Emunah (faith) and Bitachon (reliance on Hashem) are very important for living a healthy life—not just a spiritually healthy life, but an emotionally healthy life. Wolbe, in his essay based on a speech he gave to psychiatrists and psychologists, says on page 64 that the fundamental feeling of someone who lives in the Torah world is Bitachon. He quotes a pasuk (verse) in Yeshayahu 12:2: Hinei El yeshuati, behold God is the one of my salvation; evtach, I rely on Him; ve'lo efchad (and I will not fear). He says that this is the spirit that runs throughout all the writings of our Nevi'im (prophets). Another pasuk...
He says that a Jewish home is built on that world of endearment. He calls it Olam HaYedidut (world of endearment), a world where God is our friend and we are comfortable. He says the outside world, which is in the ongoing war of survival of the fittest, is definitely a breeding ground for fear. He says it is not a coincidence that fear and anxiety are a common denominator running through all of psychology. He quotes Martin Heidegger, who says that fear—the feeling of fear—is the most fundamental feeling a person has in the world.
Now, what is the reason for this anxiety, which is more prevalent in our generation than ever before? Possibly, he says, it is a lack of economic stability. Possibly, it is the fear of nuclear warfare. But he adds that there is no doubt—or, I'll add, global warming. He says there is no doubt that the fact that the world is a world where most people no longer believe in God is one of the biggest causes of the spread of anxiety. Someone who is raised in what he calls the Olam HaYedidut, the world of a dear connection with God, knows and feels that his existential, existential—I’m actually quoting from him in Hebrew; it’s a hard word—is not to be afraid.
Of course, he says, this general feeling of Emunah and Bitachon, he stresses, is only talking about a person with just the basic existential fears of being in the world. Someone who had childhood trauma, or someone who has biological problems causing anxiety, of course needs therapy and medicine. We are talking about a basically healthy person who is still going to suffer from anxiety because of the general feeling that the world is a world without a creator, a scary, cold, survival-of-the-fittest world. That general, basic background of religiosity, we can call it, is going to give a person the feeling of being in a safe world. That safe-world feeling is brought about through Emunah and Bitachon. Therefore, the more we have Emunah and Bitachon, the more we are going to have the basic feeling that the world is a safer world.
Rav Wolbe also writes about this in his letters, in volume one, letter 170. He says that the basic approach of the world that is not the Torah world is a world of fear, whether it is atom bombs or wars. He says this is not a fear of any immediate danger. There are two kinds of fear. There is an immediate danger that is here right now; that's one story. And there is just the general feeling that this world is a dangerous world. That, he says, is the area where Emunah and Bitachon are also necessary. We are not talking about when we have a threat—a health threat or a financial threat—but about the general feeling. There is a term for it today, though it is not just a term from today: general anxiety disorder, GAD. That is where—again, we are not talking about a heavy-disorder level—the general anxiety comes in: You get up in the morning thinking something is going to go wrong. What's going to happen? What's going to be? That kind of feeling can be ameliorated by the feeling of simply being raised in a Jewish home and having a Jewish outlook. Hinei El yeshuati, evtach ve'lo efchad (Behold, God is the one of my salvation; I rely on Him, and I will not fear).