Welcome to a new series called Emotional Wellness Daily, in which we will give a little thought daily. on emotional wellness, rooted in the words of our rabbis.
In Rav Wolbe’s sefer Alei Shor vol 2, page 592, he quotes the pasuk in Mishleh 19,21:
רַבּ֣וֹת מַחֲשָׁב֣וֹת בְּלֶב־אִ֑ישׁ וַעֲצַ֥ת ה׳ הִ֣יא תָקֽוּם
Many plans are in man's heart, but the counsel of Hashem will prevail.
What exactly are these many thoughts in our heads? We have all kinds of thoughts going on, and somewhere in all of those thoughts, there exists the Etzat Hashem/the thought of God.
Our job, he says, is to find that thought of God within us.
So what exactly are the, those many thoughts and how do we find the thought of God?
We have many different forces within ourselves- various character traits and emotions We have arrogance, we have anxiety, we have anger, we have jealousy.
All of these different traits and emotions create thoughts and drive thoughts in our heads. We can view our brain as having a projector and a screen. The screen is our self awareness and the projector projects the voices in our heads.
What are you hearing in your head right now.? As you read, maybe you're saying, “What's going on? Why are we learning about emotional wellness? Since when do rabbis talk about emotional wellness?!” That's a thought that just came up in your head, and you're listening to that thought. Where did that thought come from? Maybe from a little bit of anxiety ( and you’re thinking, “I'm not sure what's going on over here”) or maybe it's coming from a little bit of arrogance (and your thinking:
Who does this rabbi think he is talking to me about emotional wellness? I want to hear Divreh Torah from him.)
Imagine you're standing outside of a room listening to a voice, coming out of a speaker. You can't see who’s talking. In actuality, there are many people that get up to speak, but it sounds like they all have the same voice. That's what's going on inside of our heads. There are many voices talking, but we don't necessarily know who they are.
I'll explain, and these are all deep concepts rooted in the words of our rabbis.
Before Adam HaRishon sinned,
evil was outside of him. It was a tree of good and bad, and before he ate the forbidden fruit, he had freedom of choice, but his freedom of choice was between true and false. Evil was not inside of him. Evil was something outside of him. What does that mean? When we look at a sizzling steak, our mouths begin to water, our desires start to move, and we want to eat that steak.
Before he sinned, if Adam HaRishon was to see a sizzling steak, to him it would be like looking at the nutrition information listed of on the outside side of package. If he was looking at chocolate chip cookies, he wouldn’t even see a picture of the chocolate chip cookie on the front of the box (which they place there to get our desire moving). It would just a plain white box that said how many calories, how many carbs, how many proteins, how much sugar... And when you look at it that way, it's just a question of true and false. If there is too much sugar in there, then it’s not good for me. It’s purely an analytical way of looking at the box and making a decision.
It was only after he ate from the forbidden fruit that evil entered inside of him. And after this, sin, which is evil, came inside of us.
The following analogy can help illustrate this concept: When a person is in bed and his alarm goes off at,let's say at 5:30, if he has 6:00 class to go to, part of him says, “I just need more sleep.” But then another voice says, “You have to get out of bed.” Now, what's interesting, says Rav Gedalia Schorr in his sefer Or Gedalia on Bereshit, is that the voice that says you want sleep says, “I want to sleep,” in the first person,
whereas the voice that says, “You should get out bed,” is talking in second person. You should get out of bed.
That means that we're identifying with our laziness.
For another example, when you're on a diet and you pass by the sweet table, you say, “I really want that chocolate.” But there's another voice inside you that says, “You really shouldn't have it. You're on a diet.”
You don't hear the voices saying, “You should eat that chocolate.”
“I don't want to.”
What’s happening is that we are identifying ourselves with the evil. There are many voices inside of us, and we have to figure out who the real us is . It’s confusing. But that's the job of רַבּ֣וֹת מַחֲשָׁב֣וֹת בְּלֶב־אִ֑ישׁ וַעֲצַ֥ת יְ֝הֹוָ֗ה הִ֣יא תָקֽוּם
Many plans are in man's heart, but the counsel of Hashem will prevail.
This is an important concept that we're going to develop, because one of the first stages of true emotional wellness is knowing who you are and who you're not.
You are the good things inside of you. You're not the bad things.
Have a wonderful day.