Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily, a project of SIMHA the Sephardic Initiative for Mental Health Awareness.
This past week we've been talking about Torah psychology, which Rav Wolbe says is Mussar.
There’s a beautiful Chida about this. The Chida, Rav Chaim Yosef David Azulai, was a great Sephardic Rabbi. In his commentary on Mishleh, he says something very interesting. The opening of Mishleh says, “The purpose of Mishleh is to know Chochma/wisdom and Mussar.”
The Chida explains that Chochma means Torah. You need to know Torah and Mussar. He says, “The main mussar/ ethics and character refinement, has to be built on Torah. Why?
This is a very important point.
“Torah has a magical effect to save you from your Yetzer Hara, and then Mussar will help a lot. That's what it means, “Fear of Hashem is the
beginning of Knowledge.” The fear of Hashem refers Torah. That's the beginning of the knowledge of Mussar, and then it's going to help you.
There are many, many secular self-help books on the market. You can read the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and read about proactivity and about the fact that you have freedom of choice. As we've said many times, Stephan Covey, the author of Seven Habits, one of the Top Five Self-help books of all time, based his thoughts on Viktor Frankl, a secular Jew who definitely had knowledge of his roots. (At the end of his life, he put on tefilin),
But that is an intellectual knowledge. The Mesilat Yesharim says the difference between Torah and secular knowledge is that secular knowledge is just amassing facts and information. But it says ‘Torah Ohr/Torah is a light.’ When you learn Torah, a light enters your soul like a light enters the darkness and enlightens things and lightens your life up.
And that's why the midrash in Eicha says, “God says to the Jewish people, “I would wish they forgot about Me, and they learned My Torah.”
The Torah has a light inside of it that lightens up the dark and causes a person to repent and change himself and change his ways. That can only happen with Torah.
He says, people think that they can use just intellectual mussar and that is going to help. But he says that's a disgrace of the belief that Torah has an added power. They're foolish because they think that mussar without Torah will do the job.
We need to have Torah as well, to energize the mussar.
The story goes that one of the great teachers of morals and ethics was once found in a very compromising situation. His student asked him, “How does this fit with all that you've taught us?”
Supposedly, his answer was, “Has the mathematics professor become a triangle? I'm just teaching you knowledge and information about how to act. But that doesn't necessarily mean that that's what I am.”
That's the difference between knowledge and Torah. Torah impacts a person. Torah changes a person, and therefore, If you learn to smile because the mishna says “Greet everybody with the nice countenance,” those Torah words are going to have an impact on you and change you.
And that's why it's very, very beneficial, when one wants to make themselves a better person, to take out a good ol’ Mussar book. And if you don't understand Hebrew, use English.
The Chida writes that when you learn from a rabbi of old, the Yirat Shamayim/ fear of God of that rabbi penetrates you and affects you and will change you and make you better.
That's the importance of using mussar-Torah sources and Torah knowledge for your self-help.
Have a wonderful day.