty, and then they also lack fruitful and good spirituality. In the book "Michtav Me'Eliyahu" (Volume Elul - Rosh Hashanah), it is quoted from the book "Pri Ha'aretz" that when a person is happy and thanks God for his merit in the commandments he performs and does not strive beyond his level, then the joy will preserve the inner aspect of his service. I know you could argue that you don't do everything at your level either, but that doesn't change the essence of the matter: if you're not happy and if you don't find satisfaction in the good parts you've done, it will only hinder your spiritual progress and not enrich it. In Kabbalah, the combination of lights and vessels is also famous: lights are the unlimited abundance of the spiritual essence that is everyplace, and vessels are our limited ability to receive it. Because whether we like it or not, God created us with limitations. He not only created us limited but also created the world in such a way that there is no righteous person on earth who will not sin.
In a Braisa in Bava Basra, it is stated that throughout the history of creation, there were only four people who passed through this world without sin: Benyamin son of Yaacov, Amram father of Moshe, Yishai father of Dovid, and Kil'av son of Dovid. This is not a 'mistake' by the Holy One, God forbid. Thus, the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world in a structured manner, in such a way that we fall and rise, fail and excel. Please note that the glorious figures of Judaism, the Seven Ushpizin, do not include these four who did not sin. The Ushpizin are Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaacov, Moshe, Aharon, Yoseph, and Dovid. These great figures of the world are our source of inspiration, and at least some of them are already mentioned in the Torah for their not-so-simple struggles, befitting their exalted status. They also had failures, and yet they are the figures we grew up with.
In contrast, even in treatment methods in the psychological world, there is a combination of this duality: between the need for self-acceptance and the need for progress, boundaries, and containment. This is how it is in the psychodynamic approach (between containment and holding); in the ACT approach (between acceptance and commitment); in the DBT approach (between validation and change); in the twelve-step approach (between peaceful acceptance and courage to change), and more.
How will we know how much to rejoice and sit in peace, and how much to be occupied with self-reflection? A Breslov Hasidic scholar once told me that Rabbi Nachman of Breslov gave this formula: 23 hours a day we are happy with our portion in spirituality, and one hour we do soul-searching... In my opinion, this is a beautiful formula, and it is also the direction that was adopted in the Lithuanian yeshiva world: all day we engage in learning itself with joy, and half an hour a day is dedicated to ethics and self-reflection. Of course, this division isn't a matter of hours; it's a matter of the direction of our consciousness. To elevate ourselves, we need to focus primarily on peace and contentment, and add self-reflection and pangs of conscience in a limited amount that won't cause us to collapse but will encourage us in a pleasant and positive way.
So far, this is the first, conceptual part. This part connects with your last sentence: "And I think the current thing that's preventing me from starting over is that I think these thoughts are true...". However, even if you are convinced by what I wrote, I am not entirely sure it will reassure you. This is because there's a long way between the time we conclude that we need to feel and experience a certain direction, and the time we actually succeed in feeling and experiencing that direction. This path naturally stems from our emotional areas; emotion isn't always obedient to reason.
It is entirely possible that the depressing and difficult area you are drawn to is not only a result of spiritual perception but also a result of an emotional state. We all have better and worse days. For some of us, periods of hatred take over for extended periods, and then we tend to think about everything from its negative perspective and pay less attention to the positive side. Sometimes we also have internal loops of self-reinforcing negative thoughts, such thoughts are called ruminations.
I will write down here two initial directions for dealing with negative thoughts that repeat and don't let go:
1. First, try to identify negative thoughts as they come and label them. Tell yourself, 'Here comes a negative thought that says such and such.' The very act of saying this is a certain distancing from the thought and helps you not accept the thought as the sole truth. After you manage to catch your thoughts, look for those that consistently repeat themselves. When you find them, write them down for yourself and try to examine them: bring evidence for and against these thoughts. Don't try to forcefully disprove them, but do try to see the bigger, more complex picture. You can do this on your own or with someone to help you think together. As we get used to seeing the complex image over and over, it usually gradually permeates our inner experience as well.
2. The normal consciousness of most people in the Western world today, which is also evident in your question, is a consciousness that is constantly focused on our story: who am I, what have I done enough and what haven't I, what will happen to me in the future, what are my plans, where will I end up at the end of my life and after my death, and so on. This consciousness is sometimes called 'narrative consciousness' (meaning consciousness of a story, of the story of our lives). This is a very important awareness and it's part of what distinguishes us from animals who probably don't know how to plan ahead and understand the whole story of their lives. However, sometimes the constant and continuous holding of narrative consciousness burdens us greatly and does not allow us to live healthy and peaceful lives. Therefore, it is recommended to try to incorporate additional awareness from time to time: the awareness of the here and now. In the consciousness of here and now, we try to simply be in the present moment: to think about whether I am doing well at this moment, to think about how I feel right now in every way, to pay attention to whether I am doing 'now' what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants from me. Simply be present in the here and now and gently set aside all questions of the past and future. The consciousness of this moment can free us greatly from depression.
translated from akshiva
