Dr Katzenstein continues,
“We continue our discussion about emotions and why they're so important. As we mentioned, emotions primarily motivate behavior- more so than rational or logical thought. Think about why we have to remind ourselves multiple times a day to fear God, love God and to feel it in our hearts.
Why not just focus on what we need to do and how to do it? Because without our emotions, the rational process of doing what is good for us, avoiding what isn't, and the concept of reward and punishment would not be sufficient to motivate us.
You want proof? Consider that we do Averot/sins every day-every, single one of us. That's a completely irrational behavior, considering the loss of reward and potential punishment we're going to receive. Sure, you'll tell me it's the Yetzer Hara, but what does the Yetzer Hara target? The logical part of us, or the emotional part of us?
I think we can all say he targets our emotions. And because he's so smart, he convinces us that we're actually making logical and rational decisions.
For further proof of how emotions are so powerful, consider the highest amount of auto accidents per year in United States history. Some might correctly guess it was 2002.
Why? Because after 9/11, there was a fear of flying. The fact is that driving in a car is significantly more risky than flying. The odds of someone perishing in an airplane-related accident is about 1 in 11 million. The odds of dying, God forbid, in a car accident, are about 1 in 110.
If you would tell this to people, the rational and logical part of their brain should say, “Okay, it's safer to fly than it is to drive.” And if I were thinking about driving right now from New York to Chicago, knowing that it's a lot safer to fly, I would decide to fly.
If I was just rational and logical, clearly, I would make that choice. However, in 2002, a majority of people did not make that choice, and the reason is that their emotions, their fear of what happened on 9/11 caused them to say, “I'm gonna drive.” And even if you told them, “Look , these are your odds, make a logical and rational decision,” they would still answer, “Yeah, but I'm scared.”
That's how powerful our emotions can be.