Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily.
Today we’ll quote from a letter from Rav Shlomo Wolbe’s sefer Alei Shor (volume one, page 36), that he wrote to a yeshiva boy who was struggling with basically what we’ll call jealousy. He says, It's human nature that people see their friends' qualities and not their own. And if that continues to happen for an extended period of time, that causes a person to break, and he suddenly realizes that he doesn't have anything- no talent, no success, no hope- only inabilities.
Eventually, that brings a person to become depressed. So what can a person do? The solution is a cognition: to know that God gives every person a gift of the exact abilities that he needs to reach the level that he needs to get to in this world. And he quotes a beautiful story. There was a great rabbi, one of the prime students of Rav Yisrael Salantar, named Rav Naftali Amsterdam. Rav Naftali once told his Rabbi, “If I had the brain of the Shagat Aryeh (who was known as a very great mind in learning), the heart of Rabbi Alexander Ziskind (author of the sefer Yesod V’Shoresh HaAvodah, an extremely holy Jew), and the great character traits of you, my teacher, Rav Yisrael Salantar, then I could serve Hashem properly.”
And Rav Yisrael Salantar answered, “Naftali, with your brain and your heart and your middot, you can be a true servant of God.”
And this, Rav Wolbe says, is really the meaning of the beracha She’Asah Li Kol Sorki. We get up every morning, and we make a beracha that, “God gave me everything that I need.” Simply, this beracha refers to our shoes. Just like we make the beracha of Malbish Arumim for our clothing, we say She’Asah Li Kol Sorki for our shoes. But why is this term She’Asah Li Kol Sorki connected to shoes?
I once heard a beautiful thought, from my granddaughter. When she was in second grade, her teacher told all the children to take off their shoes and put them in a pile in the middle of the room. Then she told every girl to randomly pick and put on any other pair of shoes, beside their own. So the girls put on their friend’s shoes, and they walked around for a while, but the shoes didn’t fit. And even though their friend's shoes might have looked very nice, they didn't fit them and they were actually uncomfortable. The teacher explained that this is why we connect the beracha of SheAsah Li Kol Sorki/God made me everything I need, to shoes. Just like someone else's shoes may look appealing, but when you try them on, they don't fit, so too, the talents and abilities that every person has are specifically tailored for them, and if you try them on, they won't fit.
It’s important for people to realize the qualities they have. But if a person doesn't do that, and starts looking at the world through other people's eyes, and measures people with other people's rulers, he gets what we call tunnel vision.
He quotes a pasuk in Mishleh, “Rekev Atzamot Kin’a/ Jealousy causes the bones to rot.”
Simply, this means that a person's physical bones rot from jealousy, but Rav Wolbe explains Atzamot not as bones, but as a person's Atzmiyut/ their essence, and so it can mean, Jealousy causes one's essence to rot. That means the qualities that he does have will atrophy, because he's constantly focusing on another person's qualities.
As we said, this is an important cognition. All the negative feelings start because we're looking at the world in the wrong way. We're looking at the world through the lens of what the other person has.
I see their fast mind, I see their depth of understanding, and so on and so forth. I only see the other person's qualities and none of my qualities.
I only see my lackings. I don't see their lackings. That's what we call a cognitive distortion. And we have to use our minds to believe in this fundamental beracha of She’Asah Li Kol Sorchi, and it will cause this devastating paralysis of jealousy to subside.