Welcome to the SIMHA Emotional Wellness moment. We started off this week’s series this talking about Pizur HaNefesh,being scattered brained. We quoted from the Elder of Kelm who says that being scattered is caused by our need for pleasure and the desire for everything to go right. When things don't go right and our pleasures are not fulfilled, we get scatterbrained. Rav Yerucham Levovitz has a long piece on the pasuk in Bereshit, Vayar Menucha Ki Tov/When he saw how good was security, where he explains that people make a mistake in thinking that the way to get peace of mind/Menuchat HaNefesh, is by having Menuchat HaGuf/having your body relaxed and calm.
But he says that's a mistake. It's the polar opposite. The more you work on having your body calm, the less your soul is going to be calm. If we need to have so many different things to be exactly at peace, then we’re never going to be at peace, because we can't always have things perfectly worked out.
If you are used to having the perfect climate, the perfect atmosphere, the perfect everything, and only then are you okay, you can’t sustain that. He gives the example of a soldier: the way we train the soldier is not by having everything just right. The soldier sleeps outside, he doesn't eat anything, he has to endure crazy temperatures… because we want him to be have Menuchat HaNefesh. We want his soul, his mind and his psyche to be at peace. So he has to train himself in not having all those outside needs. We train doctors in the emergency room, with 24 hour shifts, without sleep, without eating. That way, they’re able to function in the most challenging of situations and make decisions without needing to have everything just right.
And based on this, he quotes a beautiful thought from the Elder of Kelm that I don't think I ever shared publicly, about Yetziat Mitzrayim. He says the Jewish people rushed out of Mitzrayim with their matzah on their backs. They didn't have a chance for the bread to rise, they didn't make provisions, and they were rushed out. But he points out that this night night was L called Leil Shimurim- God guarded this night. God had been waiting for the exact moment. He knew exactly when it would happen. It wasn't a surprise. So why couldn’t Hashem have said, “Listen boys, you're leaving tomorrow morning at 5:04 AM, so take a good nap and give yourselves time to bake.” Why not go out in a nice, calm approach?
And he answers that it’s because in order to receive the Torah, which needs Menuchat Henefesh, God said, “I have to train you. I have to train you to keep your cool in a frazzled situation. Because if you need to know exactly when you're leaving, and you can't deal with uncertainty or an unknown situation and that's going to break you, then there's no way you're ready to receive the Torah.”
Personally, one of the greatest causes of a lack of Menuchat HaNefesh for me is getting to the airport, on time, ready to go, only to find out that my flight has been delayed. For how long? No clue. Maybe an hour or 2, 3, 4. Who's able to sit there calmly and learn or do whatever you are doing? Who can keep calm and say, “When leave, I leave. What's the difference?”
That was the situation with Jewish people. God put them in a situation of unknowns, of seeming confusion, to see if they could survive that. And if they could survive that, they'd be ready to receive the Torah.
Rav Yerucham says, the world is far from this understanding. They think that you can acquire Menuchat HaNefesh through Menuchat HaGuf, but he this to trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it. Yes, for the moment, the fire will go down, but then it will come back up with an even stronger rage. And that's exactly what happens when we try to give ourselves peace of mind through calming our bodies. If we get ourselves used to recessed heat in the bathroom so our toes don't get cold, what happens when we go to a hotel that doesn't have that? Then what? Our little toesies are going be cold and we're going to be unhappy.
So the more of the extras we have, and the more pampered we make ourselves, ultimately the more frazzled we become.
Have a wonderful day.