Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily, a project of SIMHA, the Sephardic Initiative for Mental Health Awareness.
We're going to dedicate this week to the importance of a person having their own opinion. This is something that needs to be stressed.
I’m not saying that one cannot advise with others, but rather that even when you advise with others, you need to have an opinion. You need to develop your own way of looking at things. I heard from Rav Wolbe more than once that when you go into a great man to ask a question (he means even to a great man), you don't just walk in with a blank slate and ask your question. First you spent a lot of time figuring out what you think it should be. Then, once you come to an opinion, you ask him what he thinks. That's the way to come to a correct decision. You still have to go in with your mind.
This is especially important in the area of shidduchim/matchmaking. Rav Pam, the Rosh Yeshiva of Torah Va’daat, once related the following thought about Shidduchim: He said that when boys start going out, they often ask their rabbi, their mother or their friend what type of girl they should look for.
What would you say go your son or daughter asked you?
I recently asked this to a bunch of ladies, and one of the ladies said, “The boy should look for someone just like his mother.”
That's a nice answer.
When Rav Palm was asked the question, he would respond, “Imagine if you went to the Port Authority and saw a lot of buses, and asked somebody there, ‘Which is a good bus for me to take?’” That's obviously a silly question. You first have to decide where you want to go, and then you'll know which bus to take. It’s the same with shidduchim. First you have to decide where you're heading in life, and then you can look for a girl who shares your goals and aspirations. In other words, if you don't yet know who you are, you can't start looking for the girl that's going to marry you.
You have to know who you are first.
The following real-life story was shared with me by a fellow whose expertise is to guide people in their dating process: There was a 30-year-old boy whose brothers were all full-time learners. He was learning in Yeshiva and he loved learning, but he also wanted to have the nicer things and have a job and go to grad school. He was torn between learning and grad school. Among other things, this tension made it impossible for him to date successfully.
He dated girls that wanted to marry a learner and those that wanted to marry an earner, but until he settled on who he was, which was an earner with a passion for learning, he was unable to get married.
This is extremely important. Before we date, before we live, we have to know, Who are we?
Rav Wolbe writes in Alei Shor (volume two, page 417) that the first foundation in a man building himself is to be an individual, not just a generic person.
You have to have a brand. You have to have a name, you have to have who you are.
On page 413, he says, imagine a person comes to be judged every year on Rosh Hashanah, or after 120 years, and they ask, why'd you do this?
He says, “I don't know. Stam- Just like that.” They ask a little further, and he says “Well, everyone did that, so I did it also.” And when they ask, “What did you think?” His answer is, “I didn't really think about it.”
That's not a way to live life. You can't live life Stam/generic.
I heard from Rav Wolbe (I don't know if it's in print) that after Amida we walk back our three steps and we say a pasuk that begins and ends with the letters of our name, so that we shouldn't forget our names after 120 years on Yom HaDin. It says that when they ask you what your name is, you might forget.
What does it mean that you're going to forget your name? There are many answers given, but Rav Wolbe offers an unbelievable explanation. He says that the name describes the essence of the person. The name is who you are. It's not just a random concept. It's who you are, and what your mission in life is. What your make up is.
After 120 years, they asked you, Did you fulfill your mission? The first question is, Who are you? What's your mission? What are you? And if you can't answer that, it's a big problem.
That's what it means to forget your name. I don't want to go into what the punishment is for the man that forgets his name. It's pretty severe. Therefore he says, at the end of the Amida, three times a day, we remind ourselves that we have to know who we are. You're an individual with an opinion. That's something that has to be developed. The first real time that you really have to answer that question is the during dating process, but it starts from a young age. A person has to develop- Who are you? What's your opinion? How do you look at things?
Of course, you’re advised and you are corrected and it's nuanced. But you can't go through life not being you. Have a wonderful day.