Today’s Subtle Psychotic

Judaism teaches us that G-d is the only true reality. Ein Od Milvado means that there is nothing other than Him; “The whole world is filled with His glory.” And whenever we start to think that “we” are a reality, G-d has to humble us and get us to see that He is running the world and not us. When we get all huffy because things are not going the way we want them to, G-d must step in and, in effect, say: “Oh, so you think YOU are G-d? Now I’ll have to show you that you’re not!”

Take a mother of a bunch of little kids. What’s her claim? That they should all behave and do whatever she says. Sounds good on paper, but if she is screaming at her kids to behave it’s a good bet that she is not aware that her Master, the Master of the World, has His “Eyes” glued to her. She is being tested. Since the moment she screams she thinks that she is G-d, G-d has to show her that she is not – through a five-year-old kid!

What’s the test? The test is that G-d tells the kids to act up in order to fix Mom’s psychotic arrogance.  As long as she stays angry at the precious souls that G-d entrusted her with she is failing the test. She doesn’t really believe in Ein Od Milvado, that there is nothing but Him. She believes in Yesh Od Milvado, that there is something other than Him (G-d forbid!). And what is that other power she believes in? It’s herself! She has dared to pick up the Crown of the King of Kings and put it on her own head.

What can she do now? She has sinned against her children and against G-d and she knows she has. Should she worry that she’s in big trouble? Should she feel depressed about what she did? No way!

She should simply tell herself that she was temporarily out of touch with reality and plead insanity. Then, she should take the following anti-psychotic prescription:

1. Stop and know before Whom you stand (it’s not your kids; it’s Hashem).
2. Say: “Hashem, I know that this is a test of my emuna.”
3. “There is no one but You, Hashem.”
4. “You want me to think with my emuna, not my intellect.”
5. “I concede that right now my intellect is very far from the Truth.”
6. “My only real choice is to believe that there is no one but You, Hashem, and only You can help me.”
7. “I choose to place myself in Your Loving Hands, Hashem, rather than my own.”
8. “If necessary, I am ready to suffer this anguish, Hashem.  “Hashem, I know that you are using my children as a stick in Your hand and I cannot change my children until I improve my ways.”
9. “I therefore withdraw all blame from my children. They are not the guilty ones. I am.”
10. “I violated one or more of Your Commandments.”
11. “Please forgive me, Hashem, and I won’t act this way in the future.”
12. “Please forgive me for my arrogance.”
13. “I accept that the outcome of this is completely in Your Hands.”
14. “Help me learn from this test.”
15. “I want to know myself better as a result of this.”
16. “Help me turn this setback into a victory.”
17. “Help me to accept my “failure” and be successful in the future. That way my failure will be turned into a victory.”
18. “I have harmed my children; I will seek their forgiveness and donate to charity as atonement for my misdeeds.”

Is the mother in this example so unusual? No. Most of the world today is suffering from this subtle form of psychosis because they are out of touch with the Creator – the One true reality.   If a person has severed himself from G-d he has severed himself from the only source of life and sanity he has. People who are living G-dless “lives” don’t have a compass with which to check the validity of their thoughts, their reactions, their relationships, their decisions, or their values and moral choices.