A New Spirit

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit into you; I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh.” [Ezekiel, chp 26]
 
Do you think it’s really possible to change, I asked him. Yes, he said, definitely. I felt tremendous relief at that moment. This conversation took place several years ago and the advice has stayed with me and has proved to be correct.
 
It’s easy to give advice and even harder to take it.  No-one can completely understand another person’s personality or situation and so I try to be mindful of the fact that speaking to someone about emuna might actually be counterproductive if the person doesn’t have the mental wherewithal to embrace it.  A delicate balance has to be drawn between, on the one hand, providing a person with spiritual tools to draw close to Hashem and, on the other hand, accepting that a person may not be open to, or able to grasp, them at that particular moment, and that’s ok.
 
The prophet Ezekiel says that at the End of Days, when Moshiach comes [may it be speedily, amen] Hashem will remove our heart of stone, so we know that just prior to the Final Redemption, the Jewish People collectively will be spiritually distant from Hashem.  However, this very knowledge should give us hope that the full Redemption of our people is very close because we see this phenomenon clearly in Jewish society [and indeed non Jewish society] today: distance from Torah, the root of spirituality and connection to Hashem;  at the same time, a yearning for wisdom, meaning, depth and identity.  So rather than feel despondent about it, we should rather encourage ourselves that Hashem will definitely remove the wedge that separates us from Him as well, because a spiritual law of prophecy is that a negative prophecy need not become reality depending our actions but a positive prophecy must happen.
 
Perhaps then, one manifestation of the heart of stone that the prophet is talking about is the surge in mental health issues that seem to engulf us at the moment.
 
In the introduction to his book, "In the Merit of the Righteous Women", the Biale Rebbe shlit”a, puts forward the view that a negative self-image causes a spiritual poverty and, because of this, a person is unable to realise his or her true potential.  He states that in this generation the Evil Inclination attempts to imbue the Jewish People with a lowly and degraded self-esteem. He further states in the name of his great uncle, the Aron Eidus zt”l, that it is the nature of things to atrophy due to lack of use so if a person doesn’t tap into his or her spiritual abilities and use them, eventually they may be lost! The danger of lack of self-appreciation is more prevalent in the Jewish People which is why, the Biale Rebbe posits, that there is an inclination towards depression amongst our people.  Jewish People, he says, have been blessed with inner greatness and such tremendously gifted souls that are carved from the highest places in all creation; as such, if a Jew does not use these special powers, he will feel a sense of loss directly proportional to the degree of potential that the person possesses, yet never comes to realise. 
 
One of the main things that Rabbi Nachman emphasises in his teachings is this very issue: self-appreciation. We absolutely must believe that Hashem loves us. We must discover our inner points of goodness. We must internalise that we are created with a soul that is part of Hashem; that He put our soul in a particular body, in a particular place and time, “to do”.  This is purpose of creation: to do, to achieve, to create ourselves into what we are supposed to be.
 
We have to put aside our intellect when we don’t understand something, and develop humility. The path to spiritual awareness is humility, to acknowledge that the abilities I have come from Hashem and my task is to use them wisely, in His service, to the best of my ability. We have to be able to say I don’t know. Maybe what I previously thought wasn’t true. Maybe there’s another, more accurate, way of looking at things.
 
We have to learn Torah, from bona fide teachers, because the Torah is the Jewish People’s identity.  We are nothing without Hashem’s Torah.  We have no access to the Land of Israel without the Torah. We were formed from the Torah and therefore we have to go back to the Torah to regain our sense of identity, mission, and inner peace.
 
We have to learn emunah.
 
“…and I will put My spirit into you. Thus I will cause you to follow My Laws and faithfully to observe My rules. Then you shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers, and you shall be My people and I will be your G-d.” Ezekiel, chp 27, 28