Welcome to SIMHA Emotional Wellness Daily. We're continuing with the Torah approach to dealing with anxiety.
The Gemara in Masechet Yevamot says,
Don't sweat tomorrow's problem. You don't know what today will give birth to, or what solutions might come about. Tomorrow, the problem may not be there. You're paining yourself in a world that isn't even yours.
The Steipler, in his collection of letters (vol 1, letter 120), writes the following, to a man who was suffering with a certain medical challenge:
“Worrying is not going to help you, because the past is gone already and no one knows what's coming in the future. “
The Steipler based this on a line that shows up in many Sifrei Musar. The Pele Yoetz actually talks about it in his sefer, on the topic of worry:
העבר אין העתיד עדין דאגה מנין
HaAvar Ayin,
HaAtid Adayin,
Da’agah Minayin
The past is no longer, the future is not here yet, what are you worried about?
Right now, you’re in the present. As for the past, whatever happened, happened, so there's nothing to worry about. What's going to be in the future? You have no idea.
He adds something very fundamental:
“All those visions that you create for yourself of the future, are all imaginary. It's all illusionary, it's all fantasy.”
Just like when we go to the movies (kosher movies that is) and watch a car go off the cliff and we cringe or jump-we know it's fake. It's an illusion. It's a movie. It's not real.
So too, we have a movie screen in our brains, and we're constantly projecting the future. Sometimes we project catastrophic scenes that aren’t real at all. That’s what worry is. And he says, “As time goes on, it becomes clear that it (the worry) never happened, and all you're left with is the anxiety and depression.” He adds, “Life's challenges don't break people. It's the worry and anxiety that break the person.” And that comes from these illusionary projections of what is not here.
In the end, most things that we worry about go away.
And Hashem’s Yeshua is there in a moment. There is an added ending to the rhyme we quoted above from the Pele Yoetz:
HaAvar Ayin,
HaAtid Adayin,
Da’agah Minayin
The past is not here, the future is not here yet, what are you worried about?
Yeshuat Hashem K’heref Ayin
The salvation of God is like the blink of an eye.
The Steipler invokes that as well.
And he says that this concept of not worrying about tomorrow is not some kind of law, like the Para Aduma/red cow. He says it's a Metziut/ a reality, that there's no area for worry, because, usually, things work out. And Hashem controls the world. Therefore, as we said, worry is just a waste of energy.
It's not productive. Of course, that’s easier said than done. But we have to start with our minds. We have to tell ourselves these things, and realize that worry does not benefit anything.
Worry is just paying attention to the fake news in your mind. It's like listening to the weather report when they talk about the blizzard that's coming, and then there is no blizzard. It was supposed to snow 10 inches and it's only two inches, and they make a whole big deal. Everyone's out buying salt and shovels, and there’s nothing there. That's fake weather news. That's not such a problem. But there's a lot of other fake news out there.
Our brain is our own source of fake news.
So we have to start exposing the fake news in our brains- we have to tell ourselves it's fake news. How many times do you get worried and scared over something that never happened? Your child wouldn’t answer the phone? They weren't kidnapped. Your husband didn’t answer the phone? He wasn't in a car accident, but you told yourself that fake news again and again. How many times are you going to keep listening to that fake-news radio station that your brain creates for you? That's what, “Don't worry tomorrow's worry,” means. It's not here.
And again, in the words of the Steipler,
“It's only an illusionary fantasy that has no reality.”
If we drill that into our heads, it'll help us.
Have a wonderful day.