Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily. We're continuing the topic we started yesterday, which was that in Halacha, we recognize the concept that sometimes a person is, so to say, forced or under duress and doesn't really have full freedom of choice. Yesterday we spoke about the gambler, and now we go on to another responsa brought by Rabbi Lopiansky, in a speech that he gave at the Torah U’Mesorah convention. Imagine a man who was fighting with another fellow for whatever reason.
The rule is, if someone is out to kill you, you have a right to self-defense. So, this man, whom we’ll call Abe, is walking down the street and he meets Joe, who he's in a fight with. Joe pushes him down on the floor and is about to kick him, so Abe jumps up, bangs Joe down to the floor, puts him in a headlock and has him under control. Shomrim is on their way in order to take this man away and stop the fight.
But while Abe has Joe in a headlock, he can't control himself and he gives him an extra bang for good luck and breaks his arm.
The question was, does he have to pay the damages for breaking his arm? It was an unnecessary punch. Joe was already under control. Abe had him pinned down already. Does he have to pay for that added punch, which started off as a fight in self-defense?
The Yam shel Shlomo says that since he was in a state of anger after this man threw him on the floor, and his Yetzer Hara had overtaken him, he considers him like an Oness, like he was under duress, and therefore he's not held responsible for the additional damage. Although of course, he had freedom of choice, the man is already in the middle of a fight, after the other man attacked him, and he's responding in self-defense, so it's like the man didn't have a choice.
His third proof was not from a halachic concept, but more from a musar or Emunah story.
There is a famous Gemara that whoever has bread in his basket and says, “What am I going to eat tomorrow?” is considered a person that's lacking in his faith. Asks the Ben Ish Chai, Why does it mention someone that has food in his basket and he asks about tomorrow? What about someone that has no bread in his basket and asks about today? Why isn't that a man who lacks Emunah? He answers that a man that doesn't have food for today is hungry; he's anxious, and therefore the distress and duress that he's under make him Karov L’Oness. He's almost not held responsible, so we can't hold this man guilty and blame him for his lack of Emunah. It's simply above his abilities, when he’s having hunger pangs and his wife is complaining and his children are crying, to able to have the proper Emunah and Bitachon.
However, if you have food for today and you're calm and you're fed, and you've slept and you burped and everything else, like we do for a baby, now you’re ready to rely on Hashem. Whats tomorrow? You're supposed to be like a baby that just finished his nursing by his mother.
I had a meal for today. Am I going to worry about where's tomorrow's milk is coming from? Hashem supplies tomorrow's milk. But if you didn't have any food today, that's asking too much.
So, from these three sources, the Rivash, the Yam shel Shlomo and the Ben Ish Chai, Rabbi Lopiansky made his point, which is that the goal of therapy is to give the person back his Bechira.
The duress of the anxiety, depression, or whatever the mental illness, does not allow the person to think properly. It does not allow the person to react properly, and therefore, it's not, “Go to therapy and it's over.”
Therapy is just there to level the playing field, to get you back to the point that now you're able to start working in your religion. Now we can start with the Emunah and Bitachon. Now we can start work on anger prevention. Now we can start working on the addiction, but we have to first get the Bechira back.
We have to get the free choice back. That is the job of mental health professionals. And just in case you're somebody that has not reached out for help because you think it's not religiously appropriate to seek therapy, you've now been taught otherwise. So now we’ll give you the opportunity to call SIMHA.
The Emotional Wellness Daily is a project of SIMHA, which is the Sephardic Initiative for Mental Health Awareness.
You can call us at 9298415160 (all calls are confidential), to start the process of regaining your freedom of choice.
Have a wonderful day.