Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily, a project of SIMHA, the Sephardic Initiative for Mental Health Awareness.
We have often mentioned the concept of meaning and purpose as an integral part of one's emotional wellbeing. Meaning and purpose means that you live your life with meaning. It means you're not just a cow that eats and drinks and sleeps; there's meaning to your life. There's purpose to your life. You're here for a reason.
People have to create their own meaning and purpose. It's not something that comes from the outside. Quite often, people get caught up in the externals and don't measure meaning and purpose from within. I'd like to give a beautiful example based on something that was said in a eulogy for Rav Matityahu Salomon zsl, by his personal secretary and aide for over 25 years, Rabbi Mordechai Levy.
He said that when Rav Salomon was in a wheelchair at the end of his life, and wasn't able to run around like he used to, going to all corners of the world to give people hizuk, somebody asked him how he was able to reconcile the fact that he used to be a world power and now he was sitting, wheelchair-bound? He answered, “I am doing the will of God. When I was healthy and vibrant, the will of God was that I should run around. And now the will of Hashem is that I sit in my wheelchair and I appreciate the gifts of God.”
Rav Matityahu, the great man that he was, was able to find meaning and purpose in things that were not necessarily as public and exciting as his earlier parts of life.
This is an important point- we need to always be appreciative of what our meaning and purpose is, even though it might not be something that glitters in neon lights.
An example of this, as we’ve quoted from Rav Ades many times, and as I recently saw in Rabbi Chaim Friedlander’s sefer, is about Shifra and Puah, better known as Yocheved and Miriam, mother and sister of Moshe Rabbenu. They were given the nicknames of Shifra and Puah, because Shifra beautified the babies, and Puah cooed to the babies.
These were the greatest ladies of the generation. Why give them those nicknames? Why not call them Sadika and Hasida/the Righteous one and the Pious one?
The answer is because they were able to find meaning and purpose in the small acts. What were they doing? They were taking care of babies. How do you take care of babies? With small acts. That's where greatness lies. I heard this at a speech that Rabbi Ades gave to ladies, who sometimes feel that they're missing out by being at home and taking care of their children, managing the house. There's nothing second-class about that. There's tremendous meaning and purpose in being a mother and taking care of children. That's why Shifra and Puah got their titles.
Rabbi Friedlander says that people make the mistake of trying to measure greatness with great acts. He says it's the exact opposite. Greatness is measured by the small acts that nobody sees. That's what real greatness is- finding meaning and purpose in the situation that life has brought to us.
There is a famous story that I heard from Rabbi Ades, where he quoted Rav Haskel Abramsky, who said that when he was in Siberia chopping wood in frigid weather, with no Gemara or even a siddur, he got up one morning and said, Modeh Ani, and thought to himself, “Why am I saying Modeh Ani? What am I getting up for?”
And then he said, “I'm saying Modeh Ani that I can say Modeh Ani. What's my purpose in life right now? To be able to say Modeh Ani. That's what I can do.”
For a person to understand and appreciate that his meaning and purpose is exactly the situation that Hashem put him in takes a lot of Emuna and a lot of Bitachon.
That's why we always say that spirituality is very helpful for emotional wellness.
This is the secret to success- to be able to appreciate and find meaning and purpose in all situations. Have a wonderful day.