Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily. Rav Wolbe has a beautiful piece on resilience, in chapter five of his Aleh Shor, volume one, where he quotes from the Sefer HaYashar (6th gate)a book of Mussar attributed to Rabbeinu Tam. He says that when anyone starts any spiritual activity, if he has a pleasure in it, he’ll feel a certain desire for that activity, and that desire will bring love.
There are three steps. First, a pleasure. Then, with the pleasure comes desire, which then develops a love.
But, he says, a hate (or displeasure), will start coming in and then go away, and back and forth it goes.
A person will have ups and downs in his spiritual growth, but if he has a lot of pleasure and a lot of intelligence, the love will last longer, and the hate will be shorter.
If he doesn't have intelligence, and he doesn't enjoy it that much, then the hate will outweigh the love and the two feelings will be be constantly switching.
That's on a constant. But he says, if there's a hiddush/ something new, a new exercise or a new understanding, if you're working on yourself, that will bring with it more love.
If there’s a negative Hiddush (exercising and your charley horse, or you're learning and you get a little burnt out), then more hate will come. And if the feelings are equal, intelligence plays a role. He calls this the secret of love and hate.
To recap, it starts with a pleasure, which puts in a desire, and then a love. Naturally, that will dissipate. But something new, whether for the good or the bad, will enhance or intensify either one of those feelings.
Why is this important? Rabbenu Tam says, “Now that I told you this, you'll know that whatever you're working on, you're going to have that constant struggle between love and hate. At one point the love will be stronger and at others the hate will be stronger, so therefore, don't get concerned if you suddenly drop out a little bit, because eventually it's going to dissipate. The hate will dissipate and then the love will come back even stronger. And then again, the hate will step in… But don't despair because any feeling will eventually flip.”
And he says, when you get into the hate stage, don't get disgusted and stop totally.
Using exercise as a mashal, Don't just stop. If you were going three times a week, do only once a week. In his words, “Don't stop totally and say, I'll come back.” Because you'll never come back. If you drop it totally, you'll lose it. If you hold onto something, you'll keep it going.”
This is a tremendous overview of life’s struggles, given by Rabbenu Tam. We have to understand that mood changes are natural, says Rav Wolbe. You won’t despair when hate sets in, as long as you know the secret- not to throw in the towel and give it up totally.
Rabbenu Tam mentions the power of sechel. He says, when there's a struggle, use your intelligence. And intelligence will decide.
How does the intelligence decide?
Rav Wolbe says, if you have it clear and you know that this is the right thing, that will help push through.
Using the exercise mashal, I know if I don't exercise, I'm not going to be healthy. If I don't run, my blood pressure won’t go down. If I know that clearly, that's going to push me through even when I'm charley horse.
And it’s the same with spirituality. If a person says, life without spirituality is not a life; I must learn. I must grow in my Mitzvot, I must grow in my character perfection, that will push him towards the love. And that will give him the ability, even when he doesn't have a hiddush, even when he doesn't have the pleasure and the feeling.
He ends this first piece by explaining that this, in itself, makes life's struggles easier- to know it's natural, and not despair.
There were two men in the same time period, lo Alenu, that got divorced early in their marriages. They went to Rav Hutner to ask him advice. They were both good learning men.
Rav Hutner gave them both the same advice. “You're going through a difficult struggle now, so take it a little easier. Learn in the morning, learn at night. In the afternoons, play some ball, relax, take a walk, take it easier.”
One of them listened and he ended up bouncing back pretty fast. The other one didn't listen to the advice. He pushed through in his times of hatred and ended up unable to bounce back the way he should have. We have to know this secret: Don't push too hard when it's difficult.
Keep it going, but tone it down a bit, because eventually, naturally, your mood will change. This is one of the secrets of resilience, to understand that the downs are only temporary, and the ups will come back soon.
