Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily, a SIMHA (Sephardic Initiative for Mental Health Awareness) initiative. This week, we’ve been talking about using every day. We mentioned that people sometimes get stuck on that, and get obsessed about being fully productive every minute of the day. What does it mean to use your day? What does it mean to have a successful day? What does it mean to do things right? This is an area where we often compare ourselves to others and have different cognitive distortions of using time correctly or not.
I want to share a story which is quite moving, that came up in the concentration camps. Rabbi Ephraim Guttman was in the ghetto and he asked the rabbi of the Kovno, Rabbi Avraham Shapiro a question:
How do we make a Kiddush Hashem?How do we show Jewish pride and Jewish power in these trying times? He told two different stories about how two Jews went to their death. In one story, when they gathered the Jews together, there was a butcher who was very strong. He charged at the head of the Gustapo who was rounding them up, tore his throat with his teeth, and killed him.
Of course, they immediately shot him, but he showed that he wasn't going to go like a sheep to the slaughter.
The second story took place in Kelm, when they took the yeshiva out to die. The Elder of Kelm’s son-in-law, Rav Daniel of Kelm, led everybody out in a slow, orderly fashion. He asked the Nazis permission to give a speech to his students before they died, and he gave them words of hizuk. When he finished his speech he calmly told the Nazi guard, “I finished mine. Now you can start yours.” That was the way he died. The question that Rabbi Guttman had was, What is the right way to act? When Rabbi Shapiro didn't answer him, he asked him two or three more times, and finally said, “This is Halacha L’Maaseh, you're the rabbi of the city. You have to tell me.”
Rabbi Shapiro answered, “I want to explain to you that Kiddush Hashem is when a Jewish person does the maximum that he can do in the situation that he's in. The butcher did the maximum that he could do. He was strong, and he showed that he wasn't going to go to like a sleep sheep to slaughter. Rav Daniel was a weak and elderly Mashgiach. He had no strength, but he had his spiritual force. And his way was to calmly direct his students.”
This is very important. What does it mean to use your day properly? Every person has a different job. Every person has a different maximum that he can do in the situation. It's not for us to compare ourselves to others. In Nefesh HaChaim (third gate, chapter 8) Rav Chaim Volozhin discusses the different ways of the Yetzer Hara. He says that sometimes the Yetzer Hara comes to a person like he's not even trying to convince him to do evil. He comes in like a Sadik and he says, “The Torah that you did, the Mitzvot that you did were not good enough. It's not good enough. It should have been done with more intention, with more fervor, with more enthusiasm.” And he says, that's what it means when the Torah describes the Yetzer Hara that tells a person Rak Ra Kol Hayom. Simply, this means, ‘Only do bad all day.’ But he says that's not what it means. He says it means, “All day, he tells you, ‘You’re no good.’”
That's the Yetzer Hara’s force- All day, he tells you, You are no good. That is one of the ways the Yetzer Hara. We have to know that. He’s coming to break us and tell us, “Not enough, do more, do more.” And the rabbis explains that this is what it means when we say in our prayers, in Arbit,”Take the Satan from in front of me and from behind me.”
I understand the Satan in front of me. He wants to block me from doing Mitzvot. But what’s the Satan from behind me? The Satan from behind me is pushing me to do things that are beyond my level. He's pushing me to do things and he's trying to make me think that I'm not good enough. Gotta do more. Gotta do more.
No, you did something good during the day. Celebrate it. Don't fall to the Yetzer Hara, who just wants to say all day, “You're no good, you're no good.”
I once heard from Rav Bloch in Monsey that this is talking about the Dor Hamabul/Generation of the Flood. They got to where they were because they didn't appreciate the good things that they did. That's what caused the whole problem.
Have a wonderful day.