Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily, a project of SIMHA the Sephardic Initiative for Mental Health Awareness.
One of the reasons people have a kind of mental health distress, despair, or even depression sometimes is due to what we'll call a religious struggle.
For example, a person may be uncomfortable with what we’ll call his darker side. He realizes he has a Yetzer Hara. He may have desires and passions that are incongruent with the Torah way, and he starts to feel like there's something wrong with him.
It could be that a young man, who's supposed to be a kosher young man, has a desire for somebody of the opposite sex. That might be an uncomfortable feeling. What happens if a married man or woman has an interest in something that's improper? It's very uncomfortable to realize or admit that. Sometimes a person might even sin.
So how is one supposed to deal with that? Rav Wolbe writes that it’s important to realize that we are human. Of course, we don't want to sin, and we don't want to fail, but that is part of the human condition. We have a Yetzer Hara. We have an evil inclination. We were created to overcome the evil inclination. We were created to channel the evil inclination and use it properly, but we were not created without an evil inclination. Having an evil inclination, which creates these desires and passions, is normal. Maybe after a person works for years and years, things might change a bit, but it’s normal and it’s important to know that.
I heard a beautiful story from my son, Ephraim, who recently attended an alumni gathering of the Riverdale Yeshiva, in Lakewood where Rav Ausband spoke. He told a story about when he went to visit Rav Yechezkel Abramsky one day to talk to him in learning.
Rav Yehezkel Abramsky was a big sadik, a gaon. He spent years in Siberia, chopping wood, unable to learn. He once asked himself why he got up in the morning, but then realized that he says Modeh Ani for the fact that he could say Modeh Ani. He was extremely close to Hashem. Rabbi Ades once said that Rav Abramsky felt closer to Hashem than a fingernail is close to his nail. This is a man that, when he was sick, he was bothered that he was sick, because it says that when someone is connected to Hashem, no evil can befall him. He felt that his illness indicated a lack of connection to Hashem. All of this is to say that we are talking about a very, very big Sadik.
Rav Ausband told the boys about the time he visited, when Rav Abramsky was in his later years. Rav Abramsky told him, “Today is a Yom Tov /a holiday for me.”
Why?
He said, “I keep a bowl of candies on my table when I'm learning, and from time to time, I pop a candy in my mouth when I want something sweet. Today, I controlled myself. I didn't have a candy the whole time, so it’s a holiday for me.”
Rabbi Ausband told this to these boys to help them realize that we all have Yetzer Hara, even a great Sadik. Of course he wanted candies. That's normal. The greatness was that he had self-control and didn’t keep popping them into his mouth at all times. It’s important to know that these feelings that come up are human instincts, and there's really no right and wrong about an instinct. You have to control your instinct, but first inclination that comes up- that’s the human in us. We're not angels. Our job is to overcome those feelings. What becomes dangerous is when a person starts feeling shame and despair, just for the fact that he possesses a Yetzer Hara. We're not angels. We have the Yetzer Hara and we have to work on it.
Have a wonderful day.