Looking in the Wrong Place

The only way to not fall into the many traps being set for us by the Evil Inclination, is to really believe in G-d. A person who really believes in G-d is not going to waste time trying to use his own intellect to think through “who he is” or “what he’s about.” A person who really believes in G-d is definitely not going to spend hours obsessively researching the “meaning” of his psychological symptoms (such as anxiety, depression, or obsessiveness) on the internet. He’s also not interested in hearing the opinions of the mental health experts who are so far away from G-d that their ideas about “reality” are completely meaningless.

Rather, when a person really believes in G-d, he only wants to understand his “problem” and know what to do about his “problem” based on the Divine Wisdom and advice that can only be found in G-d’s most precious “medical” book – the holy Torah. That fortunate person understands that everything is being orchestrated from Above, and that nothing of real importance is being created, decided or affected down here. That means that he looks for answers from Above first and only then makes sense of why he is suffering down here.

Here’s a general example: Why are so many people depressed in today’s world? If a depressed person would really know why he is depressed he would instantly start to feel better because a Torah-based answer brings immediate light into the soul of the person who needs it. Before I tell you the answer, I want to say that of course we can point to millions of reasons why a person is sad but they are almost never the root cause of the problem. I’m also not talking about the person who G-d forbid, just lost a loved one or experienced another type of situational trauma. I’m talking about the millions of people who have been feeling terribly sad and empty for most of their lives.

Here’s the answer: All people who believe that they are dying are sad. It’s the greatest limitation that a person could have. The more strongly that a person believes that he is dying the sadder he is. These people are always despairing (whether consciously or unconsciously) that their deaths can occur right now.

There is a well-known statement by Rebbe Nachman of Breslev that says just the opposite – he said that “there is no despair in the world.” What did he mean by this? He meant that we can stop despairing about death because we are never going to die! The body which was never alive to begin with (it was earth) merely borrowed your soul (which was, is and will always be alive!). Once people know the truth and contemplate the truth they can have a “new lease on life” because life itself is a condition and state that is permanent. When people learn about the next world, where souls go after they leave the earth – they feel better. When they learn further about how their souls will end up returning back to perfect bodies that won’t even be able to sin again and so won’t ever be susceptible to “death” again – they feel even better!

There are two types of victory that we can have over our “emotional problems.” One type is similar to trying to fight a war by simply destroying your enemy. This way cannot succeed because G-d does not desire us to simply destroy for no reason – even a problem that seems to have no trace of good to it and no redeeming qualities needs to be defeated for the purpose of uniting its hidden redeeming qualities with your very good personal qualities.

One who understands G-d knows that His overall purpose is to unite us and to unite the disparate warring parts within us and between us.  As it says: “On that day (when the Messiah comes) G-d and His Name will be one – earth and heaven will be one. The correct way to achieve victory over your “problems” is to defeat them and force them to unite with you peacefully. This will make you eternally stronger and more whole. This second type of eternal victory is the only real victory that there is because to simply kill off “an enemy” without a desire to change and reform him is simply not part of G-d’s plan.

Another reason why people are depressed is because they are trying to find “meaning” in a world that is really empty of meaning. That’s why they should be happy to know that they are feeling empty. They are feeling an empty void in their lives because we live in a world of “sheker ha’chane v’hevel ha’yofi” (a world where what seems wholesome and nice is really false; and what looks beautiful is really empty). Our Rabbis teach us that since we are searching in the wrong places to find “meaning” in life, it follows that people who search in the same wrong places for the meaning and solution to their distress, their despair, their sadness and their emptiness will also not find it there (secular books, internet, etc.).

Some people stay so “busy” that they “fool” themselves into thinking that they don’t feel sad and empty inside. For them the observance of Shabbat and Yom tov might feel like torture especially if the holiday goes on for two or three days consecutively. All week long these people are trying to feed their souls on television, movies, the internet or worse. So when a three-day holiday comes around they don’t understand why their neighbors look so relaxed, refreshed and fulfilled because by then they are jumping out of their skin!

For these people, the greatest blessing is to feel how empty they are without their usual distractions and to know that it’s quite natural that they should feel empty because the pursuit of their secular desires for material things and even pursuing spiritual goals too vigorously (without feeling good about their present level) will not give satisfaction to the longing of their souls for the real and lasting nutrition that it hungers for.

So what is the real food for the soul which takes away sadness? The foods that sustain and heal and expand one’s soul while it’s on earth are only the teachings of the holy Torah. This is because the Torah is much more than wise and pithy sayings to be repeated at the Shabbat table – as is commonly said – “a gutta vort” (a clever or witty saying). No, the Torah is much more that this – the Torah is the blueprint of every single aspect of our lives.

This is why any attempt to resolve human suffering, of any kind, without consultation with a competent Torah authority is doomed to fail in the end.

The choice is ours: we can certainly choose to go with the opinions and “knowledge” of secular professionals who have no real way of curing our problems; or, we can turn to Hashem’s Torah and his spiritual guides who love and fear G-d so much that they are careful to only offer help or give advice that is based on the holy Torah.