Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Uh, as the world around us races forward in search of tomorrow's breakthroughs, join us as we discover the insights that have shaped Jewish life for centuries.
Together, we'll study with Judaism's greatest minds, exploring timeless wisdom that continues to guide and inspire.
You're listening to Inside the Jewish Mind JLI podcasts.
Whether our minds are replaying that one situation that didn't go as planned, or stressing over what our future may hold, anxiety can take a serious toll on our well being, making it very difficult to function and simply enjoy life.
How can we overcome these anxieties and stop our intrusive thoughts from controlling us?
In this 2019 talk, scholar Rabbi Mordechai Dinnerman shares six powerful Jewish ideas to help us manage anxiety.
You'll they are.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Six Jewish ideas.
The question is, why six?
Why do we need six ideas? Isn't one idea enough?
And I think the answer to this question is so fundamental to many areas in life, but definitely to the emotional aspect of our lives. And that is, it is usually the case that if we're dogmatic and if we say this is the way, the answer to this problem for everyone is this, then we probably missed the point and we're probably not going to be effective. Human beings are very complex creatures. And from the counsel and advice that we see from the Torah and from the fact that across Jewish literature we see different approaches to dealing with a problem, really conveys the idea that we all are unique, that we all, even if we have something that may be called, uh, clinically or not, the same thing, anxiety or worry, but for 300 people, it may be 300 different experiences. And therefore, the solution for trying to transcend that may have to be 300 different ways. Um, and that's why I think it's very interesting that within Jewish literature we find these different aspects. And that's why the question for you to think about is, of these ideas, which one resonates most with me? Which one can I hold onto? Which one can I use and try to apply into our lives? And I do suspect that of these six, some of these will be more attractive to you and others less so. And that's normal. So that, in and of itself is a profound lesson. And, um, it's very gratifying to find that wisdom within Torah itself. A good place to start, uh, when speaking about a Jewish idea, is the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible itself. And the Hebrew Bible in the book of Proverbs Mishlei, uh, which is known as a book of wisdom, has a short, uh, phrase regarding worries and it's short and to the point, uh, and it's pretty straightforward. But as we're going to see, the Talmud unpacks it and turns it into a little more of a complex idea.
A worry in a person's heart.
Cast it away.
The Hebrew words are daga velev ish, Yashchena.
Yashchena. YashcheNA literally means cast it away. Daga b' lev ish. If there is a worry in the heart of man, yashchena, uh, cast it away. Well, what does it mean to cast the worrisome thought away? Well, simply, we would think that it means getting control of what's going on in your mind and engage in some form of mind control and push away that negative thought.
And there is truth to that. And indeed, that is one view in the Talmud. But the Talmud offers two rabbinic interpretations to this verse. One famous Talmudic rabbi is known as Rabbi Ammi, and one is known as Rabbi Asi. And oftentimes in the Talmud, they're put together as having a Talmudic discussion amongst themselves. Very often it's about legal matters. In this particular case, they're talking about psychological matters. We think of the Talmud often as a book of the law. Sometimes those who are more well versed know that there's a lot of lore in terms of stories in Jewish history that are embedded there as well. Less often do we think of the Talmud as a resource for psychological insight. But what you have is Rabbi Yani and Rav Asi, both addressing this particular verse.
And this turns to wordplay because the word yashchena, uh, if, remember in the Torah scroll or in the way the Book of Proverbs would appear in a scroll without any of the, uh, vowels, uh, you would just see the word, the letters Yud shin hess.
And you can read it another way. Those same letters and that other ways would be yasi chena. Yasi chena would be speak about it.
So Rabbi Ammi says, uh, I'm going with cast it away from the mind. Rabbi Asi says, no, it means speak about it with others.
Okay, so we have one biblical verse, and we have two interpretations for that verse. One says, when a person finds themselves worrying about something, try to move on from it. Try to cast it away. And we'll talk more about that in a minute because that is one of the six approaches. It's the simple meaning of the verse. And Rabbi Ammi is the one who says that is the correct meaning of the verse. And we'll come back to that in A few minutes. But I want to start with Rabbi Assi's interpretation. Rabbi Assi says that this verse is telling us that we should speak it over with other people. If you find yourself concerned with a certain area and it's taking over your thought process in any given moment, try to reach out to someone else and speak to that other person about your concern.
Uh, now the question is, what. What are we gaining by having that conversation? So here as well, there are multiple layers. Rashi, who is the preeminent interpreter of the Talmud, says, I'll tell you what this means.
You're speaking about it with others because perhaps they will provide for you some advice. And I'm sure all of us in the room have experienced this where we're very concerned about something, and. And our mind starts brooding over that particular issue.
And there is a way out, and we just don't see the way out. And the second, someone's there to provide it for us as well. Did you try this? Would you like to try this? Or I wonder if you've considered thinking about another approach. And sometimes the light switch goes on and we are able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And so this is focused around advice.
But this is not the only interpretation of the benefit of speaking with another. In the world of Hasidus, there is a tradition that the third Rebbe of Chabad said, as when you read the Talmud and when it says, speak about it with others, let's think about that word. Other.
Other. Yes.
That person will be other because it's a different body. It's not your body.
But the person is not other in the sense of the soul, because that is a person who will empathize with you.
And what you see here is that there is a different understanding as to the value in consulting, in speaking and conversing with another person. Here it's about the empathy here. Here it's about, I am not carrying this burden alone. I have someone else to carry it along with me. It's not about advice. It's not that that person is going to say something like, oh, I didn't think about that.
I can solve the problem.
Why? As we know, very often worries and stress and anxiety doesn't come from the fact that I need a solution. I need a solution, I need a solution. And the second I have a solution, it goes away.
Very often it's something that is not seeking a solution. Sometimes it doesn't have a solution. And if it doesn't have a solution, counsel is not going to help. But what can help, what will help is that if instead of one heart having to bear the burden of that particular worry, if it's someone else who has the power of empathy and you can unite and it's one soul, perhaps it's two bodies, but it's one soul.
Suddenly, by you talking to that other person and connecting with that other person in some way, at least, it mitigates the particular pain and the stress from that moment of anxiety.
And so we see here is that within the world of speaking to others, there are two ways of thinking about it, either in terms of counsel or in terms of oneness and empathy. Now, what's concerning today in 2019, about this particular topic is the number of people in surveys in this country, at least, who report not having meaningful relationships with other people. The number of people who feel lonely is on the rise. Unfortunately, I'm not trying to be alarmist. I'm just saying a reality, and that's obviously concerning. There's this, um, cartoon of two people standing in the back of a funeral home, and all the seats are empty, and, uh, the coffin is lying there in the front, and the two people on the back are wondering with each other, and they're saying, well, he had more than 2,000 Facebook friends. When we move our friendships away from face to face, when we move away from having these types of meaningful connections and we move it to platforms such as these, though they have tremendous advantages, they can take the place of that true friendship.
And, uh, what the third Chabad Rebbe was saying was that we need that person for the empathy, for the closeness, for the connection. And that's something that we may not be able to generate on online platforms. And that's something that we need to think about today when we're looking at our own social lives and we're trying to cope with our own worries and our own anxieties, uh, in addition to having people around us for advice, it's who else can share that burden with us, which, in and of itself makes us feel all that much better.
So that sums up what I would consider the first approach.
Uh, the first approach to the issue of worry is friends.
So much for the first. In terms of the second, let's return to that verse and remember that the simple meaning of the verse was cast it away from the mind. And indeed, one of the Talmudic interpreters said, that is the correct interpretation of the verse, cast it away from the mind. This speaks to the idea of gaining control over one's mind and not allowing the thought to remain but moving away from it. So I want to elaborate on this particular issue because there's a very interesting letter from the same Chabad Rebbe, the third Rebbe of Chabad. His name was Rabbi Menachem En el Schneerson. Uh, but not to be confused with the seventh Rebbe. He was his great, great, great grandfather.
And he wrote a letter to someone by the name of Rebshlomo. Now Rabshlomo wrote a letter to him.
We don't know exactly what Reb Shlomo wrote to him, but we have the letter that the Rebbe gave back, that wrote back to him. And in the letter, it starts off by saying, regarding your issue in where you're having fears.
And then he adds, albeit over nothing, she says, I have not refrained from writing to you right now. What's on my heart in this area.
There's two important pieces of wisdom in this opening line. Number one, fears over not is a reality, not every sense of fear. As much as we see ourselves as rational creatures, very often we find ourselves being afraid of something where, come on, your house is not falling down. Uh, you don't have to really be concerned about that. But we aren't always rational. And that is something that does cross our minds and does get in the way of life, at least sometimes. And so the question is, does that make it easier to solve? No. I am going to write an entire letter to you with solutions as we're going to see now.
But we'll be up front. It's over. Not. This is not the fear that you wrote to me about. It's not going to happen. But I know you're going through that experience. So let's just treat it as if it's a legitimate fear and let's move on. Let's discuss how to deal with that. So you see here the recognition that whether it's something that is a rational fear or an irrational fear, it requires the same effort, it requires the same empathy. Which leads me to my second point that he said, I am going to respond with a matter that is in my heart. Okay? That's the empathy I see here. I see the empathy that we spoke about earlier. That other. It's only other in body. It's not other in soul. I am with you. And by inserting his heart into the sentence, he's saying, I feel your pain. I'm going to try to help you out of this. And by stressing that, uh, I think he's hinting at that idea of, of the connectivity that's so important in this particular area. He goes on in this letter to say, um, you may think that as a believing Jew, it will suffice for you to pray and to say, please, God, remove this worry from my heart.
And indeed in our prayers we actually have such a, a passage we say in our prayer, uh, in the Amidah, we speak of God as removing anxiety from the human being. And there are other such, uh, prayers as well. There is a verse in Psalms where it says, cause the heart of your servant to be joyous. In other words, it sounds like this is something that God does.
Well, he says it's not so.
Because if we look at all areas of Judaism, there is a balance between the role of the human being and the role of God. And just like when it comes to earning a living, we say, yes, the blessing comes from God, but at the same time the human being has to create the space where God's blessing can actually materialize. And if you don't create that space, if you don't go and get the job that has the ability to earn that type of livelihood, then that blessing is not able to materialize here in this world. And likewise with our health. Sure, we turn to God asking for health and healing, but at the same time we recognize that we need to do our part in allowing that blessing to materialize in this world by pursuing a healthy lifestyle. So it is with the emotional life. With the emotional life, we do. And we absolutely should turn to God and say, God, can you please play a role here? Can you please remove. Why do I have to suffer from this moment of anxiety right now? Please remove it from my heart. There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing that. That is encouraged. But at the same time, that is never going to be enough because the human being has to play a role in this area. Because the human being does have choice in this area, which leads to a very important point, and that is that we should not look at our. A particular emotional state or emotional feeling that we're having at a certain moment as being set in stone. Well, that's the way I feel right now. So that's what it is. People are born with a, uh, certain condition. So I was born with 10 fingers. That's just what it is. It's not changing.
Should one think that way about their emotion? Right now I am experiencing a moment of worry and anxiety. Well then that is me right now. There is nothing I can do about it. And what he says in this letter is, no, that is not the correct approach.
Think about all these other areas in life, about our health and about our well being and all of these we are. A human being is an agent of choice. And, and where you do have the ability to do something doesn't mean you have absolute control over everything. But there is a domain where you do exert control if you attempt, if you try. And here it is so as well. This is again, we're middle of reviewing this letter that the third, uh, Chabad Rebbe penned to a man named Reb Shlomo. And he then goes on to explain that when it comes to action, speech or thoughts, human beings exert control in these three areas. I can choose whether to act in a certain way. I can choose whether to speak or not to speak. And I also can choose, though this is the hardest of all, I also can choose what I'm going to be thinking about. And I do have the ability to stop thinking about topic A and to start thinking about top about topic B.
There is this uh, story of uh, a man who comes to his Rebbe, the Magid of Mizrich. The Magid of Mizrich is one of the early Hasidic masters, uh, who passed away in the 1770s. And someone comes to him and says, I've been trying to control my thoughts. It's not working.
I really have no ability, uh, to exert influence over my mind. Please help me out. He said, well, why don't you go to Reb Wolf in Zhatamer, Reb Wolf in Zatamer. He's going to be able to help you. Well, so he takes the uh, horse and the buggy and he travels over to Zhatamer and he seeks the house of Reb Wolf. And he approaches the home and he starts banging on the door, knocking on the door. And he senses that someone's inside. But for whatever reason there's no answer at the front door. So he goes to the back and he bangs there. No, uh, answer. He goes to some of the windows, he starts knocking. There's no answer. So, but he doesn't know what to do. So he just curls up at the front door and he goes to sleep. A few hours later, Red Wolf, uh, opens the door and says, uh, you can come in. So he said, well, you were here the whole time you were up. Why didn't you let me in?
And Ralph told him, I can't control who's knocking on my door, but I can control whether I let that person in or not.
And that was the message that Rep. Wolff was teaching him was that no, it's not Set in stone, you do have an area of control. You can control your mind, and you have an obligation to control your mind. But the key is, do you look at yourself as being the boss, or do you look at yourself as being a subject? Do you just look at yourself as someone being tossed around by a wave that does not have agency in this particular area? Or do you look at yourself as the person who exerts ownership over the domain of our thought, speech and action? Now, there's much more to the human personality that we don't have control over, but that we do.
Now, what happens is within the Hasidic model, once thought is removed, emotion is going to dissipate. Why? Well, the answer is because there is three faculties, uh, that are key to the mind within the chabad system. The first is called chachmah. Chachma is that initial flash of wisdom you have over any given topic. All of us experience all the time where we feel we're onto something. We're trying to solve a problem. We have an idea and we still can't explain what it is. We need some time for it to develop. That initial flash of wisdom is called chachma.
Then we have Bina. Binah is when we take that flash of wisdom and we develop it into a full fledged understanding. Now we can explain it, now we get it ourselves. We have the full picture.
But what's interesting about the mind, both chachma and Binah, is that there's distance between me and the idea.
That's the role of the mind, the role of seichel, the role of the intellect is there's a certain coolness about it where this is just about ideas, right? That's, this is for a reason why we think of, um, certain types of academics as being very detached from day to day life. Because that is the very nature of the intellect. And then comes das. DAS is very interesting. It's not about gaining new information.
It's not about expanding the picture. It's about seeing yourself in the picture. DAS is when you say, oh, this is important to me, this is relevant to me. This has implications for my life. It's that inward focus. It's when the camera turns toward yourself as opposed to the world around you. And emotions are triggered only when das is activated. When our DAS is activated, that's when all of emotions, whether they're positive, whether they're negative, whether it's love or hate or fear or anger or whatever it is, is, can only ensue once we have our DAs. But without getting into the Complicated explanations. The fact is that DAS is nothing without thinking.
If it's only DAS within the human soul has no effect on person's day to day life. How does a human being activate their DAs is through thinking.
Stop thinking about that particular topic. You have now zapped that particular emotion from its DAs. And now emotions cannot follow anymore. This is why when a person removes their thought from a particular topic, the emotion will soon dissipate.
Says the, uh, Samach Tzedek, the third Chabad rabbi, writing to Reb Shlomo. This is what you need to do. You need to remove your thought from the particular subject that is causing you anxiety. And you'll see that negative emotion is going to dissipate over time.
Now, there is a professor and psychologist named David Wegner. He did a very interesting study and I think we can all relate to this. He asked people to sit in a room like this, and he said, I'm going to ask you to verbalize for five minutes your stream of consciousness. Anything that comes to mind. But you got to say everything. All right? So I would never agree to, uh, such a study, uh, I would be afraid. But, uh, there were some heroic, uh, fellows who did so. And, and then before they started, he said, there is one thing, one rule. You are not allowed to think about a white beer at all. You're not allowed to think about a white beer.
Obviously, if you do, given that it's part of your stream of consciousness, you have to mention it. Okay? And then they recorded all of these and they wanted to see how often people were thinking about a white beer. Well, it turned out everyone was thinking about the white beer. It appeared all the time. Uh, and, uh, on average it was one per minute. Okay. And he went on to explain that what's happening here is very interesting. When you give your mind a job and you say, I need you to make sure that we're not thinking about a white beer. Well, your mind does a very good job and it checks in every few seconds. Am I thinking about the white beer? Am I thinking about the white beer? And then it turns out we end up thinking about the white beer. Therefore, just saying in this letter, uh, don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it. Well, I'm, um, now going to be checking in. Am I thinking about it? Am I thinking about it? And then I'm just bringing it back onto myself. And so therefore, this is not really a solution. And therefore in the letter he goes on to say that if you really want to apply yashchena, the idea of cast it away. If you really want to apply cast it away. It's all about what are you doing, not about what you're not doing. You have to vest your thoughts into something else. And he says, you know, I'm a rabbi, I'm a theologian, so obviously Torah and mitzvahs. But you know something, it doesn't have to be that. It could be anything. Anything that will be conducive for you getting that is obviously permitted according to the Torah. But anything that will get your mind off that particular area, that's what you need to do. I encourage you, however, to increase in more engagements of Torah study, etc. So, so that this way the mind is removed from that particular subject. So that is going to be the conclusion of our second idea. So the first one was friends, and the second one was casting it away. And then the third one, I'd like to say as follows.
The fifth Rabbi of Chabad was once presiding over a, uh, Fabrengen. He's known as the Rebbe Rashab Rabbi Sholem Dov Bear. And there were a lot of people there very intrigued to hear what he had to say.
Well, at the time they were singing a nigon. Well, so the people weren't that interested in the niggin. Like, okay, we could sing the niggin without the Rebbe. We're here with the Rebbe. Let's utilize the time, right? So they started with the Nigin, started pushing it forward and moving it a little quicker. And the Rebbe sensed what was happening and he stopped them and he said, and this is a quote, I want to teach you something very important.
Wherever I am, I must be there fully.
Later I'll be elsewhere, and when there, I'll be fully there.
But now when I'm doing something else, I have to be fully invested in it. Resisting the urge to run elsewhere.
This is a challenge that I know from myself is one of the factors that, that can cause a sense of anxiety for almost no reason. Not that I'm worried about some big thing, but the very sense of when I'm here right now, I'm thinking about what I'm going to be doing in a half hour. And when I reach there, then I'm thinking about what's going to be with dinner. And then with dinner I'm thinking about the cab Hal. And it's each, in each moment I'm m thinking about the next moment. That in and of itself generates a certain unease of about our day to day now take that accumulative effect of a whole day and think about what that does for our emotional lives. And what the Rebbe was saying over here was not so much from a psychological perspective. This was actually a philosophical argument. The argument was, every moment, God is creating the world anew. That means every moment has value, every moment has purpose. If we're doing something, let's respect what we're doing and let's respect this particular moment and engage in it fully.
So let me tell you another story. In 1970, just about 50 years ago, there were many Hasidim who came from Israel to visit the Rebbe for the anniversary of his taking on the mantle of leading chabad movement, the 10th of Shvat of 1970. And the day for their departure was 10 days later on the 20th of Shevat. Now, uh, the Rebbe made a fabrengen on the day that these guests were going to fly to Israel.
And it turns out that the fabrengen dragged on, and it got close to the time that they had to go to the airport. Now, I know just the day that people are traveling.
We know for some people it's a very difficult time. Sometimes they're very anxious. You know, we need to get there early. And, uh, don't talk to me right now. I can't get anything done.
Well, so that was happening there at the Fabrenian. The Rebbe noticed, he's talking, people are looking at their watch, at the clock. And just from their focus, he was able to tell that they weren't with him anymore. So he said, I want to tell you a story.
He said, I'm the son in law of the sixth, uh, Chabad Rabbi, Rab Yosef, Yosef Schneerson. And he was in Russia, the leader of Soviet Jewry under the Soviets when they were persecuting Jews and most of the rabbis had left, and he was one of the few who remained behind. And he saw it as his obligation to arrange schools and synagogues and mikvahs all over the Soviet Union. And he set up a vast underground network. It's not here the time to discuss that, though. It's a fascinating story in and of itself. And as the leader of such a tremendous, complex movement that was illegal because of the Soviet persecution, uh, you can just think about what his life must have been during those times. Well, one time he was scheduled to take a train from Leningrad to Moscow. And the Rebbe says, I went to see him, um, about 15 minutes or so before the train ride. And, you know, you'd expect 15 minutes before a train ride, Leningrad to Moscow, Soviet times. The leader of an illegal movement which a vast complex network. You'd think, well, the person would be all over the place. Well, it turns out that his father in law was sitting at his desk and focusing on writing something as if no travel was happening. And so his son in law, the Rebbe says, I turned to him and I said, really? That's the word, really? And his father in law understood what he was saying. And he said, one of the things I was raised with is that we need to have success with time. What does it mean to have success with time? Time is something objective. One second is one second.
But for most human beings, one second is compromise, because they're not fully vested in that particular second. So they don't really have that second. But the way I was raised was every second we should be fully vested in that particular second. And that's called having success in time. And that's what I'm doing right now. And so the Rebbe was saying how he saw this by his father in law. And he's relaying this to the Hasidim who are present, uh, at this fabren and are having travel anxiety. And he's telling them, come on, we need to up our game. This is something we can do. And this is something that, though it has tremendous psychological benefits, it's important as a religious imperative as well. As I said earlier, valuing what God has given us every moment for what it is. And I think this is the third concept, the in the moment concept, that could be so helpful for that type of worry and anxiety that, uh, plagues so many, where they're always focused on the next thing and not present in the moment, which itself causes, uh, so much problems. Moving on to number four is the concept of trust. It's actually very interesting that in this letter that the Tzamak Sadak, the third Chabad Rebbe, referenced earlier to rev Shlomo. You would think that the answer to a Jew, a believing Jew who's saying, I'm worried about something, would say, well, trust in God.
Well, for whatever reason, in this letter, the Rebbe did not write that.
Uh, and this I'm circling back to how I opened in that there are different approaches and we need to really think of which one is going to work for an individual person. And I may add here at a particular time. And so while I don't personally understand what the dynamics of that situation were, the concept of trust in God was not the focus of that particular letter. But it is a focus in. In Judaism, there is a work by Rabbi Bahia Ibn Pequuda from the Middle Ages called the Duties of the Heart. And in this work, he speaks about the need for a Jew to trust in God and how trusting in God brings a certain tranquility to, uh, the heart in the face of worldly worries. Now, I want to back up over here and give a little context on our currency in the United States of America. It says, in God we trust.
It does not say, in God we believe. Is there a difference between the two? So, absolutely there is a difference between the two. Numerous differences. Here's one important one. I can believe that you exist. I can believe that you perhaps even have control over things. But I may not trust that you are going to do what's good for me.
That is a feeling that people sometimes have. And indeed, one of the big teachings of monotheism was negating that. So let me explain that for a moment. There's a scholar by the name of Henry Frankfurt who studied many ancient civilizations. And, uh, he writes that in his analysis of pagan writings that have come to us today through the. Whether it's hieroglyphs or other different, uh, writings from the near east, one can sense overtones. These are the words he use. One can sense overtones of anxiety which seem to express the haunting fear that the unaccountable and turbulent powers may at any time bring disaster to human society.
Well, the pagans were big believers. They believed, in a sense, more than us. They believed not in one God, but they believe in many gods. Okay, what are the implications when we say I believe in many gods? Well, it means a few things.
Number one, it means there is no one entity that is in control over what's going on in this world.
So you may have a good relationship with the God of the wind, so he may not strike you. But what about the sun God? And what about the moon God? And what about the God of the floods or the God of the war? Every single facet of nature was distinct, separate, under its own domain, its own God.
And the implication of that is nothing is in control.
Not only that, one who knows these pagan writings knows that these gods, or as we know from the Greek mythology, Zeus and others, these gods were amoral. They would engage in fighting and in war and in rape and in those things. So can someone who worshiped the gods tell themselves, I'm, um, in good hands, I'll be okay?
Well, the answer was no. There were way too many hands, and these entities did not have human beings. Their intentions, mind. In fact, creation in these myths was always an accident.
Some gods were warring with each other. And as a result of that, the world just came about, which is different in a theological sense, but not too different from people today who believe that the world is an accident in a certain sense. We, uh, sometimes circle back to ancient beliefs, just, they take on a new texture.
Um, but Judaism came along and said, bereshit bara Elokim eit ha shamayim v'ta aretz. There is one God. Bara is the singular. And this one God mindfully brought the world into existence. And as we can learn from the stories in Genesis, it is very clear that God is looking out for mankind, cares about mankind, which is why he punishes wrongdoing, because actions matter and he's interested in human affairs and he has the best interest of human beings in mind. Now, does that mean that at every moment I am going to understand why something that's happening to me is good? The answer is no. Obviously, sometimes we only figure out later, a day later, a week later, a month later, or a year later. Sometimes we may never understand in our lives we, why something was just.
But one who has a trusting relationship with God knows that it is because of the limits of their own understanding that they indeed don't comprehend how this particular act is just. But at the same time they know. And they can say, I am in your good hands and I am being taken care of.
Now, does this actually work?
You know, you think of theological concepts, you're like, well, okay, this is just another way of promoting Judaism. But, uh, does this actually work? Well, let me tell you the following. There's a psychologist by the name of David Rosemarin. David Rosemarin did the following study. He took 125 Jews. Not all were Orthodox, many of them were not, but all of them said that they believe in God.
Um, all of these 125 individuals had elevated one but subclinical levels of anxiety.
And he divided them into three groups, or as they would call it, three conditions. The first condition was called the wait list condition. These were people who are not going to do anything. It's going to be the control group. Number two did progressive muscle relaxation over a period of six weeks. Every day they had a certain muscle relax relaxation technique that they needed to engage in every single day for six weeks.
And finally he created a third group that was called the Spiritually Integrated Treatment.
This group, what he did, and he sent me the cd. So I watched it and I saw what it was he takes passages about trusting God from duties of the heart and other such books and he translates it and you play the cd, you read aloud the text. You're not just reading it, you're reading it aloud. The Jewish tradition of studying Torah is not just to read with the mind, but to actually verbalize what we're reading. So he has the participants doing that and then he engages them in a few questions for reflection and exercises about the particular passage. And each day it's a different passage. There may be in the six week cycle, some overlap between them. This is the program that he designed. So you had a whole bunch of people doing nothing. You had a whole bunch of people doing the muscle relaxation. You had a whole bunch of people doing this.
And what happened was that he measured all three groups before they began and then after the six to eight week follow up. And he found, and sorry, I don't have the particular numbers, but this is a study that's available in a peer reviewed journal, in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders. And he found that there were significant differences where there was a much better outcome for those who were part of the spiritually integrated treatment, which involved meditation and reflection on the concept of trust in God. He found that those people experience much better outcomes than those who are doing the common muscle relaxation exercises or those who were doing nothing. It's inspiring to see a Jew saying, here is a teaching in Judaism, let's see how this works and if this works and then how can we use this to actually help people? Orthodox affiliation made absolutely no difference in this particular area. And that was also very interesting. And this is the fourth direction and the fourth solution perhaps for mitigating our worries in our lives.
Moving on to number five, I want you to think about the.
There are two.
Person A is walking.
Person B is walking.
Person A encounters a rock in his path. Person B encounters a rock in her path.
Person A is extremely frustrated. Uh, uh, uh, rocks in my path. This is in the way. This is terrible. I hate it.
Person B, the rocks in her path.
She's excited, she's happy, she's gratified.
This is what I signed up for. What's the difference between person A and person B? Oh, well, person A is walking to the bakery.
When you're walking to the bakery, you're trying to get a Danish a rock. That's in the way. That's very frustrating. Person B, well, she's mountain climbing.
That's what she signed up for. And if you signed up for something, that same thing, which for someone else is A hindrance for you. It's an opportunity.
Why am I saying this?
Because the fifth approach within Judaism for dealing with the problem of anxiety, which so often come from these things that pop up in our lives that we weren't expecting and that we don't want and which we rather they didn't happen.
Well, if we live a inward focused life, a me focused life, they are going to be extremely vexing and that anxiety is going to be debilitating.
If, however, we live a purpose oriented life where we realize that everything that comes our way is part of a mission from Hashem, then we are able to deal with this with equanimity.
In 1979, the women's Chabad group had a meeting in Detroit, Michigan.
After the meeting, there was a conference.
After a few days, they headed to the airport to get back on the plane to return. Many m of them to New York. Well, a blizzard occurred.
This was February, February 19th. You can check it up.
A blizzard occurs. The flights are delayed, they're distressed. Some of these are mothers, they have children back in New York.
And, um, they started, they wrote letters to the Rebbe, or they phoned in to the Rebbe saying, you got what's going to be here? This is terrible. Uh, we had plans to leave today and what are we going to do? And what's going on in New York? And the Rebbe sensed their anxiety and the Rebbe responded as follows. You say that you're stuck in Detroit because of the blizzard. Well, again, I'm paraphrasing.
Uh, stuck in Detroit. No, that's not what's happening. We've spoken many times about the teaching of the BAAL Shem Tov, that there is a lesson in life, in everything.
And you yourselves lecture about this all the time. And this is important. Just because someone's lecturing on a subject, it doesn't mean that they automatically are able to apply that all the time. Okay, fine. Um, I'll think about that. Um.
Yet, when something whose message is so clear happened to you, you're thinking about various explanations, but you're missing the point. The snowstorm is providing you with the opportunity to promote Torah and Mitzvah observance even more than was done at the convention, and to do so in an unusually robust way, similar to the unusual nature of this snowstorm, strong nature of the snowstorm in the city, at the airport, local newspapers, etc.
So the Rebbe is turning it around when you're very focused on what you need at a given moment.
So then that is very Stressful.
But when we look at what we're given as something with a purpose. We say, okay, well, that's what I'm needed for at this moment. Now, I don't think that a person can turn that switch on. Like when I'm stuck in traffic, okay, I'm getting anxious. Let me turn on the purpose switch. It doesn't work that way. If a person lives, wakes up in the morning with a sense of purpose. If the person wakes up in the morning and says, huh, thank you, God, for restoring the soul that you gave me for a particular purpose. If we live our mornings in that way, then we have the chance that when we face these trying moments. That we can tap into that purpose and try to identify it and find it. Turning something that may otherwise be a worry into an actual opportunity. They say the story of Rab Mendel Futerfas Remendel Foterfas was, uh. Uh, we spoke about the Soviet jury. He was someone who was involved in promoting Torah in the Soviet Union. And the KGB eventually caught up with him. And they put him in prison for a number of years following World War II, up until, I believe he got out in 1963 or 1964. So it was a while that he was there. Those who knew him saw him as a very cheerful person. He once, uh, related the following. That when he was in the Gulag, he always had a positive attitude. At least he tried. And his comrades noticed that, and they were mostly depressed. He was put together with the political prisoners. The Chabad prisoners were put together with the political prisoners. Both kind of very dangerous to the state. And, uh, these political prisoners, the intellectuals, many of them were very depressed in the Gulag. And they asked him, how can you be so cheerful? And he said, I understand why you're not cheerful. You had aspirations. This is getting in the way of those particular aspirations.
I'm someone who looks at my life as I'm here to serve. And if what God wants me to do now is to serve God here, then that's the same thing I was doing on the other side. Whereas for you it's quite different. And that's why I am able to maintain this sense of optimism and cheer. Even as we're going through this difficult time. There is another famous story of the two brothers, Rebzusha and Reb Elimelech Weir. They're traveling. There's a misunderstanding. They end up being thrown into jail. Well, one of them says, well, time to Dave Mincha. And the other one says, well, you can't. Dave Mincha, in this jail cell, there's a pit, uh, there's a bucket of human waste. And the halacha is that it is forbidden to pray under these circumstances. And so Rabbi Elimelech breaks down into tears. Mincha, for him, was a tremendous opportunity. He loved it. It was a time to connect. So spiritual, so meaningful, and. And yet now he can't do it. And he burst out in tears.
And his brother, Reb Zusha, said, I want to tell you something. Why are you crying? Because you can't dave Mincha. Why can't you dave Mincha? Because Jewish law says you can't. In other words, the very same God who yesterday wanted you to daven Mincha is now asking of you not to daven Mincha, which means you can serve God through davening Mincha. Today, you can serve God by not davening Miha. So what's the difference?
And with that, he realized that his brother was right. So he got up, he started dancing with him, and all the people in the cell started dancing. So then the guards come in and say, why is everyone dancing over here? And they didn't know. These Russian peasants didn't really know what was going on, but they pointed to the bucket of human waste and said, it all started because of that. And so they took the bucket of human waste out, and then. And then they were able to da the Mincha. But now, in a sense, you could say that the story would have been better if he wouldn't have ended up davening Mincha, because that would allow us to capture the truth of the idea. That is it. I want a Dave Mincha. This is what I set out to do. I put it in my schedule this morning. This is what I set out to do then. Yes, that is going to be very stressful. If, however, it's about what is needed for me at this particular moment, and if you can orient your life around that, then right now it's not Mincha. So it won't be Mincha. And I can be, uh, happy about that, too. So that's the fifth approach. And finally, I want to circle back to the letter that the Tzamach Tzedek wrote to this Reb Shlomo. And I told you that he gave what we were using as path number two. And I'll summarize all six in a second when we're done. Uh, path number two was. Cast it away from your mind. Think about other things, and that should be a way of exerting control over your mind. Well, he added another thing. He Said, I want you to do something. I want you to do the following. I want you to continuously project yourself in a joyful manner, even if you are not feeling. Feeling joyful at that particular time. And he said, this is an authentic Jewish idea. Turn back to Maimonides. Maimonides, in his magnum opus, the Mishnah Torah, speaks about how people can change their character. And, uh, Maimonides. It's very interesting to study this. Maimonides has a strong behavioral approach for people who act. Their tendency is in a certain way when. Well, the way to change that is by doing again and again the opposite way. So you're prone to anger. Well, if you work through those moments where. Or, uh, otherwise you would get angry, control yourself in that moment not to get angry. And do that again and again and again and slowly, you will see that your character changed. So it's the action that stimulates the way we feel. It's our behavior.
Naturally, we often think that our actions are dictated by our feelings. Well, it turns out that while there is a lot of truth to that, there is also a second truth that our actions shape our emotions. It's counterintuitive, but it's true. And so therefore he said, I want you to, um. Um. Guard your thoughts, speech and action. Not only about removing m.
The anxiety from your mind. I want you to go much further than that. I want you to. To, um. To. To act in a joyful manner. And you'll see that it's going to change the way you actually behave. And there has been a number of studies in modern psychology about this particular thing. Of how people engage in something that's, uh, considered a happy activity, whether it's dancing or others and other things. And how that actually shapes their particular feelings. And he said the story. He said the following story. In this letter, he writes to Rab Shlomo. He says, you know, my grandfather was the first Chabad Rebbe. I think we mentioned all of them by now. And he was Rabbi Schneer Zaman of Liadi. I want to tell you something. The night that he passed away, a few hours before he passed away, it was a Saturday night. And I was davening Maariv. And I was davening Maariv in a melancholy tune. He didn't say why, but it was a melancholy tune.
And he said, my grandfather waited till I finished. He then called me over and said, uh, try to stick away from those types of somber tunes. Um, m. Something a little more with joy. And the reason. Well, because that itself, even if you're not feeling that way. Don't worship that. Don't worship your feelings in a given moment. Seek to change it. And one way you can change it is by behaving in a different way. So therefore, in summary, what we did is we looked at path number one was friends.
Path number two was controlling the mind and putting the thoughts elsewhere. Path number three was living in the moment. Path number four was trust in God. Not just believe, but trust. Path number five was living a purpose oriented life. And path number six was faking it until you make it. Thank you very much for your time. Have a wonderful Shabbos.
[00:50:58] Speaker A: That's all for today. Thanks for listening to Inside the Jewish Mind, a JLI podcast.
Be sure to join us every week for fresh insights and timeless Jewish ideas.
As always, stay curious, keep learning, and we'll see you next time.
